The politics of development has shifted significantly in recent years, with largely negative implications for the poverty agenda. This is particularly apparent in countries like Uganda where “poverty reduction papers” have been displaced by national development plans aimed at “structural...

In 2015 the Government of Uganda agreed to start rolling out a social pension programme, and increasing its own contribution to it. This was driven by the highly politicized efforts of a transnational policy coalition, led by international donors and national bureaucrats. It was a struggle over...

Uganda is frequently lauded for adopting a rules-based approach to oil governance, despite having failed to move to production after discovering commercial quantities of oil in 2006. This has been closely associated with the political support and autonomy offered to a ‘pocket of bureaucratic...

New theories of how democratic development is likely to emerge within developing countries obscure the effects of popular agency, and of ideas, offering an incomplete view of such historical processes and exaggerating the extent to which a particular sequencing of change is required. Insights...

In 2015 the Government of Uganda agreed to start rolling out a social pension programme across the country and to increase its own financial contribution to this. This outcome was largely driven by the decade-long and highly politicised efforts of a transnational policy coalition, led by mainly...

Why do certain parts of the state in Africa work so effectively despite operating in difficult governance contexts? How do 'pockets of bureaucratic effectiveness' emerge and become sustained over time? And what does this tell us about the prospects for state-building and development in Africa?...