Governance Uncovered: Local Politics and Development

Governance Uncovered: Local Politics and Development

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Governance Uncovered: Local Politics and Development episodes

  • Political Turmoil in Tunisia, The Political Legacy of the 2022 World Cup, and the Effect of Economic Shock on Male Marriage in the West Bank.

    EPISODE TRANSCRIPT


    We'll start by covering the political crisis in Tunisia since president Saeid seized absolute power in 2021. Mohammed Dhia Hammami, PhD student in Political Science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, joined GLD's founding director Ellen Lust to discuss the low voter turnout after the first round of Tunisia's parliamentary elections in December 2022, as well as the country's high unemployment rates, and the general disappointment in president Saeid among Tunisians. Disclaimer: This episode was recorded on January 23, before the second round of parliamentary runoffs on January 29. 


    When recording this, it's been about six weeks since the FIFA World Cup in Qatar ended. But what impact did the tournament have on domestic politics and its influence beyond Qatar? GLD colleague and football fan Thabit Jacob met with Dr Danyel Reicheto to discuss the politics of sports focusing on last year's world cup in Qatar. Danyel is a Visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University in Qatar. He has co-edited two books which came out recently, the first is Qatar and the 2022 FIFA World Cup: Politics, Controversy, Change, and the second is the Handbook of Sport in the Middle East.  


    "The Effects of a Negative Economic Shock on Male Marriage in the West Bank" - is the title of Ayhab Saad's recent paper that we'll cover as our last segment for this episode. Ayhab is an associate professor of Economics at Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. In this paper, which is co-authored with Amr Ragab, marriage rates among young men in the West Bank are compared before and after the sudden closure of the Israeli labour market for Palestinian male commuters from the West Bank in 2001. Ellen Lust met with Ayhab to talk about how the economic shock following the border closure has affected the decision to get married for both men and women and also, how social norms play a part in the declining marriage rates.  

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    52 min
  • Youth Engagement in the MENA and Politics of Peacebuilding in Lebanese Municipalities

    This episode covers political participation and activism among youth, focusing on local perspectives from Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Iraq. And also, an interview with Senior lecturer Hanna Leonardsson, whose book on local peacebuilding in Lebanon was recently published. This fall semester, GLD held its first policy roundtable in Arabic. The topic was youth engagement in the Middle East and North Africa. Luckily, for those who don't speak Arabic, Ghadeer Hussien summarised the most important takeaways from this roundtable. She spoke with Marwa Shalaby, Assistant Professor at the department of gender and women's studies and political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And Dina Shehata, senior researcher and editor-in-chief of Al Malaf Al Masry (the Egypt File) at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. You can watch the recorded policy roundtable (in Arabic) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAbxPdg-FEc&t=187s


    How is peace built at the local level? Hanna Leonardsson, Senior lecturer at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, asks that question in her new book: Navigating the Local, Politics of Peacebuilding in Lebanese Municipalities. Ellen Lust met with Hanna to talk about this book of hers. You can find Hanna's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Navigating-Local-Peacebuilding-Municipalities-Development/dp/1529224268

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    44 min
  • COP27 Takeaways, Book Talk: Protesting Jordan, and Insights from Tanzanian Orphanages
    This 43rd episode of Governance Uncovered reflects on COP27, the UN climate summit held between the 6th and 18th of November in Cairo, Egypt. Researchers Rabab El-Madi and Nadim Farajalla discuss the Loss and Damage fund, climate justice, and the future of fossil fuels. All with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa region. Then we'll hear an interview with Professor Jillian Schwedler on her latest book, "Protesting Jordan: Geographies of Power and Dissent." A book based on her twenty-five years of field research. It examines protests as they are situated in the built environment, bringing together considerations of networks, spatial imaginaries, space and place-making, and political geographies at local, national, regional, and global scales. Finally, GLD Director Ellen Lust spoke with Bekka Ross Russel, founder and Executive Director of The Small Things Tanzania and the Families and Future Coalition in Tanzania – two organizations that aim to support families who cannot take care of their children.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1 hr 2 min
  • Protests in Iran, Climate Change in the MENA, and Land Politics in Senegal and Zambia

    We are excited to let you know that GLD is introducing a new podcast format this month! From now on, you'll hear three shorter segments from three different guests on current events, academic publications, new research, and policy-targeted content. So, in this episode, we'll hear from Rouzbeh Parsi on the protests in Iran: is it a revolution happening or not?

    Then, I spoke to my GLD colleagues Ghadeer Hussein and Thabit Jacobs about the policy roundtable series GLD and Alternative Policy Solutions recently held on climate change and environmental justice in the MENA region.

    Finally, Ellen Lust met with GLD associate Lauren Honig to talk about her new book on land titling and customary authorities in Senegal and Zambia called "Land Politics: How Customary Institutions Shape State Building in Zambia and Senegal." We hope that you enjoy this episode and the new format.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    44 min
  • Everyday Identity and Electoral Politics in South Africa
    The podcast guest of the month is the GLD associate Dr. Adam Harris. Adam is an Associate Professor in Development Politics at the Department of Political Science, University College London. He is also an associated researcher at the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg. Adam's research focuses on development, ethnic, and African politics, and his work has been published in several political science journals. Ellen and Adam will be talking about his book "Everyday Identity and Electoral Politics: Race, Ethnicity, and the Bloc Vote in South Africa and Beyond" (Oxford University Press, 2022), in which he seeks to understand why some voters do not vote along ethnic lines. Episode photo: National and Provincial Elections in South Africa 2019. Photo Credit: GovernmentZA, via Flickr.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    38 min
  • Traditional Authorities: Insights from Ghana, Malawi, and Latin America
    In this episode, we have no less than three guests with us to discuss traditional authorities in Malawi, Ghana, and Latin America. We have Dr Boniface Dulani from the University of Malawi, Afrobarometer, IPOR Malawi. John-Paul Adjadeh, Registrar at the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs under the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs in Ghana. And finally, we have Christoper Carter, an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and a Research Associate at the Center on the Politics of Development at the University of California, Berkeley. The episode offers a lively discussion on traditional authorities' impact on, for example, democracy, corruption, land management, and conflict resolution.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1 hr 8 min
  • Kelsey Norman: Host State's Reception of Migrants and Refugees
    In this episode, host Ellen Lust talks to Kelsey Norman, who is a Fellow for the Middle East and Director of the Women's Rights, Human Rights & Refugees program at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Kelsey and Ellen discuss Kelsey's new book "Reluctant Reception," in which she asks, "How do host states respond to refugees?". In doing this, she moves beyond the traditional focus in refugee and migration literature of looking at the global North and focuses on countries normally seen as transit countries that migrants cross on their way to their country of destination. More specifically, Egypt, Morocco, and Turkey. She terms their response "strategic indifference", meaning that the state projects indifference towards migrants, which allows it to expand little resources towards managing refugees. Kelsey argues that it is important to look at state responses since, contrary to popular belief, most refugees in these countries reside in urban settings and not in refugee camps - and are, therefore, under the authority of the transit country's state rather than international organisations. Ellen and Kelsey also discuss how different nationalities are perceived and valued and if that leads to different reception treatment by the transit country.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    39 min
  • Tymofii Brik: The Voices of Ukraine
    In this episode, Ellen Lust talks to Ukrainian scholar Tymofii Brik from the Kyiv School of Economics at Ukrainian Global University about local governance taking place in Ukraine today. They do so by first taking a step back to discuss governance before Russia's invasion. Namely, how Ukraine moved from centralization towards decentralization after 2014 - when local communities started to take power over their own lives and found a way to share resources locally due to decentralization reforms. Tyomfii also explains how the Ukrainian defence, which surprised the rest of the world, did not occur overnight as it might have seemed from the outside. It was a seven-year preparation on how the society should organize to protect and defend oneself and one's community. Finally, Tyomfii informs us about the work they do at the Kyiv School of Economics in order to address the challenge of loss of access to education and academic competence.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    51 min
  • How Bureaucrats and Civil Society (can) Facilitate Clientelism
    In the 36th episode of Governance Uncovered, Marcia Grimes and Agnes Cornell joins us to talk about clientelism. More specifically, their paper "Brokering bureaucrats: How bureaucrats and civil society facilitate clientelism where parties are weak", which focuses on bureaucrats and how their links to civil society can shape clientelism in Peru. Marcia and Agnes are both researchers at the Quality of Government Institute, a neighbouring research institute to GLD that addresses the theoretical and empirical problem of how political institutions of high quality can be created and maintained.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    44 min
  • The Triple Crisis in Lebanon with Mona Harb and Sami Atallah

    We apologize for the lowered sound quality in this episode.


    This month, we are pleased to be joined by Mona Harb and Sami Atallah to talk us through what can be called the "triple crisis of Lebanon." Mona is a Professor of Urban Studies and Politics at the American University of Beirut. She is also the co-founder and research lead at the Beirut Urban Lab - a collaborative and interdisciplinary research space. The Lab produces scholarship on urbanization by documenting and analyzing ongoing transformation processes in Lebanon and its region's natural and built environments. Sami is the Founding Director of the newly started The Policy Initiative in Beirut. He is also the former director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies. He led several policy studies on youth social identity and political engagement, electoral behaviour, political and social sectarianism, and the role of municipalities in dealing with the refugee crisis. Sami and Mona have, among other collaborations, co-edit the book Democracy, Decentralization, and Service Delivery in the Arab World. This episode will discuss the triple crises in Lebanon and what this means for people's everyday lives at the local level. By triple crisis, we mean the country's economic instabilities, the political situation, and the aftermath of the Beirut explosion in August 2020. How is this reflected in Lebanese societies? And what has this meant for public space? We hope that you find this episode interesting. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe if you do!

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    52 min

About Governance Uncovered: Local Politics and Development

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Welcome to Governance Uncovered, your ultimate resource for understanding the intricacies of governance, state and non-state actors, and local development dynamics. Whether you're a student,…