Introduction - discourse analysis and policy discourse, Des gasper and Raymond Apthorpe; reading development policy and policy analysis - on framing, numbing, numbering and coding, Raymond Apthorpe; analyzing policy arguments, Des Gasper; re-reading mountainous, isolated, inaccessible and small - the case of Bhutan, Adam Pain; methodological nationalism and the misunderstinding of East Asian industrialization, Charles Gore; reading Americans on democracy in Africa - from the CIA to good governance, David Moore; essentialism in and about development discourse, Des Gasper.