Former World Bank education specialist Bjorn Nordtveit argues in this groundbreaking study that a development project or policy should not be understood and analyzed as a linear system. Instead, he believes we should view it as a complex and dialectical organism. Basing his theories on post-development and complexity theories as well as New Institutional Economics, Nordtveit lays out a novel method of analyzing development both on the ground and in the think-tank.

Informed by detailed quotations from interviews with local people involved in a World Bank literacy project in Senegal,...