From Copenhagen to Doha: A critical reflection on the reconfiguring of social development, knowledge and authority through global social work

Abstract

Thirty years after the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, the Second World Summit in Doha in 2025 offered an opportunity to reconsider how social development is understood and governed. This paper examines the shift from state-centred political commitment towards more distributed and multi-actor forms of governance. Drawing on a governmentality perspective, it explores how social development is framed across key summit documents, organisational contributions and civil society interventions. A comparison between Copenhagen and Doha reveals not a linear progression, but changing configurations of authority, participation and expertise. While civil society actors and professional organisations, including social work, have gained increased visibility, their inclusion remains shaped by unequal power relations and institutional constraints. The paper further examines how social work contributes practice-based and relational perspectives within global governance while navigating dominant technocratic approaches. Particular attention is given to the four-partner collaboration between IASSW, ICSW, ICSD and IFSW as a coordinated form of agenda-setting and collaborative engagement. The findings suggest that social development is increasingly shaped through processes of coordination, alignment and collective knowledge generation, raising important questions about depoliticisation, representation and whose perspectives are recognised within global governance