Does Development Studies Have a Core?

In considering how development studies can best be taught at the postgraduate level, one question which arises at a very early stage of curriculum planning is whether the subject has an intellectual core.1 There are at least a hundred different ways in which one might design a postgraduate course in the subject. But these hundred or so designs can be divided into two main groups. One group follow what has been called the 'cafeteria principle', ie allowing a student to choose any combination of the course elements that are on offer, no matter how apparently bizarre; the other group follows the 'core principle' ie compelling a student to study one prescribed element or combination of elements as a condition of qualification. The issue addressed here is whether there are good reasons for preferring the core to the cafeteria principle, and, if so, which course elements ought to be included in the core of development studies.