Toward another Kind of Development Practice

Abstract

In this chapter I will defend the thesis that there are good reasons to support certain forms of the practice common among states of giving and receiving official development assistance (ODA). These reasons are grounded in the discourse-theoretic, internationalist account of global justice laid out in Chapter 5 and represent a novel moral rationale for certain forms of this international development practice. By moral rationales for international development practice I refer to moral justifications for the promotion of development activities across national borders. This promotion is conducted both by governmental and intergovernmental institutions such as, respectively, the British Department for International Development and the United Nations Development Programme. However, we will see that the forms of international development practice that disc ourse-theoretic Internationalism supports are recognizably different from the ones generally practiced today.