Revisiting Development and International Relations

The overall objective of the dissertation is to analyze the interaction of national development in developing societies and the world political economy. It is an attempt to challenge the bidden selectivity of present day IR by going beyond the partial explanations of the bits and pieces of the whole international system and at the same time uncover claims of scientific "objectivity" and "natura) laws" in human nature. It is also challenging the mainstream discourse of IR, which denotes that development has been consigned to the realm oflow pol i tics, except when the international order, as it has been constructed, is threatened. The objective then is to "connect the dots" by providing an overall theoretical framework for the concepts and empirical material presented in five sections and chapters of this dissertation. This is done by examining competing views of what development and later on international relations means and how they may be intertwined. The idea is not necessarily to reach a unified approach but to investigate the different theories, concepts and methodologies involved in a search for a valid framework, which may give explanatory value to a merger of the two disciplines "Development studies" and "International Relations".