Relocating Participation within a Radical Politics of Development

In response to (and in sympathy with) many of the critical points that have been lodged against participatory approaches to development and governance within international development, this article seeks to relocate participation within a radical politics of development. We argue that participation needs to be theoretically and strategically informed by a radical notion of ‘citizenship’, and be located within the ‘critical modernist’ approach to development. Using empirical evidence drawn from a range of contemporary approaches to participation, the article shows that participatory approaches are most likely to succeed: (i) where they are pursued as part of a wider radical political project; (ii) where they are aimed specifically at securing citizenship rights and participation for marginal and subordinate groups; and (iii) when they seek to engage with development as an underlying process of social change rather than in the form of discrete technocratic interventions — although we do not use these findings to argue against using participatory methods where these conditions are not met. Finally, we consider the implications of this relocation for participation in both theoretical and strategic terms.     

Nepal's Traditional Settlement: Pattern and Architecture

The Kathmandu Valley is the cultural hearth of Nepal. The cultural landscape that developed here during the past 2(100 years remained unique in many respects from that found in neighboring Asian countries. The scale and arrangement of open space, the distribution of temples and houses and the location of cremation sites and rest houses all indicated an understanding of visual response to settlement design and the importance of social interaction. The continuous facade of lavishly carved wooden windows on backgrounds of red brick walls provided unique pictures of streets and remained as visual testimony of the high level of artistic skill and of the affluent economic conditions reached by the people of the Kathmandu Valley during the Malla Period. Much of this cultural development slowed down with the beginning of the present Shaha dynasty. Traditional buildings have been replaced by incongruous tall buildings with little emphasis on artistic taste. Some work on historical preservation has been underway. But, in view of the fast demographic changes and pseudo-modernization of the valley, how much of these architectural treasures can be preserved is still a matter of conjecture.     

Below the Belt? Territory and Development in China's International Rise

China's internationalization has been heralded by some as a new era of South–South cooperation. Yet such framings of development are pitched at an abstract space of the ‘global South’ which conceals more than it reveals. With some theory moving towards ontologies of ‘global development’, we need to capture both the connectedness and the local specificity of increasingly diffuse processes. This article sets out a more fine‐grained understanding of how political territories and processes are imagined and produced by and through China's internationalization, focusing on infrastructure as a ‘technology’ of territorialization. Much of the focus on China's internationalization has been on state‐to‐state relations, but this obscures the ‘omni‐channel politics’ that China practises. Using a critical literature review and illustrative case study, this article develops the idea of omni‐channel politics to posit a view of ‘twisted’ territories in which political processes and development outcomes are more complex and contingent.