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Developing Hegemony: World Order and the Transnational Field of Development
At a time of multiple challenges to the liberal international order, development has become one of the most contentious areas of world politics. Dominant powers have reduced their assistance and overtly fused development with national and security interests, while rising powers like China have become major donors promoting new models and norms. Advancing an innovative Bourdieusian-inspired analysis of global politics as interaction between transnational fields, this book places development in the context of contemporary transformations in world order. It traces the history of development as a field of struggle from 1945 to the present, and argues that development is central to the emergence, maintenance, and transformation of world order. The authors show how the global field of development is characterized by a specific form of interest—an interest in disinterest—that performs the social alchemy of converting economic and military power into the symbolic power that is crucial for international hegemony. In the current geopolitical context, the ability of development to produce this symbolic power is dissolving and transforming, making the field one of the crucial sites where attempts to build an alternative global order are emerging and will be historically tested.
204 pages, Paperback
Published July 7, 2026
About the author
Rita Abrahamsen
10 books8 followersRita Abrahamsen is in the Department of International Relations, University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
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July 7, 2026
A theory-heavy and quite original reading of the rise and fall of the practice of international developmentalism, and specifically foreign aid. Abrahamsen and Williams develop a useful Bourdieusian analysis that argues that the role of foreign aid during its heyday had to do with the way the the selflessness of the enterprise -- the sense that it was done for “disinterested” reasons — gave it a high prestige value, and thus gave the countries doing it an “interest in disinterest.” This is much more precise formulation than the usual discussions of foreign aid as “soft power.” (Humanitarianism operated on much the same basis.)
What they call “field theory” rejects the standard IR way of looking at the motives behind international relations as dividing neatly between (real) “interests” and (namby-pamby) “values” and instead conceives as both as forming specific kinds of interests and forms of power. (This framework resonates interestingly with the work of Dezelay & Garth on the international arbitration, where international lawyers servings as private arbitrators are seen as “dealers in virtue,” where their disinterest is what gives them the social status and thus authority to do private adjudications that states are willing to respect and enforce.) They spend a lot of time explaining field theory in a way to make it legible to IR scholars (porting field theory into IR is arguably the main objective of the book), noting that fields are always already internally contested, and that fields can be divided between “strong” ones, where outside factors rarely are disruptive, and “weak” or “heteronomous” ones (where external norms and actors can relatively easily intrude). Development studies is a quintessentially “weak” sort of field.
Thus they come to this historical description: “Development gradually acquired a relatively stable set of actors and institutions, positions, relations, and forms of capital, as well as distinct shared understandings and rules of the game. The period from about 1949 to the early 1970s saw the birth and proliferation of the cast of actors that today inhabit the development stage, including the massive expansion of the UN system, the founding of numerous NGOs, and the consolidation of dedicated bilateral donor bureaucracies. New forms of expert knowledge were institutionalized in university programs, degrees, and accreditations, alongside new internal governance units, measurements, and best-practice guidelines. New forms of habitus began to appear, with the emergence of modern development workers who became ever more distinct from colonial administrators. In short, development was gradually enshrined as a permanent part of international politics, with an enduring set of bureaucracies, private organizations, professionals, and individuals dedicated to the task of knowing, administering, promoting, managing, and delivering it.” (33)
The ultimate theoretical payoff of the Bourdieusian approach is a much more precise account of the mechanics and hydraulics of “soft power.” One form of capital — for example, the symbolic capital obtained through disinterested practices operating in the field of development or humanitarianism — can serve a legitimating function in other fields. Capital in one domain doesn’t automatically translate to another, but there is a conversion algorithm (albeit with frictions and discount rates) as cultural capital can be converted into political capital or economic capital. Thus, A&W conclude, “the disinterested practices of the transnational field of development performed the social alchemy of converting economic and military power into symbolic power — power that helped transform domination into legitimation.” (120)
One can’t help but think that this framework only makes as much sense as it does now because of (and as an explanation for) the collapse over the last decade or so of both the foreign aid and humanitarian enterprises — which, as A&W say, heralds a return to purely “realist” understandings of national interest, where appeals to the virtue of disinterest are seen as poppycock. They point out that this in a sense represents a final victory of one side of the contested field of late 20th century development, between those in the industry who argued that development should be pursued for “disinterested” reasons (to improve the lives of those being developed) versus those who believed that developmental should be pursued above all because it served various instrumental goals of foreign aid providers, notably improving security. (The latter was the dominant view during the GWOT years, for example. As an aside, I was somewhat surprised that the book did not even mention the DOD’s Human Terrain System initiative, which was perhaps THE emblematic example of that form of security-motivated humanitarian developmentalism.)
As a secondary argument, A&W also point out that this regime of disinterest was not constructed purely by the global north but in fact was a negotiated settlement of that facilitated the end of Empire at the end of the Cold War. They do not see foreign aid as resulting so much from any sense of guilt (or need for reparations) by the old metropolitan powers, but rather as a competition for socio-political prestige between East and West. “Development” from this perspective (they follow Fred Cooper’s work here) was a way first to justify empire (the metropole alone knew how to promote development) and then a way to justify letting go of empire (especially once the subalterns started to make material demands on the metropolitan regime that exceeded the extractive value of the colonies to the metropole). Development from this perspective did not “diffuse” from the North but emerged as a negotiated process between North and South.
This then builds towards the rootbeer’s striking conclusions: “The LIO was not constructed on ‘liberal’ principles alone. Important elements of it were built and sustained by actors, such as Southern States and 1960s left-wing radicals, who rejected many aspects of liberalism and were often vociferously opposed to American hegemony. Two key points follow from this observation. First, the roots of the LIO are distinctly less liberal and than its post-gold War version. Earlier periods often prioritized national sovereignty over individual liberties, and economic liberalism was deeply contested and frequently opposed in the name pf the right to self-determination. Second, while the United States has been the undisputed leader and underwriter of the postwar international order, it did not single-handedly create that order or dictate its terms.” (117)
What they call “field theory” rejects the standard IR way of looking at the motives behind international relations as dividing neatly between (real) “interests” and (namby-pamby) “values” and instead conceives as both as forming specific kinds of interests and forms of power. (This framework resonates interestingly with the work of Dezelay & Garth on the international arbitration, where international lawyers servings as private arbitrators are seen as “dealers in virtue,” where their disinterest is what gives them the social status and thus authority to do private adjudications that states are willing to respect and enforce.) They spend a lot of time explaining field theory in a way to make it legible to IR scholars (porting field theory into IR is arguably the main objective of the book), noting that fields are always already internally contested, and that fields can be divided between “strong” ones, where outside factors rarely are disruptive, and “weak” or “heteronomous” ones (where external norms and actors can relatively easily intrude). Development studies is a quintessentially “weak” sort of field.
Thus they come to this historical description: “Development gradually acquired a relatively stable set of actors and institutions, positions, relations, and forms of capital, as well as distinct shared understandings and rules of the game. The period from about 1949 to the early 1970s saw the birth and proliferation of the cast of actors that today inhabit the development stage, including the massive expansion of the UN system, the founding of numerous NGOs, and the consolidation of dedicated bilateral donor bureaucracies. New forms of expert knowledge were institutionalized in university programs, degrees, and accreditations, alongside new internal governance units, measurements, and best-practice guidelines. New forms of habitus began to appear, with the emergence of modern development workers who became ever more distinct from colonial administrators. In short, development was gradually enshrined as a permanent part of international politics, with an enduring set of bureaucracies, private organizations, professionals, and individuals dedicated to the task of knowing, administering, promoting, managing, and delivering it.” (33)
The ultimate theoretical payoff of the Bourdieusian approach is a much more precise account of the mechanics and hydraulics of “soft power.” One form of capital — for example, the symbolic capital obtained through disinterested practices operating in the field of development or humanitarianism — can serve a legitimating function in other fields. Capital in one domain doesn’t automatically translate to another, but there is a conversion algorithm (albeit with frictions and discount rates) as cultural capital can be converted into political capital or economic capital. Thus, A&W conclude, “the disinterested practices of the transnational field of development performed the social alchemy of converting economic and military power into symbolic power — power that helped transform domination into legitimation.” (120)
One can’t help but think that this framework only makes as much sense as it does now because of (and as an explanation for) the collapse over the last decade or so of both the foreign aid and humanitarian enterprises — which, as A&W say, heralds a return to purely “realist” understandings of national interest, where appeals to the virtue of disinterest are seen as poppycock. They point out that this in a sense represents a final victory of one side of the contested field of late 20th century development, between those in the industry who argued that development should be pursued for “disinterested” reasons (to improve the lives of those being developed) versus those who believed that developmental should be pursued above all because it served various instrumental goals of foreign aid providers, notably improving security. (The latter was the dominant view during the GWOT years, for example. As an aside, I was somewhat surprised that the book did not even mention the DOD’s Human Terrain System initiative, which was perhaps THE emblematic example of that form of security-motivated humanitarian developmentalism.)
As a secondary argument, A&W also point out that this regime of disinterest was not constructed purely by the global north but in fact was a negotiated settlement of that facilitated the end of Empire at the end of the Cold War. They do not see foreign aid as resulting so much from any sense of guilt (or need for reparations) by the old metropolitan powers, but rather as a competition for socio-political prestige between East and West. “Development” from this perspective (they follow Fred Cooper’s work here) was a way first to justify empire (the metropole alone knew how to promote development) and then a way to justify letting go of empire (especially once the subalterns started to make material demands on the metropolitan regime that exceeded the extractive value of the colonies to the metropole). Development from this perspective did not “diffuse” from the North but emerged as a negotiated process between North and South.
This then builds towards the rootbeer’s striking conclusions: “The LIO was not constructed on ‘liberal’ principles alone. Important elements of it were built and sustained by actors, such as Southern States and 1960s left-wing radicals, who rejected many aspects of liberalism and were often vociferously opposed to American hegemony. Two key points follow from this observation. First, the roots of the LIO are distinctly less liberal and than its post-gold War version. Earlier periods often prioritized national sovereignty over individual liberties, and economic liberalism was deeply contested and frequently opposed in the name pf the right to self-determination. Second, while the United States has been the undisputed leader and underwriter of the postwar international order, it did not single-handedly create that order or dictate its terms.” (117)
July 28, 2026
This book’s chief innovation -- a deployment of Bourdieu’s Field Theory on terrains of Western development and humanitarian aid, amidst broader concepts like ‘hegemony’ and ‘Liberal International Order' -- was intriguing. Yet theory and accompanying abstractions often seemed over-supplied while illustrative means to tie them to specific cases seemed under-supplied. Lacking sufficient anchors, the book sometimes left me adrift.
However the authors say several striking things that illuminate the aid-and-development world in ways that I’ve seldom come across. About aid’s imputed altruism/selflessness, a fundamental claim the authors refer to as “interest in disinterest” they state some essential truths, such as:
{F]or donors, the interests furthered by aid as a disinterested practice can be pursued only as long as the interested nature of the exchange is denied and misrecognized by all parties in the exchange. ….
The diminished role of disinterest in development has destroyed, or at the very least weakened, the field’s dominant practices and strategies of power—and with them, its contribution to postwar hegemony. Once “pious hypocrisy” is regarded as simply hypocritical, the structure of the game itself comes into question and the “social phantasm” that development has conjured loses its power.
That is, the game is up. Development aid on 'selfless' terms was just an alibi. It has finally lost its magical faculties to signal donors’ virtue and recipients’ deference. And that’s not such a bad thing.
However the authors say several striking things that illuminate the aid-and-development world in ways that I’ve seldom come across. About aid’s imputed altruism/selflessness, a fundamental claim the authors refer to as “interest in disinterest” they state some essential truths, such as:
{F]or donors, the interests furthered by aid as a disinterested practice can be pursued only as long as the interested nature of the exchange is denied and misrecognized by all parties in the exchange. ….
The diminished role of disinterest in development has destroyed, or at the very least weakened, the field’s dominant practices and strategies of power—and with them, its contribution to postwar hegemony. Once “pious hypocrisy” is regarded as simply hypocritical, the structure of the game itself comes into question and the “social phantasm” that development has conjured loses its power.
That is, the game is up. Development aid on 'selfless' terms was just an alibi. It has finally lost its magical faculties to signal donors’ virtue and recipients’ deference. And that’s not such a bad thing.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews