I love it when a book nails something that’s been lurking at the back of my mind, but never pinned down. The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa, by Nic Cheeseman, Gabrielle Lynch and Justin Willis, does just that. It explores the gulf between how politicians (and not just in Africa) see themselves (motivated by ideas of virtue as well

The Emerging Agency in a Time of Covid project is buzzing along nicely. Today (12.30pm, London time, 6th April) Niranjan Nampoothiri will summarize his findings from sorting, summarizing and coding the 200 cases for the project database. Register here. Headline findings here. We had a stocktake webinar recently looking for common patterns from a burgeoning set of discussion groups on

John Gaventa has been thinking, writing and theorising about power for at least four decades. His new essay ‘Linking the prepositions: using power analysis to inform strategies for social action’ should be on the reading lists of anyone at the wonkier end of the activist spectrum. It summarizes and reflects on some of the main frameworks for understanding power that

Changing power requires us to see the world differently. So as a final burst of energy to round up the lessons, insights and guiding lights from these two years of the Power Shifts project, we have set out to co-create a ‘virtual gallery for shifting power’. Through collaborating with two wonderful illustrators, we’ve attempted to find more creative ways to

Charles Kenny is a wonderfully fluent and accessible writer. He’s also quick, judging by his latest book, The Plague Cycle: The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease. Here’s how it opens: ‘The two leading killers worldwide at the start of the twenty-first century are heart attacks and strokes. That is evidence of humanity’s greatest triumph: until recent decades, most

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Guest post by Rory Horner (University of Manchester) and Ken Shadlen (LSE) Various UK media reports have blamed lower than expected supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine from India for a slowing of the UK’s vaccination programme, especially delaying immunisation of the under-50s. Although five million doses of vaccines produced by the Serum Institute of India were dispatched from India to

Read this in English here. Desafiar al poder fundamentalmente implica cambiar nuestra mirada. La manera en que actuamos en nuestros mundos depende de cómo los vemos, por lo tanto cambiar nuestra forma de ver se convierte en un paso esencial para transformar nuestro actuar. Si no exploramos diversas formas de expresar(nos), de ver(nos) y de (re)crear(nos), limitamos nuestras posibilidades colectivas.

Leer esta historia en español. The work of shifting power is fundamentally the work of changing our gaze. People act on how they see, and to change how we see, is to radically change how we act. By not exploring other forms of expressing, looking and creating, we’re limiting ourselves.  The development space is fixated on the written word. We

Riveting but horrendous report on widespread rape and human rights abuse in Tigray. Brilliant, human journalism by Jamal Osman of Channel 4 News My LSE activism students are breaking out of the classroom into real life. First Sofia Kellogg introduces the team behind the Impact.ivist, an Instagram account started by a group of the students to highlight social justice issues

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Guest post from Heather Marquette and Sian Herbert, both University of Birmingham. Their paper on ­­COVID-19, Governance and Conflict: Emerging Impacts and Future Evidence Needs, reviews hundreds of pieces of research and analysis and is published by the Knowledge for Development (K4D) COVID-19 Resource Hub. COVID-19 has so far proven to be a unique – and ongoing – global natural