What the programme entails
General courses
Period: Block 1
Course Leader: Andrew Fischer
Modes of Assesment: Assignment (25%), Written exam (75%)
This compulsory course introduces students to the core histories, theories, and debates that shape the field of development studies. It examines development as a process of modern social and structural transformation, particularly in the Global South and in the context of decolonisation. The course helps students understand how different theoretical, disciplinary, and policy perspectives relate to one another, building a shared vocabulary and analytical foundation for further study. Through thematic sessions, students explore major schools of thought and their evolution over time-connecting historical debates to contemporary development challenges. Topics include the origins of capitalism, modernisation, agrarian and industrial transitions, population change, state formation, institutions and governance, as well as issues such as neoliberalism, financial crises, poverty and inequality, globalisation, human rights, gender, and climate change. By the end of the course, students gain the critical skills, contextual grounding, and interdisciplinary fluency needed to engage with development studies at an MA level.
Period: Block 1
Course Leader: Julien-François Gerber
Modes of Assesment: Video presentations (20%), Final essays (80%)
This compulsory course builds on the first general course by shifting from the history and theories of development to its major critiques and emerging alternatives. Students explore a range of contemporary global challenges—economic, political, ecological, cultural, and epistemological—and learn to critically reflect on how these shape development practice today. Across ten lectures and eight interactive workshops, the course pairs key “grand challenges” with possible alternative approaches, such as inequality vs. community economies, unsustainability vs. degrowth, coloniality vs. decoloniality, and forced migration vs. mobility justice. Each session offers a concise state-of-the-art overview along with potential building blocks for more just, sustainable, and plural futures. Overall, the course equips students with critical lenses, conceptual tools, and reflective spaces to rethink development beyond mainstream models and imagine transformative pathways forward.
Period: Block 1
Course Leader: Nanneke Winters
Modes of Assesment: Required attendance and assignments based on a pass/fail system (100%)
The course takes old master’s theses, a range of videos and published studies on ontology-epistemology-methodology as the core teaching materials. It consists of three parts: a) IT, library and referencing skills through workshops and practical assignments; b) introduction to the nature of research; c) a presentation of quantitative and qualitative research techniques courses at ISS, so students can choose courses according to their expertise and preferences.
Next to practical skills and the presentation of what research methods are on offer at ISS, the main body of this course revolves around different ways of looking at and doing research. This includes an introduction to ontology, epistemology and methodology, how they matter in research (design) and what approaches we can distinguish. It also includes questions about what it means to do research aimed at contributing to social justice and how to do so in an ethically sound way. Furthermore, doing research includes the ability to critically assess and synthesize scientific literature to identify knowledge gaps and inform evidence-based interventions or policy recommendations. Here both qualitative and quantitative research syntheses - narrative reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses - play a vital role. Students will engage in lectures, discussions, and hands-on exercises to familiarize themselves with the tools and strategies needed for performing research syntheses.
Electives
Period: Block 2
Course Leader: Tsegaye Moreda
Modes of Assesment: Take home essay (30%), Essay (60%), Group assignment (10%)
This elective explores the interconnections between agriculture, food systems, rural transformations, and global capitalism, with attention to their links to urban, industrial, and international dynamics. Students critically engage with competing theoretical approaches to the political economy of social change, examining how class, gender, and other axes of difference shape land, labour, migration, climate change, and food systems. The course emphasizes both mainstream and alternative institutional responses, from climate-smart agriculture to food sovereignty and agroecology, while also analysing the political agency of state and non-state actors, including social movements. Rooted in Critical Agrarian Studies and scholar-activism, the course equips students with conceptual tools to interpret—and contribute to transforming—the global agrarian and food systems.
Period: Block 2
Course Leader: Binyam Afewerk Demena
Modes of Assesment: Policy negotiation game (30%), Take home assignment (50%), Critical article reviews and presentation (20%)
This elective provides an in-depth study of Global Development Economics, focusing on the role of trade, investment, remittances, and development finance in shaping development processes. Students will critically engage with key theories and empirical tools to analyse the links between growth, inequality, and poverty, as well as the impact of institutions and reforms on long-term development. Combining theoretical foundations with practical applications, the course equips students with the skills to conduct evidence-based policy analysis and extend insights to emerging global challenges.
Period: Block 2
Course Leader: Sreerekha Sathi
Modes of Assesment: Reflection paper (35%), Group work (15%), Final paper (50%)
This elective examines feminist theories, epistemologies, and methodologies in the context of gender and development, with a strong emphasis on intersectional and Global South perspectives. Students will critically analyze feminist debates on institutions such as family, labor, markets, and the state, while exploring themes of sexuality, masculinities, reproductive justice, care economies, and the impact of globalization and neoliberalism. The course highlights both historical and contemporary feminist movements, including challenges posed by NGO-isation and anti-gender politics, equipping students to apply feminist perspectives strategically in research and practice.
Period: Block 2
Course Leader: Arjun S. Bedi
Modes of Assesment: Invigilated in-class exam (100%)
This course examines the micro-level foundations of economic development, focusing on how households, firms, and institutions interact to shape growth, inequality, and human development. Drawing on neoclassical, institutional, and behavioural/experimental economics, students will learn to critically analyze how incentives and institutions drive or constrain development processes. The course covers household decision-making on production, consumption, and technology adoption; the opportunities and constraints faced by small and micro firms; the microeconomics of labour and human capital; and the role of institutions in shaping economic behaviour. By combining theoretical models with empirical applications, the course equips students with analytical tools to assess the complexities of development at the micro level and to evaluate policies that address poverty, vulnerability, and inequality.
Period: Block 2
Course Leader: Sunil Tankha
Modes of Assesment: Final paper (85%), Presentations (15%)
This course introduces students to the dynamics of public policy-making as a contested, multi-actor process shaped by competing ideas, interests, and resources. Students will learn to identify and assess policy problems, critically analyse policy documents and proposals, and develop alternative arguments, scenarios, and strategies. The course covers key methods of policy analysis, including stakeholder, argumentation, logical framework, and multi-criteria analysis, as well as creative approaches such as scenario building. By linking theory to practice, it equips students with the skills to engage effectively in the formulation and implementation of policies while understanding the broader political and social processes that shape them.
Period: Block 2
Course Leader: Daphina Misiedjan
Modes of Assesment: Assignment (30%), Essay (70%)
This course examines the role of law in advancing and obstructing human rights, with a focus on how legal systems both enable and limit protection for marginalized communities. Students will critically analyze the functions of law and legal procedures at national, regional, and global levels, while exploring the roles of governments and civil society actors in shaping human rights outcomes. Themes include technology, children’s rights, climate change, and conflict, with practical components such as UN simulations and debates. Designed for students with or without a legal background, the course equips participants with a critical understanding of the potentials and constraints of law in the realization of human rights across diverse contexts.
Period: Block 2
Course Leader: Murat Arsel
Modes of Assesment: In-class presentation (20%), Final essay (80%)
This course explores the tensions between capitalism, nature, and global development through the lens of political ecology. Students will critically examine how development policies reproduce conflicts between sustainability and socioeconomic growth, and how extractive industries disproportionately affect marginalized communities. Drawing on political ecology, ecological economics, and political economy, the course addresses themes such as climate change, resource extraction, and ecological limits. Emphasis is placed on the role of the state, the resistance of local communities, and alternative visions for just, equitable, and sustainable development.
Period: Block 3
Course Leader: Rodrigo Mena
Modes of Assesment: Assignments: Poster fair (15%), Mid-term assignment (35%), Final exam (50%)
This course explores the interconnections between climate crises, disasters, and humanitarian action, and their wide-ranging effects on societies. Students examine how responses are shaped by local realities, political economies, and global agendas, and how crises intersect with conflict, migration, and essential services. Key themes include disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation, humanitarian governance, and the need to localize and decolonize responses. Drawing on case studies from diverse regions, the course highlights community voices and agency while equipping students with critical and practical tools to engage with humanitarian and climate challenges.
Period: Block 3
Course Leader: Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits
Modes of Assesment: 24-hour Take home exam (50%), Final essay or development of a Peace action plan - with prior approval (50%)
This course introduces critical perspectives on violent conflict and peace governance, examining how violence is produced and reproduced through colonial legacies, inequalities, polarization, and new forms such as cognitive warfare. Students engage with key debates in conflict and peace studies, apply conflict analysis tools to real-world cases, and explore the limits of current peace frameworks. Emphasis is placed on developing future-oriented and collaborative approaches to peacebuilding, equipping students to act as transformative agents in diverse conflict settings.
Period: Block 3
Course Leader: Marijn Faling
Modes of Assesment: Group presentations (20%), drafting a Terms of reference (80%)
This course equips students with theoretical and practical skills in monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of policies, programmes, and projects. The theory–practice stream covers the politics, roles, and uses of evaluation while introducing tools such as logframes, indicators, and results chains. The methodology stream focuses on quantitative impact evaluation, including experimental and non-experimental methods for assessing policy interventions. Guest lectures and a study visit to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs provide applied insights, preparing students to design and critically assess evaluations within the broader policy process.
Period: Block 3
Course Leader: Arul Chib
Modes of Assesment: Individual assignment on AI-assisted literature review (30%), Group hackathon (20%), Individual research paper (50%)
This course explores the impact of digital technologies on development, focusing on both opportunities and challenges for marginalized groups. It examines how tools such as AI, blockchain, social media, and platform capitalism can generate bias, discrimination, surveillance, and misinformation, while also enabling new forms of resistance and appropriation. Students critically assess interventionist approaches to technology in development, highlighting user agency and resilience. The course culminates in a case study and hackathon, where students analyze emerging technologies and propose innovative solutions.
Period: Block 3
Course Leader: Karim Knio
Modes of Assesment: Essay (100%)
This course examines the rise and evolution of neoliberalism as the dominant framework shaping global political and economic life. Students engage with competing definitions of neoliberalism, from orthodox perspectives denying its existence to heterodox accounts treating it as a hegemonic discourse and practice. The course traces policy shifts from the structural adjustment and Washington Consensus era to the Post-Washington Consensus focus on governance and poverty reduction, while critically assessing the ideological, economic, and institutional forces driving these reforms. It concludes by debating whether neoliberalism remains alive today or has transformed in nature.
Period: Block 3
Course Leader: Georgina M. Gómez
Modes of Assesment: Groupwork presentation (20%), Reflection paper (80%)
This course examines development at the meso level, focusing on networks, organizations, and partnerships between state and non-state actors. Students explore how entrepreneurs, businesses, public agencies, local organizations, and donors interact to shape institutional fields and drive social and economic change. Topics include social entrepreneurship, innovation, social finance, impact investment, solidarity and informal economies, sustainable tourism, value chains, philanthropy, the commons, and alternative exchange systems. The course equips students with both theoretical insights and practical tools to analyze and design collaborative development initiatives.
Period: Block 3
Course Leader: Zeynep Kaşlı
Modes of Assesment: Reflection paper (25%), Discussion role (5%), Tech hackathon (10%), and Final essay (60%)
This course examines the migration–development nexus, asking who can move, at what cost, and how globalization and governance shape people’s (im)mobilities. It explores migration as privilege, livelihood strategy, or misfortune, with triggers ranging from conflict and environmental change to technological shifts. Emphasizing perspectives from the Global South, the course analyzes implications such as remittances, transnational ties, and transformations in gender and generational relations. Taking a mobility-centered approach, it highlights how social constructs like gender, race, ethnicity, and class shape migration experiences and the capacities of migrants and non-migrants to challenge structural constraints.
Period: Block 3
Course Leader: Wil Hout
Modes of Assesment: Take home exam (85%), Presentation (15%)
This course examines the origins, evolution, and contemporary challenges of liberal internationalism and its role in shaping global development. Students will analyze how liberal ideas, norms, and institutions have structured the post–Second World War order, while exploring critiques from across the ideological spectrum. Special attention is given to the impact of the 2008 financial crisis, the rise of emerging powers, nationalist and anti-globalization movements, and the war in Ukraine. The course also considers the relationship between liberal internationalism and neoliberalism, equipping students to critically evaluate both the resilience and limitations of the liberal world order.
Period: Block 3
Course Leader: Matthias Rieger
Modes of Assesment: Group assignments (20%), Final invigilated exam (80%)
This course introduces behavioral perspectives in development studies, exploring how human decision-making shapes policy design, participation, and social change. Students will examine behavioral foundations, biases, and anomalies, as well as experimental methods for measuring and testing interventions. Applications include environmental policy, technology, health, and social protection, with attention to both the potential and limits of behavioral approaches. Open to all tracks, the course combines theoretical insights with practical applications, encouraging interdisciplinary dialogue and critical reflection on the use of behavioral techniques in development.
Elective Methodology Courses
Period: Block 2
Course Leader: Helena Pérez Niño
Modes of Assesment: Practice exercise (30%), Written assignment (70%)
The course reflects on the foundations and politics of methods in development studies and on the role of pluralism and reflectivity in applied research. It discusses various disciplinary contributions to the multi-methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative techniques. The course introduces students to core methods of observation and primary data collection as well as to established and innovative forms of working with secondary data and literature. The final block prepares students for analysing and presenting insights for different audiences relevant to international development issues.
Period: Block 2
Course Leader: Bilge Sahin
Modes of Assesment: Individual assignment on research design (30%), Group assignment on data collection (15%), Individual assignment on data analysis (55%)
The course introduces students to methods and skills for qualitative research emphasising the social interaction, the co-creative, and increasingly, the digitally-enabled processes through which qualitative data is generated. Participants will develop necessary and pragmatic skills to design, implement, analyse, and document, interview- and ethnography-based research to be conducted in-person and remotely virtually.
Structured around experiential learning, the course treats qualitative interviewing as a central method, which is extended into ethnographic interviews and interviews incorporating participatory techniques (i.e. photo elicitation, photo voice, (digital) transect walks). It will also guide students on maintaining detailed field notes to document the interview context and surroundings, enabling a comprehensive and well-rounded approach to fieldwork. Through various workshop sessions, the course will also introduce students to the analysis of qualitative data, including manual techniques as well as software-aided approaches.
Period: Block 2
Course Leader: Zemzem Shigute Shuka
Modes of Assesment: Individual assignments (40%), Final invigilated exam (60%)
This course is designed for MA students with an interest in quantitative analysis of development research and a critical assessment of data-driven claims. It introduces students to the foundation and techniques of classical regression analysis and provides hands-on experience with statistical software.
The course is structured in two parts. In the first part, students will be introduced to basic linear models to analyse bivariate and multivariate linear relationships. The second part of the course covers non-linear methods to analyse qualitative and limited dependent variables, such as probit, logit, ordered and unordered logit and probit models. Through lectures and computer workshops, students will develop an understanding of estimation and inferences using these models.
Period: Block 3
Course Leader: John Cruzatti C.
Modes of Assesment: Invigilated exam (100%)
This course offers an in-depth exploration of quantitative techniques for causal identification using secondary data. By focusing on the methods employed in quantitative research in, among others, sociology, political science, development economics, and political economy, students will gain hands-on experience in applying these techniques to real-world problems. The course emphasizes a local, subnational perspective, allowing students to examine the nuances and complexities of development phenomena at a granular level.
Period: Block 3
Course Leader: to be announced
Modes of Assesment: Short individual written assignment (30%), Final individual take home written assignment (50%), Collaborative contribution (20%)
This course is designed for those interested in applying a decolonial orientation to a project in the development research context. It introduces participants to the relationship between research practice, social justice, and decolonization. Targeted at participants who will be initiating their own research projects, the course helps to develop skills and approaches to better equip them in addressing positionality; ethical considerations; and methodological, epistemological and analytical framework choices. The objective of the course is to prepare participants to carry out context-specific, interdisciplinary research that is rigorous and structured. Participants will also develop an aptitude for identifying possibilities for researchers to be accountable to the communities they work with.
The 5 EC course is organized through 9 thematic modules delivered through pre-recorded video lectures/dialogues, and workshops. Module I exposes participants to the geopolitical, ontological, and epistemological groundings of decoloniality. In the modules II-IX, participants will learn from the intricacies of designing and implementing research projects that seek to centre an epistemic or cognitive South in processes of knowledge generation. The sessions will encourage critical reflexivity on methodological choices, including the deployment of research methods and tools. This year, the course will focus in particular on the following themes: decolonial investigations, First Nations/Indigenous methodologies and Holding Space, Anti-colonial archival research, Senti pensar, World Traveling, Knowing with Others, Degrowth, and Rememory. The course closes with material and discussions on ‘Dissemination Otherwise: Reciprocity and Answerability Practices’
| Period | Block / Activity | Credits (EC) | Duration | Courses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 – 4 Sep | Intro Week | _ | 1 week | Orientation & introduction |
| 7 Sep – 13 Nov | Block 1 | 15 EC | 10 weeks | General Course 1, General Course 2, Doing Development Research |
| 16 Nov – 20 Dec | Block 2 (part 1) | 15 EC | 5 weeks | Elective Course 1, Elective Course 2 |
| 21 Dec – 3 Jan Winter Break –2 weeks | ||||
| 4 Jan – 5 Feb | Block 2 (part 2) | _ | 5 weeks | Continuation: Elective Course 1, Elective Course 2 Methods Course |
| 8 Feb – 16 Apr | Block 3 | 15 EC | 10 weeks | Elective Course 3, Elective Course 4 |
| 19 Apr – End Aug | Block 4 | 15 EC | 10 weeks | Start Thesis, Thesis Writing, Thesis Defence |
| Graduation ceremony | ||||
Teaching Methods
At the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), our MA in Development Studies offers a dynamic, interdisciplinary approach to exploring social, political, and economic change.
You will develop a critical understanding of key debates, theories, and strategies in the field of development, while gaining the analytical and practical skills needed to design and assess interventions that respond to real-world challenges.
A core element of the programme is training in research methodology, culminating in your Master’s thesis, where you apply your learning to a topic you are passionate about.
Our broad range of courses combines theory with context—situating knowledge within diverse social, economic, and cultural realities. You will learn to think critically and constructively and analyze development processes.
With small class sizes and a diverse international student community, learning at ISS is highly interactive. You’ll bring your own experiences and perspectives into the classroom while engaging with peers from around the world. Together, you’ll reflect on theory, debate case studies, and explore innovative solutions to today’s pressing global issues.
Your progress will be assessed through a variety of individual and group assignments, including essays, policy briefs, blogs, academic papers, presentations, role plays, and collaborative projects—ensuring a dynamic and comprehensive learning journey.
The programme is rewarded with the distinctive feature ‘Internationalisation’ from the European Consortium for Accreditation (ECA). This acknowledges our vision on internationalisation, the international perspective in the intended learning outcomes, the teaching and learning environment and the international staff and student body.
Period: Block 2
Course Leader: Gerard McCarthy
Modes of Assesment: Mid-term exam (30%), Individual mapping exercise (70%)
This course explores social protection systems through a life course perspective, analyzing how demographic shifts, crises, and inequalities shape and are shaped by welfare policies and practices. Students will engage with key concepts and tools to critically assess the logics, consequences, and politics of social protection, examining both state and non-state interventions. The course highlights how inter- and intragenerational inequalities manifest in areas such as health, education, labour protections, and old-age care, and how these intersect with axes of marginalization including migration, disability, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality. Emphasis is placed on understanding how social protection can both alleviate and reinforce vulnerabilities, while considering the role of non-state actors in complementing or contesting state-led interventions.