Governance
The Governance research cluster identifies the following sub-themes of research to ensure citizens are represented and governed fairly in a world of changing state authorities.
Taxation
Understanding how taxation affects the quality of governance has implications for social justice, inequality, sustainability and security at both global, national and sub-national levels. The International Centre for Tax and Development is globally the leading organisation in its field.
Politics of Public Policy
Our research focuses on how state-society interactions influence state structures, as well as the shaping and implementation of public policy. Concepts that our work engages with and pushes further include: political settlements, political commitment, capacity of state and non-state actors in policy formulation and implementation, and the role of states in enabling collective action and accountability.
Non-State Actors, Criminality, Hybrid Governance
Increasingly, state actors are only one part of a diversity of actors exercising public authority, particularly in locations where state institutions are weak and where there is insufficient control over territory. Our research will discover how non-state actors, competitors to the state for governance, actually gain legitimacy and are able to exercise and retain authority.
Decentralization and Local Governance
Despite waves of decentralization in many parts of the world we do not yet understand the conditions under which local and decentralized governance can deliver on its promises of effective and locally accountable public authority. While the theme is an old one, we will expand our work in this area particularly in relation to conflict and insecurity as well as local politics.
Key contact
Team Members
Innovative Ways in Supporting Decentralised and Democratic Local Governance
The aim of this cooperation with the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation is to strengthen their Democratisation, Decentralisation and Local Government Network's understanding, learning, and policy engagement in decentralised and democratic local governance. More details
Growth and Equal Opportunities for Women (GrOW)
The 27-month 'Balancing unpaid care work and paid work: successes, challenges and lessons for women's economic empowerment programmes and policies' project aims to create knowledge about how women's economic empowerment (WEE) policy and programming can generate paid work that empowers women and provides more support for their unpaid care work responsibilities. More details
Evidence and Lessons from Latin America (ELLA)
Evidence and Lessons from Latin America' (ELLA) is a knowledge sharing and learning programme, that seeks to improve knowledge of Latin America's development among African and Asian policymakers, practitioners and researchers - on selected economic, environmental and governance issues. More details
Tax revenue mobilisation in developing countries
Why did taxation (re-)establish itself recently as a priority issue in the international debate after decades of living in the shadows of other, apparently more pressing, themes More details
State Fragility and Rural Development
This project for the GIZ considers the specific challenges posed by state fragility in selected countries (Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Nepal and Bolivia) to inform the agency's development cooperation strategy. More details
The Political Economy Determinants of Policy Implementation: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in India
The IDS led strand of the project will address the role of state capacity and elite commitment in explaining NREGS implementation through qualitative methods at two different levels of analysis. More details
Undernutrition and Public Policy in India
This research seeks to inform and influence the current state of debate in India on the issue of malnutrition and food security. More details
Global Drug and Development Policy Roundup
The Roundup aims to develop recommendations to increase the engagement of the international development community in policy discussions and activities to tackle the illlegal drug trade. More details
External Monitoring and Evaluation for the Wohl Livelihood Development Programme in Ukraine
This is an evaluation project to assess the effectiveness of the World Jewish Relief’s four-year Wohl Livelihood Development Programme (LDP) in Ukraine. More details
Strengthening core state functions to mitigate and prevent different manifestations of violence
In the context of exploring the dynamics and logics of violence and responses to it by the state and the international community, Nigeria and Sierra Leone make interesting case studies. These case studies are part of the Addressing and Mitigating Violence programme, which focuses on 'newer' forms of violence and organised crime as well as the changing dynamics of long-standing situations of violence More details
The Governance of Service Delivery
A new partnership between the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and IDS has been formed with the aim of supporting SDC’s ‘Democratisation, Decentralisation and Local Governance Network’ (DLGN) between 2012 and 2014. IDS’ contribution will seek to improve DLGN’s effectiveness and impact of policy strategies and operations. More details
Home Grown School Feeding Mali
This study aims to evaluate the impact of school feeding programmes sourced from small-holder farmers on small-holder food security, as well as on school children's education, health and nutrition in Mali. More details
Analysing Nutrition Governance
The project examines what factors enable governments to commit to national nutrition strategies and deliver appropriate nutrition policies in the long run. More details
Give and you shall receive? Taxation and fiscal contracts in Africa
19 Jul 2016By Rhiannon McCluskey
How can we implement the SDG 16 in our increasingly volatile world?
16 Mar 2016By Camilla Lindstrom
Key contacts
Subscribe to this research cluster's blog
Get the latest blog posts to your email inbox