
October 2, 2023
This guest post by Esther Brito Ruiz first appeared on the Global Policy blog. The impacts of Russiaâs war in Ukraine have been deeply gendered: from human traffickers targeting women and children fleeing airstrikes, to the increase in gender-based violence, rising feminized poverty, and haunting testimonies of sexual violence. Yet despite these disproportionate vulnerabilities, Ukrainian women have also emerged as vital agents of resistance: as
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Finishing a 2nd Edition of How Change Happens – here are drafts of two new chapters for you to read. Comments please!
September 26, 2023
I spent the summer toiling away on updating How Change Happens. Luckily the weather was pretty rubbish, so I didnât resent it too much. Most of the chapter updates were just that â adding more recent stats, a few new references, a generally more sombre take, given that the first edition appeared just months before Brexit and Trump. But there
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Fancy some Good News? Brits are getting nicer.
September 21, 2023
Fancy some good news? A fascinating piece in todayâs Guardian outlines the magnitude of the norm shifts that have taken place in the UK after the last 40 years, based on the latest British social attitudes (BSA) survey, which is marking its 40th year of mapping Britainâs cultural and political landscape. Underneath the left-right pendulum shifts of political debate, the
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What can we learn from how an Adaptive Management programme has navigated Myanmarâs current chaos?
September 19, 2023
I accompanied a project in Myanmar that ran from August 2017 to October 2021 implemented by DT Global. This blog is written together with guest bloggers Jane Lonsdale and Kelly Robertson. As part of the programmeâs final output, we wrote a âreflection paperâ, discussing what ended up as being an important natural experiment in Adaptive Management (AM), as a governance
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Top Student blogs: Green to Go: The Better Way to Take Away
August 16, 2023
I’m posting some of the best work from this year’s LSE activism students this week. Here’s Martin Caforio (mcaforio@icloud.com if you want to see his full campaign strategy and/or offer him a job) introducing his campaign. When you get a daily coffee, your local chain tells you the cup is âsustainable.â Recyclable plastic, compostable, responsibly sourced and produced. But even
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Top Student blogs: Thereâs a chicken in the desert!
August 15, 2023
I’m posting some of the best work from this year’s LSE activism students this week. Here’s Jessica Louise (jessalou1998@gmail.com if you want to see her full campaign strategy and/or offer her a job) introducing her campaign. As an active campaigner for Trussell Trust, one of the UKâs leading charities supporting food banks throughout the nation, I am constantly amazed by
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Top Student Blogs: Are you #ManEnoughToSnip?
August 14, 2023
While most of you (at least in Northern hemisphere) are hopefully enjoying a summer break, or at least a lull, my poor LSE students are trying to finish their dissertations. Thought Iâd throw them a bone by putting up some of the best of their blog/vlog assignments on the course I teach with Tom Kirk on âAdvocacy, Campaigning and Grassroots
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Do Southern-based Transnationals behave worse than Northern ones?
August 9, 2023
Iâm a big fan of league tables for comparing performance by powerful players, whether governments, NGOs or corporates. If done well, they can prompt a race to the top, with players competing to move up the table in successive years. The latest one of these to cross my timeline was the 2023 Food and Beverage Benchmark Report, produced by âKnowTheChainâ,
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The Role of ‘Critical Friends’ in Research and Aid Programmes
July 20, 2023
One particular chapter in How to Engage Policy Makers with your Research felt particularly relevant to me. For some years, I have been working with Exfamer Jane Lonsdale, in Tanzania, Myanmar and now in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where she helps run a big Aussie-funded programme on citizen engagement. I support Jane and the teams she works with by commenting
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How Can Researchers Support the Policy Shift to Sustainability?
July 19, 2023
My favourite chapter in How to Engage Policy Makers with your Research (in addition to the one on Critical Friends which goes up tomorrow) was by Alice Owen, a prof at Leeds university, on âSupporting policy towards sustainabilityâ. Itâs a lovely reflection from a senior academic on the lessons she has learned in engaging with policy makers over the years.
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How to Engage Policy Makers with your Research: The Art of Informing and Impacting Policy. Book Review to kick off Research for Impact week on FP2P
July 18, 2023
Edited by a bunch of UK academics (Oxford Brookes and Manchester), this book is a gold mine for anyone interested in research for impact (R4I) – the holy grail (at least in terms of lip service) of much of modern academia. Best thing Iâve read on the subject, with something for more or less everyone, so Iâm going to devote
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Showing Your Working when you come up with a âKiller Factâ
July 12, 2023
Oxfam got some headlines last week with âWorldâs 722 biggest companies âmaking $1tn in windfall profitsââ. This is a good example of a âkiller factâ â a memorable statistic that summarizes an injustice, in this case a massive windfall for big corporates at a time of global austerity and spiralling food and fuel prices. Hereâs my 2019 guide to writing
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