This course introduces students to the politics of development, its contemporary debates, agencies and issue-areas. Development is a contested concept and practice that originates from the exercise of power, which is at the core of politics. Governments, International Organizations (IO), Non Governmental Organizations (NGO), and other social actors within Civil Society, have kept alive and thriving the debate on the best development practices that can better the lives of billions of individuals. It is a debate that takes place at multiple spatial and socio-political contexts, within and beyond the institutions of the state, yet its concrete outcomes are located within the boundaries of a specific state, or group of states. It is often assumed that states and societies share common development goals, this is far from being the case, as the key ideas, agencies and practices of development are shaped within domestic and international political systems where political and economic power are far from being distributed equally. Such unequal distribution of power is even greater between states with different levels, or models, of development. Today the economic and political gains from the dominant model of development are also far from being distributed equally. For these reasons it is fundamental that future practitioners recognize the limits and reaches of development models, as these are intricately related to how political power is conceptualized, exercised and distributed through a wide range of social contexts at domestic and international levels.