International Development

Entry requirements

A minimum upper second class honours degree (or equivalent). We welcome applications from academically strong individuals from a wide variety of fields and backgrounds. Candidates with a lower class degree but with degree-relevant work experience may be considered.

Months of entry

April, October

Course content

The MSc International Development is a new programme that builds on the established reputation of the Development Studies department. We welcome applications from those who have worked in development, however broadly defined, but also from students without relevant work experience who can demonstrate a strong interest in, and understanding of, issues of international development.

International Development is a dynamic field concerned not only with processes of change in the South, but of social, economic, political and cultural change in middle income countries and the Global North. The perspective of International Development analyses these processes as complementary and interdependent, and engages the major policy challenges as well as efforts to overcome poverty and insecurity. This programme provides a solid interdisciplinary social science formation in the political economy and sociology of development and develops students’ capacities for independent and critical analysis.

Highlights include:

• Imposing and inventing development
• National development, the state and planning
• Neoliberalism and good governance
• Gender and the development paradigm
• Alternative development
• Poverty, PRSPs and beyond
• Measuring development
• Inequality – national and international
• Neoclassical economics
• Marxism and structuralism
• New institutionalism and the Washington Consensus
• Industrialisation and growth
• Labour and labour markets
• Students can draw on SOAS's unique expertise to specialise further in particular regions or topics