Globalization and Human Development

Stories of humans striving for the good life are the focus of this new text from Roni Kay M. O’Dell and Devin K. Joshi, grounding students’ understanding of globalization and international development in real human and practical experience. Globalization and Human Development provides a new history and focus to the study of international development, with a concern for how people have been included, or continue to be left out, of the center of development thinking and practice. While many books on international relations ignore the contributions and influence of the Global South, this book incorporates their important contributions, while at the same time recognizing the continued inequalities, and disproportionate power and wealth of these marginalized nations.

This book is the first to examine the globalization of the human development and capability approach (HDCA) as an ideology of international development and an ideology of globalization. It explores the relationship between HDCA and globalization, and the extent to which the HDCA has been globalizing. Further, the authors’ analysis looks at:

How certain HDCA ideas are promoted, discussed, and cited more often than those stemming from neoliberalism and other development paradigms
How the HDCA was influenced by development thinking in the Global South during the Cold War, along with mobilizations to end all forms of colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism
Why the HDCA has re-oriented global development thinking and practice away from state-centric and profit-focused development models fixated on GDP growth to prioritize individual well-being and freedoms.