The Development of Development Theory: Paths Taken and Not Taken

by Public and Community Events

Lecture/Talk/Seminar Academic Talk Economics Political Science

Thu, May 9, 2024

6 PM – 8 PM (GMT+3)

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Oriental Hall, AUC Tahrir Square

AUC Avenue, P.O. Box 74, New Cairo, 11835, Egypt

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Join Professor Ashwani Saith’s open lecture on the Development of Development Theory: Paths Taken and Not Taken, where he analyzes critical inflection points in the evolution of economic development theory that have shaped our present reality; from the ascendancy of neoclassical economics to the emergence of oppositional projects, mainly Keynesian critique, Marxian/socialist movements, and the post-colonial third world’s planned mixed-economy path, to the dominance of neoliberalism. The three major oppositional projects to neoclassical economics fell within one decade (c. 1980-1990). Theory and policy, economics and economies, were comprehensively restored to the default option of neoclassical economics and ideology and full-blown capitalism, pushed through by Western governments and the Bretton-Woods Institutions at an unprecedented scale and speed. The return to the default option, the global restoration of capitalism in its metamorphosed avatar, has witnessed multiple concurrent crises appearing with a metronomic frequency and increasingly as existential threats at societal, national or planetary scales.  Humankind faces global risks and existential uncertainties as never before. Have we arrived at the end of alternatives?

Speakers

Prof. Ashwani Saith's profile photo

Prof. Ashwani Saith

Ashwani Saith is Emeritus Professor at the International Institute of Social Studies, IISS(of Erasmus University Rotterdam, EUR) The Hague; Dean Emeritus, School of LiberalStudies, BML Munjal University (BMU), Gurugram; and Honorary Professor, Institute forHuman Development New Delhi. He obtained his PhD in Economics from Trinity College, Cambridge, UK, and has held research and teaching positions at various institutions including Delhi School of Economics, Cambridge, Oxford, and London School of Economics. He has also served as Professor of Rural Economics at IISS, The Hague, and held visiting professorships at Centre for Development Studies, Kerala; Rabindranath Tagore Centre for Human Development Studies, University of Calcutta; and Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata, among others.Saith's research and publications cover a wide range of topics including official poverty measurement methodologies, Millennium/Sustainable Development Goals, comparativeinstitutional analysis of China and India, policy frameworks for socio-economic security,structural change, macro-economic reforms, democracy, populism, plutarchy, agrarian change, rural development, ICTs, and migration. He has worked closely with organizations like SEWA, Ahmedabad, and MV Foundation, Hyderabad, on gender empowerment and the elimination of child labor. His recent research focuses on the history of economic thought, particularly on the evolution of Cambridge economics in the post-Keynesian era and Asian economic development with a comparative focus on China and India since 1950.


Ibrahim Awad's profile photo

Ibrahim Awad

Ibrahim Awad is currently a professor of practice of global affairs and director, of the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, at The American University in Cairo (AUC). He holds a BA degree in political science from Cairo University and a PhD degree in political science from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva, Switzerland. He has worked for the League of Arab States, the United Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO), holding positions of Secretary of the Commission, UN-ESCWA, director, of ILO Sub-regional Office for North Africa and director, the ILO International Migration Programme.


Awad currently is chair of the Labor Migration Working Group of the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD), hosted by the World Bank, chair of the Steering Committee of the Euro-Mediterranean Research Network on International Migration (EuroMedMig), member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Working Group on Reimagining Global Economic Governance, member of the Advisory Board of the Center on Forced Displacement, Boston University, member of the Advisory Board, Gulf Labour Markets, Migration and Population (GLMM) Programme, and Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He also serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals.

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