Abstract
Development Politics and the Cold War’ analyzes history of development assistance during the Cold War, focusing especially on superpower aid to India for the three decades after independence in 1947. It examines development as a rhetorical strategy that allowed groups in both donor and recipient nations to make claims upon others. It also calls for moving beyond “development talk” to examine the practice of development. And finally it shows how development assistance – undertaken in the name of building economic self-sufficiency, ultimately undercut the governability of recipient nations.