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The evolution of the development discourse is profoundly political. Despite a range of innovations the situation remains much the same, and has led over time to the dominance of the economic growth model. Whilst academic/ideological vigour, policy relevance and institutional support, together with intellectual independence, are essential; too radical an alternative approach would be dismissed by mainstream opinion, either by design or neglect. To survive and to remain influential, any alternative requires the mainstream to engage with it for political feasibility. The development discourse has thus evolved through a delicate balancing act, acknowledging a need for a cautiously optimistic outlook. By tracing changes in two approaches to development (basic needs and human development) and in two global development goals (millennium development goals and sustainable development goals) through their selection and use of indicators, this article explores both the explicit and the implicit power of the mainstream in the past and present alternatives.

We previously demonstrated that ursodeoxycholic acid (UDC) requires prolonged (≥5 h) preincubation to exhibit effective protection of colon cancer HCT116 cells from deoxycholic acid (DC)-induced apoptosis. Although UDC diminished DC-mediated caspase-9 activation, cytochrome c release from the mitochondria was not inhibited, indicating that UDC acts on the steps of caspase-9 activation. In the present study, therefore, we investigated the effects of UDC on the factors involved in caspase-9 activation. We found that UDC had no significant effect on the expression of antiapoptotic XIAP. Furthermore, UDC did not affect the expression or release of proapoptotic Smac/DIABLO, or the association of XIAP and Smac/DIABLO. In contrast, association of Apaf-1 and caspase-9 stimulated by 500 μM DC was inhibited by UDC pretreatment. Although UDC caused remarkable activation of Akt/PKB, phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor did not significantly reduce UDC-mediated cytoprotection. Furthermore, phosphorylation of threonine residues on caspase-9 after UDC pretreatment could not be detected. UDC-mediated cytoprotection was independent of the MAPK pathway, and cyclic AMP (cAMP) analogue did not inhibit DC-induced apoptosis. Our results indicate that UDC protects colon cancer cells from apoptosis induced by hydrophobic bile acids, by inhibiting apoptosome formation independently of the survival signals mediated by the PI3K, MAPK, or cAMP pathways.