Footprints of a Winning Idea: Three Decades of the Human Development Paradigm (1990–2019)

The rise and fall of international development paradigms has long captured the interest of scholars, but interpreting whether a paradigm is winning or losing depends largely on how we measure its success. In this research note, we contribute to this debate by assessing the influence of development paradigms via comparative bibliometric analysis. Focusing on the human development and capabilities approach (HDCA) promoted by the Human Development Reports (HDRs) of the United Nations, our analysis reveals how the HDCA has emerged to become an influential paradigm of development over the last three decades. As the HDCA has fared impressively well vis-à-vis numerous alternative development paradigms and approaches including Marxism, modernisation theory, dependency theory, “pro-poor growth” and “aid effectiveness,” we conclude that despite being relatively new, the HDCA has become one of the most influential approaches to development in the world today.