Bulletin n. 1/2012 | ||
June 2012 | ||
Jean-Philippe Thérien |
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The United Nations and Human Development: From Ideology to Global Policies | ||
in Global Policy , Volume 3, Issue 1 , 2012 , 1–12 | ||
Building on the work of the United Nations Intellectual History Project, this article argues that the ideology of human development has now become the driving normative force behind the global policies supported by the UN in the area of development. The first part focuses on the UN’s official discourse of the past two decades, and shows how it has been influenced by the concept of human development. The second section examines a set of global policies that illustrate how the UN has sought to put the principles of human development into practice. The article concludes that while human development ideology has represented for twenty years the most credible critique of mainstream development policies, its impact – like that of the UN in world affairs – remains nonetheless limited. | ||