Featured image for “How does research for advocacy work ? A useful new guide”

How does research for advocacy work ? A useful new guide

April 18, 2025
Our Blogger Emeritus Duncan Green on a new guide that draws on work in the US to influence policy on tobacco and health to identify five roles for research in policy change.
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Featured image for “Imposter syndrome: do you have it? And is it always a bad thing?”

Imposter syndrome: do you have it? And is it always a bad thing?

April 3, 2025
‘One male former government minister said he felt like an imposter a lot of the time… a government minister!’ Duncan Green reflects on how a recent conversation with LSE leadership students revealed widespread feelings of imposter syndrome.
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Featured image for “Santosh, a new film about modern India that you should not miss”

Santosh, a new film about modern India that you should not miss

March 24, 2025
FP2P’s blogger emeritus Duncan Green recommends Santosh, a film that anyone interested in India or social justice should not miss.
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Featured image for “The future of aid and what next-gen aid jobs might look like”

The future of aid and what next-gen aid jobs might look like

March 12, 2025
Thinking about a career in international development? Duncan Green explores the future of the aid sector and the prospects for those who want to work in it…  This post is adapted from his shiny new blog about activism, influencing and change, hosted by the LSE.
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Featured image for “Leadership in a global aid meltdown – top tips from 25 people who know”

Leadership in a global aid meltdown – top tips from 25 people who know

March 6, 2025
FP2P’s Duncan Green has a shiny new blog about activism, influencing and change, hosted by the LSE, which we’ll be sharing highlights from here. You can also subscribe here. In this post from the new blog, he shares some advice from humanitarian leaders in this bleak time for the sector – including talk more often to staff and partners, “watch the fog closely” and “don’t blabber” – and offers a couple of thoughts of his own.
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Featured image for “Two lessons from Trump’s attack on Aid”

Two lessons from Trump’s attack on Aid

February 4, 2025
Whatever finally emerges from the Trump Administration’s assault on USAID (and other governments such as Switzerland jumping on the bandwagon), surely the status quo ante is unlikely to return. What to do? Yes we can keep making the case for aid, hoping that the political tide will turn, but the political consensus around aid had been under assault since long
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How Can Activists Get Better at Driving Change?

December 19, 2024
Gave a lecture at York University recently on how activists can sharpen up their act. Nothing much new here, but the sound quality is good, and the Q&A was fun, so thought I’d repost here. Feel free to nick/copy/download etc. Best new line, IMO was towards the end: ‘Effective activism = analysis + anger + empathy, but in practice people find
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Searching for my voice, in fear and silence

December 17, 2024
Next up from my amazing LSE activism students, Fatima Aysha, a Syrian student with over five years of experience working with INGOs in Syria, including Action Against Hunger and the Aga Khan Foundation.  I wrote this blog on 23 October 2024 and decided not to publish it because of the phrase “walls have ears”, thinking that it might cause problems
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The Sounds of Resistance

December 12, 2024
This year’s students on the LSE course on activism, which I teach with Tom Kirk, are amazing. Recently ran a blogging workshop, and quite a few of them went on to produce lovely posts. Will stick my favourites up here over the next few weeks. First up, Salma Saleh  on music and politics, first published on the LSE International Development
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Featured image for “How did Advocacy work in Ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, China or India?”

How did Advocacy work in Ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, China or India?

December 4, 2024
Guest post by Tom Judd, one of my LSE activism students The tale of advocacy goes as far back as we can look. In ancient Egypt, around 1850 BC, a story known as the Eloquent Peasant emerged. It tells the story of a peasant who is cheated out of his land and has to use his eloquence to win justice.
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Featured image for “Top tips from community organizing guru Hahrie Han”

Top tips from community organizing guru Hahrie Han

December 2, 2024
Cycled across a freezing London recently to hear community organizing guru Hahrie Han launch her new book Undivided (review to follow) at an event organized by Act Build Change. It was well worth the cold ears and frozen feet. Han is US-based, the daughter of Korean immigrants and granddaughter of refugees from North Korea. She teaches at Johns Hopkins and
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Featured image for “Book Review: Renegotiating Patriarchy by Naila Kabeer”

Book Review: Renegotiating Patriarchy by Naila Kabeer

November 25, 2024
Another big book in international development just landed. Not in terms of size (330 pages) but significance. Naila Kabeer’s Renegotiating Patriarchy: Gender, Agency and the Bangladesh Paradox is a monumental achievement, literally: something the rest of us will be learning from, citing and pointing our students to for years to come. It’s even Open Access (viva LSE Press!). In a
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