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Demonstrates that, as it has been implemented by international development agencies, the women in development (WID) regime, with its origins in modernist colonial discourses & discourses of the market, disempowers Third World women. Drawing on relevant literature, colonial discourses are described as privileging the economy, culture, society, & politics of European peoples & homogenizing & essentializing Third World peoples, particularly women. Moreover, the discourses of the market are taken to stress individualism & voluntary choice in a manner that disempowers Third World nations in the international political economy. It is shown that these discourses have been at the root of the WID regime as it has been implemented by the World Bank. The Third World women's, or empowerment, perspective is advocated as an alternative basis for development, because it is rooted in the concrete experiences of women & grassroots strategies of organization that do not essentialize or disempower the people it is trying to assist. D. M. Smith

Uses an institutionalist perspective to trace development organizations in the postwar era, arguing that development aid & advice became products of a rapidly growing industry of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) linked with states & intergovernmental bodies. The rationalized discourse & international activity surrounding development are explored, identifying phases in the predominant approach, from the comprehensive planning/industrialization of the 1950s to sustainable development in the 1990s. It is contended that emphasis on human rights & science-based progress was prompted by INGOs, Cold War concerns, & UN agency directives, resulting in increased interaction between INGOs & other nongovernmental organizations (emergency relief organizations, private philanthropies, specialized sectoral organizations) over development issues. It is suggested that the process of professionalism served to activate this discourse in directions that were not synchronous with the Cold War concerns of some major funders. Changes in the world-cultural views on the state's role in less-developed countries are examined as part of the shifting development discourse/organization. 2 Tables. J. Lindroth

"Sustainable Development" published on by Oxford University Press.