Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 6, pp. 1045–1060, 2004 The ambivalence of post-development: between reactionary populism and radical democracy ARAM ZIAI ABSTRACT The post-development critique of development discourse has by now been widely discussed and criticised. Post-development texts have been inter- preted as a cynical legitimation of neoliberalism or a futile romanticisation of premodern times; more sympathetic critics have at least acknowledged its potential to criticise the shortcomings of development theory and policy. There is, however, widespread agreement on the assumptions that post-development can be seen as a Foucaultian critique of development and that it forms a sort of theoretical school. This article is concerned with challenging these assump- tions by showing that 1) post-development only employs (if at all) a rather impoverished version of Foucault’s discourse analysis; 2) there are in fact two variants to be found under the heading post-development—a sceptical and a neo-populist one—and most of the criticisms are only valid for the latter. Whereas neo-populist post-development has reactionary political consequences, sceptical post-development uses elements of postmodern and post-Marxist theory and can best be described as a manifesto of radical democracy in the field of development studies. For scholars interested in emancipation, the point is to identify the crucial differences between post-development sliding into (sometimes reactionary) neo-populism and post-development converging with theories of radical democracy. The post-development school of development theory bluntly rejects ‘develop- ment’ simultaneously as a eurocentric discourse, an imperialist project and a meaningless concept. It argues for alternatives to development, usually in the form of communities combining elements of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ culture, regaining control in the fields of politics, economics and knowledge in oppo- sition to the state, global capitalism and science and thus finding ‘alternatives to development’. In the past decade the school has been widely discussed and criticised. Despite the differences between the critics, there seems to be wide- spread agreement on the assumption that post-development is to be interpreted as a Foucaultian critique of development, as well as on certain ‘standard Aram Ziai teaches at the University of Aachen and can be contacted at Aretzstrasse 53, 52070 Aachen, Germany. Email: aram.z@gmx.net. ISSN 0143-6597 print/ISSN 1360-2241 online/04/061045-16  2004 Third World Quarterly DOI: 10.1080/0143659042000256887 1045