Avoiding Responsibility

Post-colonial European politics have undergone profound changes. Constructing an intellectual history of European development discourse, this book brings together post-structuralist and critical approaches to understanding development.

Nathalie Karagiannis analyses three key terms of European development discourse: 'responsibility', 'efficiency' and 'giving'. Situating these terms in a concrete history of European post-colonial politics, the author shows how European policy has shifted from accepting responsibility for colonialism - constructed as it is on the paternalistic model of the gift - to a more amnesiac politics in which post-colonial countries are responsible for their own fate.