Featured image for “Book Review: Political Settlements and Development: Theory, Evidence, Implications”

Book Review: Political Settlements and Development: Theory, Evidence, Implications

February 2, 2023
If you hang around conversations on ‘thinking and working politically’, as I do, you’ll hear a lot of references to ‘Political Settlements’ as it’s grown up, more academic, but sometimes incomprehensible cousin. As this new book’s blurb declares ‘At its most ambitious, ‘political settlements analysis’ (PSA) promises to explain why conflicts occur and states collapse, the conditions for their successful
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Featured image for “Book Review: Hypocrisy and Human Rights: Resisting Accountability for Mass Atrocities”

Book Review: Hypocrisy and Human Rights: Resisting Accountability for Mass Atrocities

January 26, 2023
What is the point of all the noise on human rights violations, all that ‘speaking truth to power’ to repressive regimes who don’t listen, if no-one is ever brought to justice? When all those lawyers, Amnesty reports, email campaigns and UN treaties simply bounce off the brute realities of national power? Kate Cronin-Furman’s intriguing new book uses a political economy
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Featured image for “9 Useful Roles INGOs can play as Intermediaries in an Age of Localization”

9 Useful Roles INGOs can play as Intermediaries in an Age of Localization

January 25, 2023
Thanks to Ivan Campbell for alerting me to this really good (and brief) paper from Peace Direct, looking at useful roles for INGOs as intermediaries, as they seek to localize and/or step back from direct implementation. Edited down version below. In recent years, there has been growing scrutiny of the largely unchanged role that INGOs have played in humanitarian, development
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Featured image for “The Changing Nature of (my) ‘Field Trips’”

The Changing Nature of (my) ‘Field Trips’

January 24, 2023
Check out this 7m video of my recent trip to Papua New Guinea. It was commissioned by The Voice Inc, one of the partner organizations for the Building Community Engagement in Papua New Guinea (BCEP) programme I’m working with in PNG. I have to say, I’ve never been the subject of anything so slick and well made, (my wife Cathy
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Featured image for “Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies: the politics of saving the planet”

Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies: the politics of saving the planet

January 17, 2023
Neil McCulloch introduces his new book Hands up if you would like petrol prices to go up?  I’m guessing not too many hands.  The cripplingly high costs of energy (whether petrol, diesel, gas or coal as well as electricity) have posed a huge challenge for households and firms all around the world.  Massive increases in these costs, driven by the
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Featured image for “What do LSE Activism Students do after they leave?”

What do LSE Activism Students do after they leave?

January 13, 2023
Teaching is weird. You engage on quite an intense level with each year’s cohort of students, and then they fly the nest, and you hear very little about what happens next. Still less whether their studies actually helped (I’m still trying to work out whether my Physics degree has been a help or hindrance in grappling with the complexities of
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Featured image for “Book Review: Africa 2.0: Inside a Continent’s Communications Revolution”

Book Review: Africa 2.0: Inside a Continent’s Communications Revolution

January 5, 2023
Been catching up with my reading backlog over the Christmas break…. According to the publisher’s blurb ‘Africa 2.0 provides an important history of how two technologies – mobile calling and internet – were made available to millions of sub-Saharan Africans, and the impact they have had on their lives. The book deals with the political challenges of liberalisation and privatisation
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Featured image for “Is Extinction Rebellion really quitting? Analysis of their New Year’s Day statement”

Is Extinction Rebellion really quitting? Analysis of their New Year’s Day statement

January 4, 2023
As well as the headlines, First Edition, the Guardian’s excellent daily news summary (free subscription here), includes an in-depth conversation between the editor and one of its specialist journalists. Yesterday’s, with environment correspondent Damien Gayle, was on ‘Extinction Rebellion’s New Year’s Day statement, which led with the headline-grabbing phrase “we quit”’. Not true, apparently. Here’s the Guardian’s analysis: ‘This is
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Featured image for “How can Behavioral Science help build Democracy, Human Rights, and Good Governance?”

How can Behavioral Science help build Democracy, Human Rights, and Good Governance?

December 6, 2022
Guest post from Laura Adams, Director of Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning at CSM-STAND, a USAID-funded global civil society and media program, led by Pact. When international development programs want people to get vaccinated, the behavior they are targeting is clear, even if the complex set of things that influence that behavior take time and effort to address. Social and
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Featured image for “Africa’s newest oil pipeline. When Two Elephants fight, the people get trampled”

Africa’s newest oil pipeline. When Two Elephants fight, the people get trampled

November 30, 2022
My former student Christopher Liberty got in touch and asked to post this piece. Debates about the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and the EU’s move to halt the project dominated headlines in the lead-up to COP 27. Most discussions have focused on the future macroeconomic and environmental effects of the project, in addition to the EU’s meddling in
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Featured image for “Adaptive Management in large programmes: Great new Practical Guide”

Adaptive Management in large programmes: Great new Practical Guide

November 8, 2022
I’m off to Papua New Guinea in a couple of weeks in the role of ‘critical friend’ (more on that weird job description in due course) to a big Aussie-funded aid program (the A$87m Building Community Engagement in PNG Program) run by DT Global (as Cardno is now called). They’ve just published an excellent guidance note on Adaptive Management, written
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Featured image for “Book Review: Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era.”

Book Review: Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era.

October 26, 2022
Spoke on a panel last week in UCL’s Policy and Practice lecture series. The topic was Nina Hall’s new book, Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era (putting in the discount code ASFLYQ6 will get you 30% off, btw). Some thoughts. The book explores a new-ish generation of digital advocacy organizations with professional staff. MoveOn was the first, established in the
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