On Friday 31 May, the Blavatnik School of Government and the Global Economic Governance Programme will host a special seminar in the Blavatnik School Lecture Theatre from 5-6.30pm. Thomas Carothers and Diane de Gramont will discuss their new book, Development Aid Confronts Politics: The Almost Revolution.

After decades of denial, the development community now acknowledges that effective assistance requires grappling with the domestic politics of recipient countries. Development agencies are openly promoting political goals alongside traditional socioeconomic ones and trying to apply politically smart methods. Yet considerable controversy and confusion accompany this potential revolution in development aid.

In Development Aid Confronts Politics, Thomas Carothers and Diane de Gramont ask whether aid can achieve a productive synthesis of political and socioeconomic concerns. Their thought-provoking study illuminates the multiple meanings of "working politically" in development assistance.

Thomas Carothers is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and director of Carnegie's Democracy and Rule of Law Program. He is author of Aiding Democracy Abroad; Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: In Search of Knowledge; and Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding Political Parties in New Democracies.

Diane de Gramont, a Clarendon Scholar at Oxford University, was previously a researcher in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.