290092 PS Third World Development in Theory and Practice (2009W)

While lookong into current developments and debates the seminar will give some broader insight into basic concepts and ongoing discussions of develpoment theories and their linkages with prob-lems of devlopment policies in the countries of East and Southeast Asia. One focus of the seminar will be on questioning processes of historical changes within development theories and their impact on the conceptualizing of 'First' and 'Third World'. This leads to questions about the relationship between development and underdevelopment, the empirical evidence of concepts like poverty and the political appraisal to problems like food insecurity, increasing populations and ecological riscs. The seminar will therefore focus on the following aspects and subjects:
- development theories in historical perspective;
- development theory and the emergence of a Third World;
- underdevelopment and the conditions for development and modernization;
- poverty as an problem, its definition and policies of poverty reduction;
- aims of development policies and its fallacies - concepts of development in Asia;
- food insecurity and other hurdles for development and modernization.