Theory tells us that democracies should become more equal. So why are they still so unequal? Gideon Coolin, Emanuele Sapienza, and Andy Sumner on their new UNDP paper that unpicks the politics of inequality.

Christopher Choong Weng Wai is the Deputy Director of Research at Khazanah Research Institute in Malaysia and an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics. His research interest is in the everyday reproduction of poverty, inequalities and exclusion. He tweets at @chrischoongww. For those of us who work on public policy

Being a fan of the UN is always a bit of a mixed blessing. Various bits (UNDP, UNICEF, UN Women and many more) churn out some really useful research. For many years, they provided the sole islands of sanity resisting the market fundamentalism of the Washington Consensus. But all too often their publications sink without trace, their use of social

I wrote this for the ‘Development and the Crisis‘ website I plugged recently, but thought I’d recycle it here: It’s official. Protectionism is the Great Satan. Gordon Brown decries it in Davos; William Easterly crows over what he sees as Dani Rodrik’s conversion to the cause. All countries must eschew protectionism or risk a disastrous return to the trade wars that triggered

Take a look at Development and the Crisis, a new online debate moderated by Dani Rodrik, which has kicked off with contributions from Nancy Birdsall, Jose Antonio Ocampo, Arvind Subramanian, and Yung Chul Park. Here are some excerpted highlights from Dani’s opening pitch ‘Let developing nations rule’: