
27 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
Filter by...
Working Paper
What does the evidence tell us about ‘thinking and working politically’ in development assistance?This paper critically reviews evidence on ‘thinking and working politically’ in development. Scholars and practitioners have increasingly recognised that development is fundamentally political, and efforts are underway to develop more politically...
Journal Article
Aid Impact and EffectivenessPart of Journal Special Issue Aid Impact and Effectiveness
Journal Article
What Does the Evidence Tell Us about ‘Thinking and Working Politically’ in Development Assistance?Part of Journal Special Issue Aid Impact and Effectiveness
Working Paper
The negotiated politics of social protection in sub-Saharan AfricaSocial assistance programmes proliferated and expanded across much of the global South from the mid-1990s. Within Africa there has been enormous variation in this trend: some governments expanded coverage dramatically while others resisted this. The...
Book Chapter
Donor-supported approaches to improving extractives governancePart of Book Extractive Industries
Working Paper
Donor-supported approaches to improving extractives governanceDonor interest in the extractives sector is based upon the premise that it represents an opportunity to improve a country’s development prospects. However, in many cases the presence of extractive resources is associated with poor economic...
Working Paper
Who trusts?In the developing world, clientelism is common. In Africa, public office is often used to redistribute resources to ethnically defined constituencies, and this form of clientelistic exchange is a key determinant of vote choice. Does clientelistic...
Blog
Clientelism – another reason to worry about US democracy
The last several months have given us many reasons to worry about US democracy – not least the riot at the US Capitol and the president’s refusal to...
Working Paper
Good for now but not forever: officials’ perspectives on the relevance of the effectiveness agenda and the need for changeThis paper investigates whether the current effectiveness agenda—agreed during the 2011 Busan High Level Forum on Development Effectiveness—continues to define best practice in development amidst a rapidly changing development landscape. To do so, we...
Working Paper
The loser’s long curse: electoral consequences of a class conflictThis paper presents evidence of political legacies of exposure to a violent class conflict over 100 years. We revisit the Finnish Civil War of 1918 and first trace out the impact of local conflict exposure on electoral outcomes over a quarter-century...
Working Paper
Kuznets’ tension in IndiaDeveloping countries face a trade-off between the twin objectives of structural transformation and inclusive growth. This is the ‘developer’s dilemma’. This study analyses the dilemma as it manifested itself in the Indian context, and identifies two...
Working Paper
The politics of affirmative action: ethnicity, equity, and state-business relations in MalaysiaMalaysia provides for interesting paradoxes. Poverty was reduced by adopting a horizontal perspective to policy planning through affirmative action targeting one ethnic group lagging economically in society. However, outcomes of affirmative action...
Working Paper
Clientelism and governanceUnlike much of the growing literature on political clientelism, this short paper contains mainly the author’s general reflections on the broad issues of governance (or mis-governance including corruption), democracy, and state capacity that...
Journal Article
Formalizing clientelism in KenyaTHIS ARTICLE IS PART OF A FORTHCOMING JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUE OF WORLD DEVELOPMENT | Why does clientelism persist? What determines how politicians signal responsiveness to voters and exert effort towards fulfilling campaign promises? This article...