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Distributional Foundations of Democratic Backsliding: Five Lessons from the Americas
No full textThe United States (US) is the world’s oldest living constitutional democracy. It is backsliding. The proximate cause of this is the electoral viability of populist political outsiders who seek to circumvent or dismantle institutional constraints on executive power. This article explores the process by which democratic elections produced such backsliding, drawing empirical and theoretical insights from Latin America. It argues that distributional politics related to a middle-class living wage crisis are responsible for the political crisis facing US democracy. Central to this dynamic is a decades-long political consensus among the two leading political parties regarding neoliberalism. This consensus weakened the party system, eroding its social moorings by forcing working-class voters to look outside of the political establishment for credible alternatives. The article concludes that the only two pathways available to US democracy at this critical juncture are a Polanyian counter-movement towards a new social-democratic order, or a tragic descent into neo-patrimonialism.</p
Norms, Power, and the Socially Embedded Realities of Market Taxation in Northern Ghana
No full textThis paper provides insights into how daily informal realities shape local government taxation. It draws on qualitative data collected in markets in Lawra and Yendi, two districts in Northern Ghana, in 2011 and 2012. The paper contributes to a growing literature focusing on informal institutions and practices that underpin local economies and governance systems, shedding light on the daily experiences of taxpayers in smaller towns – an area of research that has been overlooked despite these contexts being home to a large share of citizens in low-income countries. The authors argue that effective reform may be achieved by ‘working with the grain’ of local governance, designing reform in a way that is consonant with local capacity constraints and the broader social reality in which collection efforts are embedded.Summary of ICTD Working Paper 30.</p
The Politics of Passage: Roadblocks, Taxation, and Control in Conflict
No full textModern states have only recently monopolised the authority to control movement across territories. Prior to this, checkpoints helped rulers assert jurisdiction over territories and finance their claims to power by concentrating control over strategic passage points along key trade routes. Today, struggles over mobility are central to livelihoods and wealth in postcolonial contexts, where displacement, and extracting payments from the flow of goods, cattle, and migrants, sustain and fuel conflict. Research shows that roadblocks are particularly integral to the dynamics of armed conflict – driving violence, and shaping the forms of order espoused by various types of armed actors, state and non-state alike.This introductory paper to the DIIS/ICTD/CAG working paper series, Roadblocks and Revenues, argues that roadblocks deserve more theoretical attention, as they constitute a distinct claim to authority. The authors propose that the connection between roadblocks, conflict dynamics, political order-making, and state formation can be explored through the ‘politics of passage’ – contestations over movement and authority that take place at roadblocks in fragile settings.Summary of DIIS/ICTD/CAG Roadblocks and Revenues Series Working Paper 1.</p
War and Peace in Ukraine and in Gaza: A Comparative Analysis
No full textThis book interrogates the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza and asks whether meaningful distinctions can be made between just and unjust wars. The author analyses the global roots of both wars, including unresolved clashes of contending imperialisms, rooted in different variants of capitalism. Luckham also examines how the wars have impacted on the global south and how the latter has responded and asks whether active nonalignment could be a way to contain and resolve such conflicts. He also argues that the two wars mark another stage in the evisceration of the post-Cold War peace dividend and its replacement by a warmakers dividend, in which security trumps all else. The author also examines how the burdens of war fall upon those least able to bear them, as well as making the obvious yet neglected point that both conflicts, like all wars, have their beneficiaries. Finally the author considers the contradictory relationships between peace and power: how can nations and peoples trapped in war situations, as in Ukraine and Gaza, navigate towards just and sustainable peace, when the odds are heavily stacked against them?</p
Drivers of Poverty Dynamics in Pakistan
No full textPoverty levels in Pakistan are high and have been rising in recent years. While many factors influence poverty dynamics in Pakistan, this review was asked to focus on family-level and structural factors. Key among the former are household characteristics (in particular education of household head and household size), marginalisation (e.g. on the basis of gender, religion), social capital and aspirations. Key among the latter are the distribution of wealth, market functioning, labour dynamics and access to services. Gender (being female) exacerbates poverty in relation to both family-level and structural factors. The review highlights how poor households are disadvantaged in accessing opportunities that could lift them out of poverty.</p
Let's go double dipping! Supporting Growth from Below through Cash+
No full textIn Zambia, economic growth is primarily driven by large-scale, formal investments in sectors such as minerals, tourism, and services. However, these sectors employ relatively few people and have a limited impact on overall poverty reduction due to weak economic multipliers.Consequently, Zambia needs complementary efforts focused on “Growth from Below”, small- scale, informal investments at the household level to effectively reduce poverty, particularly in an economy characterised by high inequality and a heavy reliance on minerals. According to the World Bank (2025), Zambia’s economic growth has a minimal effect on poverty alleviation, meaning that even substantial economic growth results in only modest reductions in poverty levels. While governments typically prioritise large-scale investments, a balanced approach that promotes both Growth from Above (GfA) and Growth from Below (GfB) is essential for inclusive and sustainable poverty reduction.Furthermore, although the minerals sector is economically significant, it inadequately contributes to government revenues due to externalization of financial flows and opaque financial practices on which significant Zambian institutional capacity has been built (Inter-governmental Forum, 2025). Mineral companies are sometimes able to negotiate special agreements with the Ministry of Finance and Planning to minimise or evade taxes and royalties, as in the recent dropping of a 15% export tax. Addressing these transparency and taxation issues, which have long been a concern for the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA), is crucial to ensure that revenues from mineral wealth are effectively directed towards supporting broader economic initiatives that can genuinely benefit all Zambians.</p
The Food-Energy-Water Nexus
No full textThe world of policymakers, researchers, and practitioners in resource management is abuzz with a new lexicon: the idea of Food-Energy-Water Nexus (hereafter the nexus). Thus, an idea that started at the World Economic Forum in 2008 has gained salience over time through the Bonn Conference in 2011 and the Rio +20 negotiations in 2012. Governing “the nexus” is probably one of the grand challenges of the twenty-first century. Who could deny that the nexus of water, energy, food, and the environment somehow encapsulate some of the world’s most pressing problems and that governance is a key part of the problem as well as the solution? Is there something to disagree about when the international business community through the World Economic Forum argues that there are important linkages among water, food, energy, and climate change? And when the German government argues that policymakers need to consider more carefully the trade-offs between these four different resources? Isn’t the idea of the nexus, after all, intuitively compelling, even as it challenges existing comfortable knowledge and approaches that have hitherto guided institutions managing these resources in independent silos? This article will cover these questions by adopting an issues theme with sections on Multisectoral Integration, Interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, Governance, Justice and Ethics. A General Overviews section opens the article in introducing readers to the key texts on the topic. Only English-language sources have been included in this review.</p
Costal Poverty and Vulnerability Dynamics
No full textCoastal areas are typically densely populated, with high levels of social and economic activity, and distinct environmental challenges arising from climate change impacts, land degradation, and environmental pollution. Poor and remote coastal communities are particularly vulnerable to environmental change and variability due to livelihood dependencies on natural resources, which are easily disrupted or subject to losses from hydrometeorological hazards, and vulnerable to the impacts of marine pollution. Given the strong contextualisation of poverty and vulnerability dynamics, this rapid evidence review takes a country case study approach, reviewing examples of country specific regional drivers to understand emerging themes and research gaps for understanding and responding to the specific vulnerabilities facing coastal communities, to review examples of community roles played in local resource governance, and the impacts of non-extractive marine pollution.</p
Hifadhi ya Maswali ya Homa ya Virusi vya Damu: Maswali stahilifu ya kuelewa mienendo ya uambukizaji na uzoefu wa huduma
No full textHoma ya damu ya virusi (VHFs) ni kundi la magonjwa makali yanayosababishwa na virusi vinavyoathiri viungo vingi vya mwili na kuharibu mfumo wa moyo. VHF inajumuisha ugonjwa wa virusi vya Ebola na ugonjwa wa virusi wa Marburg. Kuna tofauti kubwa katika jinsi VHF zinavyotambuliwa, jinsi zinavyoweza kusababisha magonjwa, usambazaji wao wa kijiografia, hifadhi zao zinazojulikana (yaani, wanyama au wadudu wanaoeneza ugonjwa huo) na upatikanaji wa chanjo au matibabu. Unapotumia Hifadhi hii ya Maswali kwa hali ya dharura mahususi ya afya ya umma kuhusiana na VHF iliyotambuliwa, zingatia vipengele hivi pamoja na uchanganuzi uliosasishwa wa muktadha wa nchi na maendeleo ya dalili za kiafya za ugonjwa kati ya watu walio hatarini.Maendeleo ya Hifadhi hii ya Maswali yametokana na zaidi ya miaka 10 ya utafiti wa kina wa sayansi ya jamii uliofanywa wakati wa milipuko ya VHF na dharura nyingine za afya ya umma zinazohusisha magonjwa ya kuambukiza. Mada nyingi zilizojumuishwa katika Hifadhi hii ya Maswali zitasanifu milipuko ya VHF ambapo maambukizi kutoka kwa mtu mmoja hadi mwingine yametambuliwa kuwa mchango mkuu wa mlipuko huo kuenea na ambapo uzoefu wa tiba kwa mgonjwa lazima ueleweke ili kuwa na majibu yanayokidhi hofu za wanajamii. Lazima maswali yabadilishwe kulingana na VHF mahususi, muktadha wa nchi na idadi ya watu waliohojiwa.</p
Lebanon and Sudan: The Energy Transition in the Context of Crises
No full textIn this policy brief, Muez Ali and Rasha Akel examine how Lebanon and Sudan have undergone unplanned, crisis-driven energy transitions. With the collapse of centralized electricity systems in both countries, solar energy has emerged as a widespread alternative, driven largely by necessity and grassroots adaptation. The brief explores how local actors—from households to small businesses—have filled governance and service gaps, forming decentralized energy networks outside state frameworks. It highlights the potential and limits of this transition, warning that without inclusive regulation, strategic planning, and equitable access, these transitions risk deepening social inequalities rather than resolving systemic issues.</p