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...

Service-delivery NGOs are often attacked for abandoning the pursuit of 'alternative development' in favour of 'technocratic' and 'depoliticised' forms of development. Yet some commentators argue that these organisations, through their 'technocratic' interventions, can in fact have progressive...

A capable state is essential for inclusive development, and throughout the developing world governments and international development agencies are seeking to build it through a multifaceted agenda of Public Sector Reform (PSR). This paper presents an analytical review of the PSR agenda,...

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 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...

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...

The changing character of the political settlement in Uganda since independence has closely shaped the character and performance of the institutions and actors responsible for delivering development. Successive political leaders sought to establish 'dominant ruler' forms of political settlement,...

This paper provides an overview of the recent extension of social protection in sub- Saharan Africa. It identifies two main ‘models’ of social protection in the region: the Southern Africa and Middle Africa models. It then assesses the contrasting policy processes behind these models and...

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...

Debates over whether democratic or neopatrimonial forms of politics are driving the politics of development in Africa have increasingly given way to more nuanced readings which seek to capture the dynamic interplay of these forms of politics. However, most current analyses fail to identify the...