London School of Economics and Political Science Research Papers (original) (raw)

2025

This week Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) visited Washington DC and met with President Trump. Jesus Velasco writes that despite criticisms of AMLO over his visit, the summit will be a win for the Mexican president,... more

2025

how-european-integration-influences-the-way-we-think-about-redistribution-of-income/ How European integration influences the way we think about redistribution of income

2025

lit-fest-2017-book-review-age-of-anger-a-history-of-thepresent-by-pankaj-mishra/ How can we explain the apparent rise in hatred in societies around the world? In Age of Anger: A History of the Present, Pankaj Mishra offers a take on our current predicament by tracing increased disaffection, disappointment and disillusionment back through to the eighteenth century. Packed with references drawn from various disciplines and eras, this is a book whose insights deserve thorough contemplation as we search for answers to our 'age of anger', writes Kate Bailey.

2025

Using the example of the village of Inke in Democratic Republic of Congo, Aaron Pangburn and Jose Ndala provide insight into how an inclusive approach and the support of host communities can improve the lives of displaced.

2025, London School of Economics and Political Science

Where does Brexit leave Central and Eastern Europe? On the one hand, it pulls the centre of EU gravity eastwards, further away from the Atlantic. On the other, it leaves the region vulnerable on its eastern frontier. Alina Bârgăoanu... more

2025, Slim Abdullahi ELmi

and Eritrea-has been mired in conflict, famine, and political instability. These challenges have often overshadowed the region's vast potential. Yet, the key to unlocking lasting peace and development lies not in isolated national efforts or mere diplomatic talks, but in robust economic integration. Why Economic Ties Matter More Than Tribal Divides Ethnic and territorial conflicts have long plagued the Horn of Africa, fueling cycles of violence and mistrust. However, history and contemporary experience suggest that economic interdependence can serve as a powerful deterrent to conflict. When countries rely on each other for trade, investment, and shared prosperity, the cost of conflict rises dramatically. Take the example of Kenya and Somalia. Despite a history marked by political tensions and security concerns, their economies are deeply connected. The khat trade, which supports thousands of livelihoods on both sides, exemplifies this link. When Somalia imposed a temporary ban on Kenyan khat in 2020, the negative economic impact was felt in both countries. This episode illustrated that economic ties create mutual incentives for peace and cooperation that often surpass formal peace agreements.

2025, London School of Economics and Political Science

2025

. His current research explores the social impact of digital technologies and how these technologies change the way we communicate and contribute in the shaping of our identity.

2025

From the outset of the ‘Arab Spring’, Turkey has pursued an active foreign policy and supported a number of recent popular uprisings throughout the Arab world. Having appeared on Arab TV channels such as Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya to express Turkish support of political opposition in revolutionary Arab countries, Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, is now a familiar and popular figure in the Arab world. The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, conducted an ‘Arab Spring Tour’, where he visited post-uprising Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. In his visit to the latter, Erdogan was greeted at the airport by chairman of Libya’s new National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil. He has even been compared by some to the late Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose pan Arab propaganda, amongst other factors, made him a regional hero in the 1950s.

2025

Under the advice of the World Health Organization, countries around the world have implemented state messaging campaigns to ensure their populations socially distance and stay at home. Here Ranjan Saha Partha (Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh) and Abul Kalam (Helen Keller International, Bangladesh) explain what they discovered by interviewing 30 people on low incomes in the districts of Savar and Ashulia just outside of Dhaka.

2025

This thesis is about diasporic audiences and their experiences of news. The main concern throughout is the under-researched question of how members of a diasporic audience, such as the Palestinians in Britain, use news, what they do with it and what it means for their social action and interaction. Taking into account the diverse news media the Palestinians in Britain engage with, this thesis investigates what news means for diasporas like the Palestinians - what it means for identity, belonging and community and what it means for their participation in societal action - by exploring the meanings surrounding the act of engagement with news narratives, rather than by examining the moment of consumption per se. Using a synthesis of original empirical work and an interdisciplinary theoretical inquiry into political communication, nationalism, identity, news and collective memory, this thesis shows that news, particularly television news, emerges as a significant resource in the informa...

2025

Recent legislation challenges Burundian drums and drumming as a heritage passed down by generations. Restrictions on the who and how of playing these instruments attempts to create a commodity out of a performance with national importance. Instead, people should resist these measures and use drum performances to propagate the country’s cultural richness, showcasing it as an inclusive practice valuable to world heritage.

2025

In this blog post, Joachim Blatter (University of Lucerne) explains why Britain cannot and should not imitate the Swiss model of sectoral bilateralism. He also outlines where the British and the Swiss could join forces for re-inventing transnational governance and democracy in Europe after Brexit. Britain cannot imitate the Swiss model of sectoral bilateralism In Switzerland, direct forms of democracy are ...

2025

This thesis contributes to the research on determinants and welfare effects of real exchange rate movements. Chapters two to four focus on a discussion of money supply shocks as one of the sources of changes in the real exchange rate. More specifically chapter two contains a critical overview of empirical and theoretical research that contributes to our understanding of the monetary transmission mechanism in open economies. The chapter analyses two specific classes of models, liquidity models and sticky price models and investigates to which degree these models are able to rationalise the result of related empirical studies. The third chapter focuses on the determinants of the welfare effects of money supply shocks across countries if prices are sticky. It analyses specifically the implications of different forms of price stickiness. Furthermore it combines these nominal rigidities with different real imperfections in the labour market. The chapter concludes that the impact of a mon...

2025

Coordinating in action groups consists of continuously adapting behaviors in response to fluctuating conditions, ideally with limited disruption to a group's collective performance. Through an 18-month ethnography of how members of a community choir maintained beautiful, ongoing performance, I explored how they continuously adapted their coordinating, starting when they felt that their collective performance was fragmented or falling apart. The process model I developed shows that this aesthetic experience-the sense of fragmentation based on inputs from the bodily senses-leads to emotional triggering, meaning group members' emotions prompt changes in their attention and behavior. They then distribute their attention in new ways, increasing their focus on both global qualities of their ongoing performance (in this context, the musical score and conductor) and local qualities (singers' contributions). My findings suggest that by changing what aspects of a situation compose their immediate experience, action group members can adapt their coordinating behaviors by changing their heed: the behavior that demonstrates their attentiveness and awareness. The intertwining of attention and emotions helps explain how groups move between heedless and heedful interrelating over time, leading to an aesthetic experience of collective performance as being whole or coherent. My research shows that embodied forms of cognition (what we know from direct experience of an environment) complement accounts of how representational forms of knowledge (what we know from symbols, concepts, or ideas) facilitate real-time adaptation in groups. These insights have implications for a range of organizations engaged in complex action group work.

2025

There could hardly be any doubt that the pursuit of development objectives, especially in a developing country such as Nigeria, is a legitimate and in fact necessary path for economic, social and political advancement. Within the decades of the 1970s and 1980s however, increased concern about the adverse environmental and socio-economic effects of certain specific development activities have necessitated a search for appropriate development paradigms that would enable the attainment of development objectives with as little environmental and socio-economic adversity as possible. A concept that has so far become very popular in this quest for a development paradigm is that of "sustainable development" which, in simple terms, could be described as a paradigm which seeks to integrate the objective of protection of the environment with the traditional objectives of development. Furthermore, law is being increasingly considered an important tool in the provision of the framework...

2025

This paper summarises discussions held at the fourth round-table style meeting with a group of expert stakeholders with experience in specialist disease areas and commissioning of care plus prior experience in the field of real world evidence (RWE). The aim of these meetings was to gain an understanding of the use of RWE across Europe and to develop a road map of initiatives for the pharmaceutical industry in order to enhance their use of RWE. This, the fourth and final paper in this series, outlines the future potential of the stakeholder group involved in the project to date. outcomes data. These action points are seen as the most imperative steps for enhancing the role of RWE. If its use is to become more common addressing these steps, as quickly and efficiently as possible, will be vital for all stakeholders in the pharmaceutical arena.

2025

The financial crisis affected economies across the world, but the recovery from the crisis has varied significantly, with some countries quickly returning to growth and others remaining in a prolonged period of stagnation. Mark Crosby writes on the lessons that Australia’s handling of the crisis could have for Europe. He notes that many of the reforms that allowed Australia to weather the crisis followed a similar rationale to those contained in the EU’s Lisbon Agenda, outlined in 2000. Unlike Australia, however, the EU has suffered from a crisis in implementation, epitomised by the failure to find a lasting solution to the ongoing debt problem in Greece.

2025, Canadian Journal of Public Health

2025

In The (Un)Governable City: Productive Failure in the Making of Colonial Delhi, 1858-1911, Raghav Kishore explores the transformation of urban governance in Delhi in the nineteenth century, demonstrating that many of the clashes and conflicts in urban planning were ‘productive failures’ that allowed the state to expand its control and the local population to assert their rights and space in urban planning. This is a must-read book for all history enthuasists, writes Gayathri D. Naik, and is also recommended to town planners looking to understand the legacies of this era of planning today. The (Un)Governable City: Productive Failure in the Making of Colonial Delhi, 1858-1911. Raghav Kishore. Orient BlackSwan. 2020

2025

In August, Kerala was devastated by floods and landslides. At least 350 people died and 220,000 were left homeless. As the Indian Government vows to rebuild the state, Gayathri D Naik argues that to prevent another climate catastrophe,... more

2025

In Legal Protection for Traditional Knowledge: Towards A New Law for Indigenous Intellectual Property, Anindya Bhukta underscores the value of traditional knowledge and argues that legal systems need to ensure better protection of this knowledge, with a particular focus on India. This book is an ideal primer for readers looking to find out more about the laws concerning traditional knowledge, writes Gayathri D Naik, and Bhukta’s proposals for a new legal approach embody his in-depth research and knowledge of the subject.

2025

In India in a Warming World: Integrating Climate Change and Development, Navroz K. Dubash brings together contributors to reflect on climate change and development debates in India, discussing India’s climate vulnerability, the impact of climate policies on long-term development and India’s global engagement through foreign policy. Readers will close the book appreciating the need for societal cooperation to ensure a harmonious approach to development and environmental conservation that achieves equity among different needs, writes Gayathri D. Naik. professionals.

2025, Unpublished Ph. D. thesis, University of London

This thesis is an ethnographic account of contemporary religious practice among a Bantu agricultural people in Southern Tanzania, the majority of whom are affiliated to the Rom an Catholic Church. It examines the dialectic between Christianity and what the Pogoro consider to be 'traditional' practice as resulting in a locally defined Catholicism and in the separation of formal, official Christianity from 'traditional practice'. The thesis looks at how the existence of an institutional religion, in this case Catholicism, defines some aspects of local practice as traditional in opposition to it, while, at the same time, elements of Christian practice have been adopted by the community in a non institutional way. The thesis describes Pogoro Christianity, the role of the Church and Pogoro perceptions of it and gives an account of that which they consider to belong to the realm of 'tradition'. Traditional practice is not in actuality unchanging, but any changes in traditional practice must be legitimated by the authority of the dead and the spirits. T he first part of the thesis provides the historical and geographical background. This is followed by a chapter on the Catholic Church in the area and official Catholic practice. Local Catholic practice and perceptions of the church and Christianity are described and accounted for. The next section looks at what is constituted as belonging to the realm of 'tradition'. The core chapters in this section describe girls puberty rites, funerals and the relationship with the dead. It is here that Catholic practice enters the realm of 'tradition'. A chapter examines the place of witchcraft eradication movements among the Pogoro, and in East and central Africa, to demonstrate how 'tradition' can and does change, and to provide a contrast with the position of Christianity among the Pogoro. This is dealt with in the final chapter in which I argue that there are limits on the 'traditionalisation' of Christianity among the Pogoro, and in other similar societies, and that these limits are to some extent a function of the institutional nature of Christianity.

2025

In the first round of the primary to select the French centre-right's candidate for the 2017 presidential election, François Fillon unexpectedly came out in first place, ahead of favourite Alain Juppé, and former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was subsequently eliminated. Françoise Boucek assesses the policy differences between Juppé and Fillon ahead of the second round due to be held on Sunday. The surprise result of last week's primary for the French centre right presidential nomination, whose second round will be held on 27 November, suggests that France's presidential elections next April might also hold some surprises. François Fillon's unexpected and clear victory in the first-round, ahead of long-time favourite Alain Juppé, and the elimination of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, make for difficult predictions. But the televised debate on 24 November revealed a sharp contrast in policy approach between Fillon's transformative stance and Juppé's policy of adjustment. Can former Prime Minister and Paris MP François Fillon maintain his winning streak to defeat the 71 year-old mayor of Bordeaux this Sunday? Juppé trailed him by 16 points in the first round but remains one of the most popular French politicians. Fillon, on the other hand, should be able to count on the support of Sarkozy's followers. In his concession speech last Sunday, Sarkozy personally endorsed his loyal former Prime Minister, although he didn't tell his supporters how they should vote in the second round. Open party primaries are a new thing in France. The Socialists first adopted this voting system in 2011 to select their candidate for the 2012 presidential election won by François Hollande. Then, all supporters on the left (not just active party members) were allowed to vote in exchange for a minimum contribution of €1 and signing a charter supporting the general values of the left. The Socialists won't select their presidential candidate until January, but Hollande, despite being the most unpopular French president of the Fifth Republic, hasn't ruled himself out so far. And his young protégé Emmanuel Macron recently resigned as economy minister to run for the presidency as an independent candidate. So there is a lot of uncertainty on the left as well.

2025

In the first round of the primary to select the French centre-right’s candidate for the 2017 presidential election, Francois Fillon unexpectedly came out in first place, ahead of favourite Alain Juppe, and former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was subsequently eliminated. Francoise Boucek assesses the policy differences between Juppe and Fillon ahead of the second round due to be held on Sunday.

2025

France held local elections on 22 and 29 March, with Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP receiving the largest share of the vote ahead of Marine Le Pen’s Front National. Francoise Boucek writes that while there is still a long way to go, the UMP’s success, combined with disappointing results for Francois Hollande’s Socialist Party, sets the stage for the next French presidential election.

2025

This theme explores issues on actors and interests in the maritime space in this RSGA area, in addition to the important affair of ports in the region and how significant they are in modern economies in relation to shipping and transshipment in the same area. Lastly this section sheds light on the opportunities available with regards to blue economy. It is worthwhile to mention here that; strategic significance of RSGA area, beyond doubt, exceeds its economic importance to geopolitical factors, security and military dimensions

2025

The current system of knowledge dissemination isn't working and Sci-Hub is merely a symptom of the problem... more

The current system of knowledge dissemination isn't working and Sci-Hub is merely a symptom of the problem blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2016/09/26/the-current-system-of-knowledge-dissemination-isnt-working-and-sci-hub-is-merely-a-sy That Sci-Hub's activities are illegal is not disputed. However, according to Iván Farías Pelcastre and Flor González Correa the issue at the core of the debate is the current publishing and knowledge dissemination system and how it widens socioeconomic inequalities in academia and constrains its collective progress. The widespread use of Sci-Hub, the world's "first pirate website" for research papers, has fuelled one of the most important cross-disciplinary debates in academia in recent times. Since it emerged in 2011, academics, librarians, and publishers have expressed varied opinions about Sci-Hub, a website which currently provides free access to more than 51 million scientific academic papers and articles and claims to be "challenging the status quo" of academic publishing.

2025

Department of Government PhD candidates Anahi Wiedenbrug, Antoine Louette and Temi Ogunye reflect on Wolfgang Streeck’s recent public lecture at LSE titled ‘How Will Capitalism End ?’, which took place on Monday 7 November. Listen to the... more

2025

Hussein Kassim presents findings from a new book that reveals the inner workings of one of the world's most powerful international administrations. Examining the backgrounds and beliefs of officials, and how the organisation has changed over the past decade, he argues that the European Commission is stronger and better equipped to meet the challenges that confront the European Union than is often thought. In a Eurosceptic age, the European Commission is widely viewed as the arch-bureaucracyremote, arrogant and imperious. In the public mind, the organization is populated by zealous federalists, with little experience of the world beyond Brussels. Its depiction in the academic literature is often no more sympathetic. The Commission is typically presented as either monolithic and expansionist or hopelessly fragmented and difficult to lead. These accepted wisdoms were put to the test in a major study conducted by a multinational team of researchers, who investigated the internal operation of the Commission and the backgrounds, beliefs and careers of its staff, as well as their attitudes and responses to the changes brought by administrative reform and the enlargements of the EU in 2004 and 2007. At the heart of the study was the largest and most representative survey of Commission staff ever conducted by independent researchers, involving almost 2000 people. The team also carried out more than 200 interviews with Commissioners, cabinet members middle and senior managers, and administrators. Jose Manuel Barroso Credit: Maria Brianchon (Creative Commons BY NC ND) The findings, published in a new book, The European Commission of the Twenty-First Century, challenge many widely held views about the Commission. The book also answers important questions about how the organization functions and about its staff that were previously unaddressed or where the existing literature is now out of date. Among the myths it dispels are the following: Commission officials have no experience of life beyond Brussels . In fact, 96 per cent of officials worked somewhere else before deciding to pursue a career in the European Commission. In addition, the workforce is more diverse

2025

We're fast changing from paid effort to customer self-service, while there are few new job categories in sight, writes Carsten Sorensen

2025, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography

The appearance of At the Edge ofEmpire: The Backcountryin British North America marks the maturation of colonial backcountry studies. Building on the work of a generation of scholars who focused on the edges of European settlement, Eric Hinderaker and Peter Mancall have written a concise, synthetic narrative of the backcountry from Georgia to Maine. In the process, they successfully argue for its centrality in colonial American history. They also recognize the importance of Native Americans to the distinctive character of the region and incorporate the native perspective in an effort to create "a balanced and complex portrayal of a vast and contested land" (p. 7). As much as Hinderaker and Mancall seek to build a balanced narrative, however, the dominant theme of the story they tell-as they admit-is the unstoppable expansion of English trade and settlement. The ambitions of English traders fueled both intercultural contact and the expansion of market forces into native territories. The land hunger of the ever-increasing population of European farmers propelled the fringes of the empire outward. Indeed, Hinderaker and Mancall remark repeatedly that no one could have foreseen the speed with which the English pushed westward, or the pervasiveness of the changes they would enact. Migration in this period, they argue, was a revolutionary act because it "cemented the legitimacy of westward migration as a viable, and increasingly universal" (p. 151) family strategy that would strain the British Empire's ability to rule the colonies. Hinderaker and Mancall also repeat that residents of the backcountry, European and native, sought to establish a pattern of peace in the region. Yet, their narrative starkly illuminates the defining role war and violence played in the backcountry and the colonial American experience. Much of At the Edge of Empire reads as a litany of war. The Powhatan Wars, the Pequot War, the Iroquois Mourning Wars, Bacon's Rebellion, Metacom's War, King William's War, Queen Anne's War, the Yamasee War, the Tuscarora War, and, finally, the Seven Years' War punctuated the steady stream of conflicts in which the British pushed Indians off their land, pitted native groups against one another, and deployed native allies against their European rivals. This pattern of war and conflict, on top of the devastation wrought by disease, resulted in the continual diminution of native power throughout the colonial period and was essential to

2025

Croatia held parliamentary elections on 8 November, with the two mainstream coalitions, headed by the centre-left SDP and centre-right HDZ, ending in a virtual dead heat. The HDZ’s Patriotic coalition secured 59 seats, including 3 seats representing the Croatian diaspora, while the SDP’s Croatia Grows coalition reached 56, while also being able to count on 3 seats pledged to them by a regional party, IDS. The elections also saw the rise of a strong third contender, Most Nezavisnih Lista (Bridge of Independent Lists), who secured 19 seats and could act as potential kingmakers in coalition negotiations. We asked five experts for their reactions to the result and their views on what might happen next. Kresimir Macan: Over the next week, the HDZ will try everything to win over Most’s candidates one by one Will Bartlett: Croatia’s economy needs a radical change if it wants to avoid six more years of stagnation Senada Selo Sabic: Counter-intuitively, the refugee crisis did not benefit the...

2025

This essay cites the major historical and political stops these two nations share together, all through post-colonial lenses away from mainstream diplomatic discourse.

2025

Labour and the Conservatives are both proposing to employ a tougher approach to immigration if they win the election. But, as Alice Bloch and Sonia McKay explain in this article, there are limitations to ever more punitive approaches to... more

2025

Since attaining independence on 9 July 2011, South Sudan has topped local, regional and international headlines on the vast challenges that the nascent State has faced. Yet, more international attention, whether consciously or unconsciously, has been focused on Syria, France and Turkey. Born a prefailed State, the country’s situation has worsened through war and ethnic violence. The political crisis that rocked the country on 15 December 2013, stirred up by a zero sum power struggle between President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar, was the tip of an accumulated iceberg. Since inheriting the political throne from the late Dr John Garang De’ Mabior, the two have failed to conceive a united vision for bringing prosperity to South Sudan. However, with the blood of millions having been spilled for independence, the South Sudanese people still entrusted the two leaders to bring stability to country and for its people. Yet, this has not been the case. Instead, they have...

2025

LSE alumnus Jacob Dut Chol looks at challenges facing the Abyei Referendum in October this year.

2025

This post was contributed by Agathe Derain, manager in the sustainability team of Deloitte France. The common pitfall of rushing towards KPIs Since the adoption of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) in 2011, and their recognition in an increasing number of international or regional standards on sustainability reporting, companies have been expected to know and show that they respect human rights. This new form of accountability leads them to design Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), the Holy Grail of business management, to measure, monitor, and communicate the results of their human rights approach.

2025

There is a mismatch between anticipated European rights and the reality. British citizens are weary of externally imposed human rights standards, yet expect their basic rights to be protected, especially elsewhere in Europe. Returning to the conception of national rights will certainly not provide the answer to either of these grievances. Diana Wallis explains why.

2025

assesses Dominic Cummings' proposals for reforming government and argues that, while bringing new people and ideas into Number 10 can be welcome, there are several pitfalls, not least in failing to learn from past attempts at reform.

2025

Many of us spend much of our time in meetings and at conferences. But too often these waste time and fail to make the most of those present.The meeting formats we use today are very old. Board meetings, assembly meetings and conferences have not changed for many hundreds of years. Newer methods include boards surrounded by screens with data, companies (like Yahoo) setting 10 or 15 minutes as the default for meetings and meetings held standing up.

2025

The concept of class is absent from political debate, even as inequality in Britain reaches new heights democraticaudit.com /2016/02/11/the-concept-of-class-is-absent-from-political-debate-even-as-inequality-inbritain-reaches-new-heights/ In a recent statement, Labour's Chuka Umunna seemed to suggest the BAME population form one homogeneous political group in the UK. Sean Swan argues this view is not only inaccurate but it perpetuates the perceived significance of ethnicity and diverts attention from more rational political cleavages. He writes that if Labour is to compete effectively with an increasingly liberal Conservative party, it needs to focus on tackling inequalities of class. Labour MP and former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna has warned that Labour "are shedding votes from different ethnic minority communities to the Tories." Whereas in 2010 only 16% of the black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) vote went to the Conservatives versus 68% going to Labour, by 2015 the respective figures were 33% to 52%. Labour, Umunna insists, "have not a hope in hell of retaining all our current seats, […] if we continue to lose ethnic minority votes at this rate." This argument raises questions about Labour's fundamental view of politics and society. Umunna seems to view BAME voters as forming one coherent political grouping which is constituted by the shared 'identity' of not being white. He further assumes this group shares identical socioeconomic -and thus political -interests and that an unemployed black youth in Brixton has the same political interests and concerns as a self-employed Chinese business woman in Edinburgh. But they obviously do not share the same class interests nor is there any good reason why they should share the same attitude to 'identity' issues such as 'Polish plumbers' or Syrian asylum seekers. Not only is this a strangely class-blind assumption for a Labour MP to make, but it misses the point that Enoch Powell is long dead and the contemporary Tory party is actually socially liberal. David Cameron recently announced the creation of a government review in to possible racial bias in the criminal justice system -a review to be headed by black Labour MP David Lammy. Cameron pointed out that,

2025

to explore a twenty-first-century cross-border ethics grounded in material feminism, posthumanism and critical race theory. This is an ambitious and thought-provoking study that shows how literature can offer creative political... more

2025

In TransCanadian Feminist Fictions: New Cross-Border Ethics, Libe Garcia Zarranz analyses the literary productions of writers Dionne Brand, Emma Donoghue, Hiromi Goto and Larissa Lai to explore a twenty-first-century cross-border ethics grounded in material feminism, posthumanism and critical race theory. This is an ambitious and thought-provoking study that shows how literature can offer creative political interventions in an unequal globalised world, writes Hannah Spruce.

2025

In Posthuman Urbanism: Mapping Bodies in Contemporary Space, Debra Benita Shaw examines the disciplinary control and classification built into the design of the contemporary city and explores practices of posthuman resistance, from squatting, dumpster diving and protest to parkour. This book provides excellent insight into how urban space can both stabilise and disrupt notions of ‘the human’ and other dominant ideologies, writes Hannah Spruce.

2025

Stanley Tsarwe and Admire Mare examine the media’s role in triggering political violence. This post is part of the African Elections series.

2025, https://gjia.georgetown.edu/

Amid ongoing internal conflicts in Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan, unconventional transactions involving statehood, dams, ports, and security alliances seem to be reshaping the fragile region. This article analyzes key dynamics of the region, notably proxy conflicts, that are destabilizing interstate alliances and fragile peace agreements. We argue that regional and continental intergovernmental organizations should convene consultations to navigate complex geopolitical dynamics, consider regional security implications of peace support operations (PSOs), and work towards durable peace. Most importantly, states in the Horn of Africa should reaffirm their commitment to regional integration by resisting proxy tendencies from regional and extra-regional actors in intra and interstate conflicts.