Randall Stokes asks what's new in development theory.
i would say three things:
1. a model of systemic cycles of accumulation that focusses on the
importance of finance capital and its relationship with states (Giovanni
Arrighi, _The Long Twentieth Century_, VErso, 1994)
2. a truly humanocentric study of the rise of the West (A.G. Frank,
_Reorient:Global Economy in the Asian Age_ (Forthcoming, University of
California Press) see
http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/archive/bios/gunder/gunder97cd.html
3.a theory of social evolution that uses world-systems as the unit of
analysis (Chase-Dunn and Hall, _Rise and Demise_, Westview 1997). see
http://www.jhu.edu/~soc/cd/books/cdbooks.htm
Not much else. the globalization literature is mostly a muddle.
chris