‘It's [the] Culture, Stupid!’ Why ‘Adding Culture’ is Unlikely to Make Any Serious Difference to International Developmentalism

What major difference adding an extra ingredient—‘culture’—may make to a standard concoction—‘international developmentalism’—depends in part on how friendly the concoction is to what is to be added—and (with apologies to Jan Nederveen Pieterse) stirred. Therefore any hopes for any cultural re-turn in development studies should not neglect their cognitive iconography and the obstacles this may pose to what is desired. Six strands in the iconography of international developmentalism are highlighted in this paper: its high doctrine/low scholarship character, appetite for single best-fitting regression-type modelling and die-hard positivism, reliance on lethal binaries that kill existential and practical concerns, disposition to ready-made solutions in search of problems to attach themselves to, and ‘no politics please we are experts’ stances.