The State, Governance and Conflict research cluster at the School of International Development (DEV) investigates the characteristics, origins and effects of different types of power relations in the global South.

Using evidence-based approaches, our research asks how both domestic and international factors shape political regimes, forms of governance and developmental outcomes.

Defining politics as a field of practices and relations involving a wide range of competing actors and institutions, our work analyses the “politics of development” in several key domains:

Civil Wars and Political Violence – analysis of media representations of violent conflicts, water supply and treatment during and immediately following armed conflict, and the relevance of institutional design for the prospects of ethnopolitical (in)stability (Scott, Stavinoha, Theuerkauf and Zeitoun).

Media and Development – how media representations may influence political development goals by reproducing or challenging dominant discourses about development and inequality (Scott and Stavinoha).

Political Economy – analysis of how both everyday social relations and broader political processes reflect and shape distributions of power and resources (Pattenden and Chhotray).

Social and Political Institutions – how (and to what degree) different social groups access or are denied political representation through formal as well as informal institutions and policy-making processes (Chhotray, Pattenden, Stavinoha and Theuerkauf).

Social Policy – analysis of the uneven outcomes of social policy and processes of governance in the global South (Pattenden and Chhotray).

State-Society Relations – analysis of the power relations at play amongst the populations of villages, towns and cities in the global South, and of their interactions with state and civil society actors (Chhotray, Pattenden, Scott and Stavinoha).