The contemporary development discourse: Analysing the influence of development studies’ journals

Abstract

The cross-disciplinary field of "development studies" involves a variety of scientific disciplines, mainly within the Social Sciences. Its cross-disciplinary character implies a complex process of forming a "development discourse" in which different disciplines are simultaneously proposing different-and sometimes contradictory-discourse components, and where there is-stilla "Western hegemony", despite the fact that research is mainly focused on the so-called "developing" countries. Based on the theories of Michel Foucault, this paper studies the role and influence of academic journals in shaping the "contemporary development discourse" by means of identifying the main areas of research, the citation networks, and the most influential articles, countries and institutions. Our bibliometric analysis focuses in four "development" journals that are ranked in the Social Sciences Citation Index in the "subject category" of "planning and development": World Development, Development and Change, Third World Quarterly and European Journal of Development Research. The analysis for the period 2000-2015 produces four main results: i) The four journals coincide on various areas of common interest (related to aid, poverty, sustainability and development challenges), which share the same rules of formation of the development discourse. ii) Journals have a limited influence in shaping the development discourse because of their inability to generate "citation bursts", and the existence of a high proportion of "disconnected" articles that mostly receive self-citations. iii) There is a clear preponderance of the Anglo-Saxon academia in the scientific production. iv) In comparative terms, World Development stands out as the most influential journal in shaping the development discourse. These results may be useful for authors and editors of development journals in order to paint a broader picture of the contemporary development discourse and to identify important editorial challenges and possible ways to strengthen the journals' coherence and influence in the formation of the development discourse.

Development and interdisciplinarity: A citation analysis

“…Of course, our findings are limited to citation patterns in academic journals. Despite the limitations above and the need for further research, we contribute to the literature on the development discourse (Loxley, 2004;Madrueño & Tezanos, 2018;Tezanos Vázquez & Sumner, 2013;Ziai, 2015). We document rising economics and DE citations in DS journals, in part due to rising numbers of economists publishing in WD and JDS.…”

“…There exists a relatively large literature discussing what development studies is about and what makes it distinctive (e.g. Loxley, 2004;Madrueño & Tezanos, 2018;Tezanos Vázquez & Sumner, 2013;Ziai, 2015). Previous literature, by and large, has not examined development studies journals.…”

The rise of research on development economics in Vietnam: Analyses and implications for the public and policymakers from SSHPA 2008-2020 dataset

“…The exploration of authors and collaboration pointed out a low level of collaboration among authors, who were already dispersed. Similarly, throughout the development of development economics research, scientists had used bibliometrics to explore different aspects of the field: the impact of prestige journals (Madrueño and Tezanos, 2018), the plans to achieve sustainable goals in different countries (Chimhowu et al, 2019), or the interdisciplinary nature of development economics (Mitra et al, 2020).…”

“…However, in the last decade, the relationships between trade flows and technology, liberalization processes, environmental regulations, location, education/human capital, and productivity have become key topics. From 6,035 articles in four major journals in development economics and development studies, Madrueño and Tezanos (2018) suggested that Anglo-Saxon academia is the dominant force due to a strong geographical, institutional and linguistic bias the scientific production in the fields. The study also identified the common feature of a cross-disciplinary field in development studies.…”

Development and Interdisciplinarity: a Citation Analysis

“…There exists a relatively large literature discussing what development studies is about and what makes it distinctive (e.g. Loxley, 2004, Ziai, 2015, Tezanos Vázquez and Sumner, 2013, Madrueño and Tezanos, 2018. Previous literature, by and large, has not examined development studies journals.…”