Political Economy of Development Reading & Discussion Group

Are you working on questions of development through a Political Economy lens? Or simply interested in how power, institutions, and political forces shape economic development?

This monthly virtual reading group (every first Tuesday of the month) brings together young scholars working on Political Economy and development from across institutions and countries. It’s a space to read interesting work, exchange ideas, get feedback on your own research, and meet others working on related questions.

Each session will focus on a published Political Economy article on development. Over time, we hope the group can become a space for intellectual exchange, new connections, and potential collaboration.

You can find all our past readings and discussion notes as well as our definition of Political Economy here:

Upcoming sessions:

Tuesday October 6 (1-2pm UTC)

Naseemullah 2023 The Political Economy of National Development: A Research Agenda after Neoliberalism

Tuesday November 3 (1-2pm UTC)

Green 2025 The persistence of the moneylender: How informal debt deepens financialization in the Cambodian countryside

Tuesday December 1 (1-2pm UTC)

De Sardan 2025 Les études décoloniales face à la raison empirique : l’obsession épistémologique [Decolonial Studies Confronting Empirical Reason: The Epistemological Obsession – the translated text will be here soon]

Previous sessions:

September 7

To kick us off after the summer break we discussed why PE perspectives have become less prominent in development studies over time (and why it is important to bring them back) based on two short articles by Pritish Behuria who has been an active PE defender in discipline-wide “Future of Development Studies” debates.