The growing literature on social protection in Africa has tended to focus on conceptual debates, policy design issues and impact evaluations. To date, there has been relatively little systematic analysis of the ways in which politics and political economy shape policy. This paper outlines a...

This article argues that the theory and practice of social protection should be relocated within a project of social justice. However, different theories of social justice can and do shape social protection in different ways, and this article argues that a radical approach, which focuses on the...

Moving beyond the mantra that 'politics matters', a range of conceptual approaches have recently emerged within international development thinking that seek to capture the specific ways in which politics shapes development. This paper critically assesses whether these approaches, including work...

The new political economy of development, characterised by the rising powers' new resource finds in many poor countries and the financial crisis, has driven development ideas and practices towards a paradigm shift, moving it beyond the post-Washington Consensus which marked the high point of...

The capacity and commitment of Uganda to govern its oil in developmental ways has generally been discussed through a ‘new institutionalist’ prism that focuses on the dangers of the ‘resource curse’. This paper argues that the developmental potential of oil in Uganda can be more...

This article analyses the recent resurgence of political analysis within international development. It argues that although new conceptual approaches have brought valuable insights concerning the links between popular agency, institutional politics and development possibilities, several problems...

Despite growing international interest with social protection, little is known about the forms of politics that tend to underpin - and emerge from - such interventions. For example, under what conditions do governments and political elites implement and sustain social protection policies? How...