TWP CoP September 2022 Newsletter
Welcome to the September 2022 edition of the TWP CoP newsletter! We bring to you the latest news and updates on all things TWP. Find out more below.
Dear Friends and fellow travellers on all things TWP,
Welcome back from the Summer, and we hope you enjoy the September (or “back to school”) edition of the TWP CoP newsletter. This edition features an interview with Duncan Green, of From Poverty to Power fame and also a TWP CoP Steering Committee member, who tells us about the Global Executive Leadership Initiative (or GELI) training programme on influencing for senior leaders that he has been involved with over the past year. We also hear from Nicola Nixon from the Asia Foundation (also a TWP CoP Steering Committee member) about some of her work on the political economy of health, and from Susan Kemp and Sharon Van Pelt from Creative Associates International and the Washington DC TWP CoP, who share with us what they’ve been reading. The newsletter highlights exciting news from the TWP CoP Secretariat, while we also bring you, as always, the latest related to recent publications, events, and other resources that may be of special interest from a TWP perspective.
As a reminder, please open the newsletter directly on your browser (click on the ‘TWP CoP September 2022 Newsletter’ header, at the top of this page) so that you can get full access to all the content.
With all best wishes,
Alina & Graham
Highlight Feature
For this highlight feature, we had the pleasure of interviewing Duncan Green, who is is a leading thinker on international development, senior strategic adviser to Oxfam GB, and Professor in Practice at LSE. In this podcast, Duncan tells us about a course he helps to run called GELI - Influencing for Senior Leaders; analysis, strategy and practice, and why it is all about TWP.
Listen to the interview here:
Or read the transcript here.
What we’re doing
Nicola Nixon, Director of Governance at The Asia Foundation and TWP CoP Steering Committee member, tells us about a recent event she was involved in.
‘I was invited by the World Health Organization to speak at the 6th meeting of the Asia Pacific Parliamentarian Forum on Global Health in August in Seoul. The aim of the forum is to share information and experiences on managing, learning and improving during the COVID-19 pandemic and to look at how parliamentarians can support actions to strengthen health security, build resilient health systems and build and promote global, regional and national partnerships. It was attended by around 50 parliamentarians from across the region including several Health Ministers. My presentation was on political economy approaches to health reform, with a focus on the changing dynamics within governments and across ministries and bureaucracies. It was intended to provoke thinking around the extent to which the pandemic has altered the balance of power, distribution of political capital and incentive structures within governments, as a consequence of the high profile and in many cases greater investment in the health sector over the past two years; and if so, what opportunities that presents for different kinds of partnerships and momentum for reform.’
Gareth Williams’ reflection note for the TWP CoP on ‘Thinking and Working Politically on Health Systems Resilience: Learning from the experience of Cameroon, Nepal, and South Africa during COVID-19’ may be a relevant read on this too!
What we’re reading
OECD (2022). Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls. Paris: OECD.
By Susan Kemp, Practice Area Director for Democracy, Electoral Governance and Electoral Integrity, and Sharon Van Pelt, Vice President and Senior Director, Communities in Transition and Governance Division, Creative Associates
Despite some progress, gender discrimination and bias remain a pervasive global challenge, hindering economic, political, and social development. Advancing gender equality is critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. When all individuals can meaningfully contribute to shaping their future, this can unleash the potential to tackle complex problems that would otherwise remain stagnant, whether that’s influencing policy reform, addressing education deficits, or improving economic growth. Adding to their gender initiative’s extensive repertoire of tools and data, the OECD’s new resource, Gender Equality and Empowerment for Women and Girls: Guidance for Development Partners, provides a practical guide for organisations and programmes to advance gender equality and mainstreaming efforts.
The guidance is organised around the project cycle, providing recommendations and examples for leadership and policy frameworks; programme planning including analysis and design; implementation; financing; and monitoring and evaluation. It also provides guidance on organisational frameworks, resources, and capacity needed to advance gender equality in development and humanitarian assistance (HA) programmes.
The guidance recognises the critical role of thinking and working politically (TWP) throughout. It centres unequal power relations, structures, and norms at the core of achieving transformative change, recommending gender analysis alongside political economy analysis (PEA) (as well as other context analysis tools) to unpack power dynamics and norms in a given context, and to understand intersectionality. It also links this analysis with a programme’s theory of change. This is critical given the complex and non-linear nature of advancing gender equality, and the need to take an adaptive approach throughout, entailing deliberate experimentation and adjustments to the project’s M&E framework based on learning.
The guidance also flags recommendations when working in fragile contexts, noting that “addressing the root causes of fragility, including gender inequalities, is often politically sensitive”. This understanding should inform programme strategies, including whether gender equality efforts may be more politically feasible if they are mainstreamed into programming, and the critical role of engaging a wide range of local actors and partners including local religious and traditional leaders, the private sector, and peer learning and funding networks.
The TWP community has increasingly recognised and grappled with the importance of examining gender norms and dynamics as part of TWP, and you really can’t have one without the other, as gender and power are inextricably linked. OECD’s guidance is a helpful resource for advancing this connection. It provides practical examples, results frameworks, and theories of change to draw upon. Enjoy – this is a resource you’ll keep coming back to.
TWP Secretariat News
TWP “What’s up” Sessions
As our community continues to grow, we are eager to try out the following, with special thanks to Sharon VP for suggesting it: we would like to facilitate informal spaces of engagement and interaction where people can come together virtually to check in with and get to know others working on issues of common interest, share insights and ideas, and contribute to ongoing conversations and debates.
The first TWP “What’s up” sessions, as we like to call them, will take place next week Wednesday 5th October at 9am BST/10 am CET/15:00pm Hanoi/19:00pm Canberra and Thursday 6th October at 11am Washington DC/16:00pm BST. The idea is that we will hold two sessions on a bi-monthly basis at different times to enable as many people to join as possible across different time zones. We hope to see you there and we look forward to meeting old and new faces alike. To join, please click on the zoom links below and add the meeting to your calendar:
Wednesday 5th October at 9am BST: https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/87066782145?pwd=TjVFNDhZYkxnTWVJNmRPdnAxTFA1dz09 and add this to your Outlook calendar
Thursday 6th October at 16:00pm BST: https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/84186469282?pwd=YjFIa0JJNXJ6WWtRV3NMNlBZcWY0QT09 and add this to your Outlook calendar
The TWP Community Podcast
We are also very excited about the launch of The TWP Community Podcast, which is now available on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Google Podcasts, or you can search for us through your usual podcast directory/app. Please do subscribe and share — and email Katherine at k.hellier@bham.ac.uk if you have ideas for future topics the podcasts can cover, or if you would like to feature in an upcoming episode.
Recent Publications
Books, Journal and Articles
Gutheil, L. and Koch, D. (2022) ‘Civil society organizations and managerialism: On the depoliticization of the adaptive management agenda’. Development Policy Review. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12630
Using case studies from CSOs in Uganda and Vietnam, this study argues that adaptive programming is competing with managerial logics, which remains the dominant paradigm in the civil society aid sector. As such, the authors argue that the social transformative and political nature of adaptive development management is rendered technical and depoliticized in practice.
Kattel, R. and Drechsler, Karo, E. (2022) How to Make an Entrepreneurial State; Why Innovation Needs Bureaucracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (Not open access).
This book explores how public bodies pursue innovation, looking at how new policies are designed and implemented. The authors argue for the importance of ‘agile stability’, demonstrating that in order to successfully innovate, state organisations have to move nimbly like start-ups and yet ensure stability at the same time, in order to overcome financial and political resistance to change.
Khan, M., Watkins, M., and Zahan, I. (2022) ‘De-risking private power in Bangladesh: How financing design can stop collusive contracting’. Energy Policy, 168. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113146
This article explores the issue of collusive contracting with private power plants in Bangladesh, mainly caused by the unwillingness of politically unconnected firms to engage in a high-risk environment. Highlighting why it really matters to understand the underlying incentives and power relations in designing interventions to make power more affordable, the authors argue for what they refer to ‘contestable subsidies’ from development finance institutions that are open to all bidders and can help encourage participation from unconnected investors to make collusion more difficult.
Slater, D. and Wong, J. (2022) From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Not open access).
This book explores why some Asian countries have become more democratic as they have grown richer, while others—most notably China—haven’t. Slater and Wong argue that Asia defies the conventional expectation that authoritarian regimes concede democratisation only as a last resort, during times of weakness. Instead, (some) Asian dictators have pursued democratic reforms as a proactive strategy to revitalize their power from a position of strength. Of central importance is whether authoritarians are confident of victory and stability. Reconsidering China’s 1989 crackdown, Slater and Wong argue that it was the action of a regime too weak to concede, not too strong to fail, and they explain why China can allow democracy without inviting instability.
Ssennyonjo, A. (2022) ‘Beyond “Lack of Political Will”: Elaborating Political Economy Concepts to Advance “Thinking and Working Politically” - Comment on “Health Coverage and Financial Protection in Uganda: A Political Economy Perspective’. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, pp.1-4.
Based on an evaluation of Nannini et al’s research doing PEA of financial risk protection reforms in Uganda, this note offers insights into how to promote politically informed approaches to designing, implementing and evaluating policy reforms and development efforts.
Usman, Z. (2022) Economic Diversification in Nigeria: The Politics of Building a Post-Oil Economy. Bloomsbury Publishing.
This book argues that Nigeria’s major development challenge is not the ‘oil curse’, but rather one of achieving economic diversification beyond oil, subsistence agriculture, informal activities, and across its subnational entities. Through analysis drawing on economic data, policy documents, and interviews, Usman argues that Nigeria’s challenge of economic diversification is situated within the political setting of an unstable distribution of power among individual, group, and institutional actors.
Venugopal, R. (2022) ‘Can the anti-politics machine be dismantled?’, New Political Economy, pp.1-15.
This article explores the question, ‘why is development so depoliticised, and how can this be remedied?’ Drawing on critical development literature, the author argues that politics is inherently uncertain, while knowledge production about development politics, for example through political economy analysis, ultimately seeks to govern uncertainty. In this way, the political realm is rendered legible — and also technical and depoliticised. As such, according to the author, the ‘anti-politics’ machine perpetually regenerates itself.
Reports, Briefs and Working Papers
Barnes, C., Carver, F., Cheema, A., Ruach Guok, D., Betty Han, N., Khaddour, K., Diing Majok, J., Nagi, A., and Tokmajyan, A. (2022) Border Towns, Markets and Conflict, XCEPT Research: The Asia Foundation, Rift Valley Institute, and Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
This report looks at how cross-border political economies function in borderlands (Afghanistan-Pakistan, Myanmar-Thailand, South Sudan-Ethiopia, South Sudan-Sudan, Syria-Turkey, and Yemen-maritime border). It looks into how political contestation, economic competition and/or social change in fragile and conflict affected states can be observed and better understood. Through a variety of case studies, the report argues, among other things, that conflict, insecurity, and overlapping authority in the borderlands are partly a result of struggles to harness or exploit global market forces, whether as goods, labour, resources, or even as ideas or ideologies.
Boese, V., Alizada, N., Lundstedt, M., Morrison, K., Natsika, N., Sato, Y., Tai, H., and Lindberg, S. (2022) Autocratization Changing Nature?, Democracy Report 2022. Gothenburg: Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem).
Using the V-Dem dataset, which is based on assessments by 3,700 experts from 180 countries, this report offers an overview of the state of democracy and changing nature of autocratisation in the world in 2021. Evidence suggests leaders with authoritarian tendencies are becoming bolder and taking more drastic actions, leading to further autocratisation, polarisation and the erosion of democracy.
Byiers, B. and Karkare, P. (2022) ‘Actors and interests along the Dakar-Bamako corridor’, Discussion paper. Brussels: ECDPM.
Analysing the economic and political factors that explain trade and transport dynamics along the Dakar-Bamako border, this paper argues that a range of bureaucratic and other rent-seeking interests prevent the full implementation of customs and transit measures to improve trade facilitation, despite government commitments to implement the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
For more on the political economy of regional integration, see the event the TWP CoP held recently in collaboration with ECDPM on ‘Thinking and working politically about regional cooperation and integration’.
Laws, E. (2022) ‘Addressing economic problems through politically smart coalitions: core lessons from S2JK’. London: ODI.
This short learning paper draws lessons from the adaptive programme ‘Support to the Jogorku Kenesh’ (S2JK) in the Kyrgyz Republic in two areas: building and managing coalitions and solving problems with coalitions.
Laws, E. and Rinnert, D. (2022) Working politically to support economic reforms in Kyrgyzstan: lessons from an issue-based programme. London: ODI.
This report was written in parallel to the report above, and shares more in-depth lessons from the S2JK project. The authors’ view is that part of the strength of the S2JK programme has been its flexibility and corresponding skill-set among the team to support narrower, ‘bottom-up’ reform processes, as well as broader, ‘top-down’ initiatives, in response to different opportunities. The paper also offers recommendations for improving the effectiveness of issue-based programming.
Mansfield, D. (2022) Changing the Rules of the Game: How the Taliban Regulated Cross-Border Trade and Upended Afghanistan’s Political Economy. Briefing Paper. XCEPT Research.
Based on six months of in-depth research that combined focused fieldwork with high resolution satellite imagery and geospatial analysis, this research explores changes in the rules that govern cross-border trade in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, and its implications.
McLoughlin, C., Hiriasia, T., Hudson, D., Krishna, U., Leua Nanau, G., Rhodes, A., and Roche, C. (2022) Inclusive Development in Solomon Islands: Unlocking the potential of developmental leadership’ Development Leadership Programme. Birmingham: University of Birmingham.
This paper explores the political economy of uneven development in the Solomon Islands, inequalities in accessing services, and pockets of developmental leadership. It introduces DLP’s project on ‘Citizen state engagement in Solomon Islands’, arguing that there may be untapped potential in better understanding when and how leaders in communities across Solomon Islands work together to create goods and services that are beneficial for all.
McQuay, K., Nixon, N., Yates, P., and Saluja, S. (2022) Rollout: Reflections on COVID-19 Vaccination Programs in Lower Middle-Income Asia, GovAsia Issue 2.1, The Asia Foundation.
Using a political economy approach, this report explores four challenges that different lower-middle income countries in Asia face as they embarked on massive universal vaccination campaigns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: vaccine shortages; how global supply inequities impacted 11 Asian LMICs; difficulties in rolling out vaccines equitably; and the ongoing challenge of vaccine hesitancy among populations.
Page, T., and Wando, A. (2022) Halting the Kleptocratic Capture of Local Government in Nigeria, Working Paper. Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
This paper assesses the corrupt and kleptocratic nature of local government in Nigeria. The authors suggest that dissolving local government would close off Nigeria’s capillaries of corruption. This, in turn, would free up scarce resources and redirect public demands for good governance and accountability toward state governments, giving grassroots citizens’ groups the space they need to play a greater role in community development.
Roberts, T., Hernandez, K., Faith, B., and Prieto Martín, P. (2022) Key Issues in Digitalisation and Governance. Bern: SDC Governance Network.
This report highlights the opportunities and challenges arising from the digitalisation of governance, with a strong emphasis on the need to think politically about technology and its potential to bring about (positive) change.
Westminster Foundation for Democracy (2022) ‘Strengthening democracy around the world’. Annual Review 2021-2022. London: Westminster Foundation for Democracy.
This report reviews WFD’s work to strengthen democracy throughout the world from 2021-2022, and reflects on where WFD is heading next.
Blogs, Podcasts and other opinion pieces
Baer, D. (2022) ‘DRG TIG Week: Thinking and Working Politically in the Evidence Movement: Lessons from the DRG Sector’, American Evaluation Association, 8th September.
This blog offers some lessons from the Democracy, Human Rights and Governance Topic Interest Group (DRG TIG) week that centre around TWP and how to foster progressive change. 1) Institutions matter; 2) Collective action matters because civil society and private sector engagement affect both political and public will; 3) Women’s empowerment is inherently political because it seeks to enlarge spheres of public action.
Bush, R. (2022) ‘Belt and Road Initiative in Malaysia - a tool for domestic political elites’, DevPolicy Blog, 2nd August.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is China’s primary vehicle for provision of a wide range of investment and development cooperation across the Indo-Pacific region. This blog analyses community perceptions of BRI in Malaysia, which is one of the Initiatives top beneficiaries, and the impact it has had on the elected government and political elites within Malaysia. Findings suggest subnational elites in Malaysia manipulate BRI funding to gain leverage against national elites.
Cheeseman, N. and Alderman, P. (2022) ‘Kenya election: four ways to better safeguard and defend democracy’, The Conversation, 5th August.
In the run up to the Kenyan and Brazilian elections, this article suggests four ways to better safeguard and defend democracy. These include i) strengthening international and domestic partnerships; ii) enforcing collated and harmonised recommendations from domestic and international observers; iii) monitoring digital and electronic technology; and iv) fighting disinformation.
Donna Juliet, E. (2022) ‘Who are “we”? Seeking African solutions to crises and funding gaps’, From Poverty to Power (FP2P), 2nd August.
This blog post stresses the need to shift power relations, share resources more equitably, and explore more African sources of funding to solve Africa’s crises instead of relying on the international community. This means engaging more with the private sector, creating more pooled funds, developing African philanthropy, and encouraging local and national NGOs to generate incomes through their own business enterprises.
Dye, B. (2022) ‘How costly political realities undercut Ghana’s electricity reforms’, The Conversation, 27th July.
Although it appeared Ghana reformed its electricity sector by the book, it has lurched from blackouts between 2012 and 2015 to a glut of energy which costs government about 5% of GDP. This article argues that implementing the “standard reform model” – a one-size-fits-all approach – ignored the country’s political realities which has made these challenges worse.
Evans, P. (2022) ‘Goodbye Government, Hello Corruption’, From Poverty to Power (FP2P), 31st August.
In this guest post, Evans, who was governance advisor and research commissioner at DFID/FCDO for two decades and is now Director of the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre in Norway, calls for the need to get to grips with the real politics in a given sector. In addition, he argues that every sector should assess its own corruption risks and politics, and invest in anti-corruption. He raises an important question for debate… ‘what would be the right amount to spend on anti-corruption in any big sector?’
Mendizabal, E. (2022) ‘Playing the long game: politics, elite bargaining, and change over 20 years in Peru’, From Poverty to Power (FP2P), 26th July.
This article analyses the shift in elite bargaining in Peru; from liberal democratic policies to the emergence of a new arrangement centred on right- wing politics. The author offers key lessons from Peru’s experience about how change, both progressive and less so, happens.
Shea, N. (2022) ‘Amid Commerce and Conflict, Some Border Towns Endure’, Asia Insights and Analysis Blog, The Asia Foundation, 20th July.
This podcast and blog post summarises a recent report on the complex role of border towns in violent conflict - looking in particular at the power, interests and informal dynamics in these regions. The research shows how formalising trade across these zones can lead to perverse effects on local populations caught in the middle.
Thampi, G., Surie, M., Saluja, S., Pillai, S., and Nixon, N. (2022) ‘Collaboration vs contestability: civic spaces in South Asia’, DevPolicy Blog, 26th July.
Using the case studies of Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, this blog post highlights how the trend towards democratic regression and shrinking civic space does not manifest in the same way everywhere. Yet, at the same time, opportunities for collective action do exist, sometimes in surprising and unpredictable ways.
Yerkes, S., McCoy, J., Stronski, P., De Waal, T., Brechenmacher, S., Pierini, M., Sayigh, Y., Meddeb, H. (2022) ‘Global Lessons for Tunisia’s Stalled Transition’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 21st July.
This article examines the key aspects of Tunisia’s stalled democratic transition through a comparative lens, both with other countries’ transitions and Tunisia’s own sectoral changes over time.
Youngs, R. (2022) ‘Autocracy versus democracy: After the Ukraine invasion: Mapping a middle way’, Carnegie Europe, 20th July.
This article explores what kind of coordination is likely to emerge between democracies given the sharpening divide between democracies and autocracies from the war in Ukraine. According to Youngs, ‘democratic countries have not yet built stronger and more mutually enhancing linkages between their big-picture geopolitics and their second-order decisions about democracy support’, such as how democratic action is funded, which agents of change are best supported, and where and when is conditionality appropriate.
Events
Recent Events
28 July 2022: Panel 8 Discussion: Importance of Youth participation on Democracy, International Institute Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
29 July 2022: Decentralisation to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking, Global Partners Governance.
8 September 2022: Being adaptive in humanitarian response, DSA Ireland Adaptive Programming Seminar.
20 - 26 September: United Nations General Assembly
Wednesday 28 September: ‘The mother of all presidential elections in (still) democratic Brazil’, Special Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS) and Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR) Seminar, University of Birmingham.
Upcoming Events:
Monday 10 - Sunday 16 October 2022: International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group 2022 Annual Meetings.
Monday 28 - Wednesday 30 November 2022: 2022 Australasian AID Conference.
Training, Learning Opportunities and other Resources
The Communication Initiative Network is a social network that aims to convene the communication and media development, social and behavioural change community for more effective local, national, and international development action. They also have a newsletter, ‘The Drum Beat Network’ which shares a series of resources on different development issues in each edition.
Swiss Peace offers educational courses in partnership with the University of Basel around peace building skills. The courses (which involve a fee) vary from 2-7 afternoons in length, and include topics such as Theories of Change in Fragile Contexts, Preventing Violent Conflicts, Strategic Dialogue in Peace Processes, Dealing with the Past, and more.
The Policy Practice has updated its online library on political economy analysis, and thinking and working politically. It consists of an annotated bibliography with an overview of key themes, document summaries and links to the most relevant open-access sources. Topics range from conceptual underpinning, guidance and toolkits through to recent case studies.
The National Endowment for Democracy has many interesting initiatives from a TWP perspective. In particular, they have a monthly newsletter on countering kleptocracy which you can find out more about and subscribe to here.
Tell us what you think…we want to hear from you!
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us for your suggestions and ideas for sections of our newsletter. You can do this via:
- Email: info@twpcommunity.org
- Twitter: @TWP_Community
- Or by leaving a comment down below