🎉 GSDRC Working Paper #2 is out! 🎉 After Kabul: Addressing concerns about corruption in donor publics by rechannelling aid Fresh insights from our colleagues at the Development Engagement Lab. @soominoh.bsky.social @pmorini.bsky.social Jennifer Hudson, David Hudson @unibirmingham.bsky.social

Had the pleasure of attending this excellent symposium today—exciting work from UKRI Future Leaders Fellow @sandrapertek.bsky.social and team! IDD @unibirmingham

Is there a link between inequality & democracy? Our new research using global data says the story is less clear than many theories suggest. Read more 👉https://go.unu.edu/FlMw6 @rgisselquist.bsky.social

📚 At the UNU-WIDER conference, @rgisselquist.bsky.social presented Fragile Aid, a new volume on development in conflict-affected states. The book is now fully available online: fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/... 📢 All IDD, University of Birmingham news hee: www.devstud.org.uk/2025/07/16/i...

📢 New Policy Brief: How to make aid work in fragile states Aid in fragile contexts needs more than technical fixes. The brief calls for long-term, flexible support rooted in local legitimacy. 📄: go.unu.edu/pTvBB #FragileAid @apvjustino.bsky.social @rgisselquist.bsky.social @anvaccaro.bsky.social‬

Only one set of major civil service reforms have been implemented in Pakistan – and these were over 50 years ago. Despite decades of promises to fix Pakistan’s bureaucracy, efforts have consistently stalled.

What is the role of donors in the delivery of services in fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings? Iffat Idris from @GSDRC.org explores here k4d.ids.ac.uk/resource/rol...

Enjoyed chairing this session on Welfare and Labour Effects, featuring 4 excellent papers by @timkohler.bsky.social ‪@leitemariante.bsky.social‬ ‪Shatakshi Gupta & @tsenguunjav.bsky.social

Pleased to be here at #WIDERDevConf2025!

Do codes of conduct and ethical codes reduce polticisation and #corruption in the civil service? 🏦 This study by William Avis from @gsdrc.org evaluates the impact of #CivilService codes. Read the full findings here 👇 k4d.ids.ac.uk/resource/civ...

Elon Musk's conflicts of interest: $2.37 billion in potential federal penalties, report says

New #OpenAccess book out now! How States Respond to Crisis reveals how state capacity, authority & legitimacy influenced outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic with 7 in-depth case studies from the Global South. Read the full book 👉 go.unu.edu/DhF08 @rgisselquist.bsky.social @anvaccaro.bsky.social

288 people have been rendered to El Salvador’s mega-prison. We only know 257 of their names—and not because the US or Salvadoran governments shared them. It shouldn't be up to civil society to compile things like this table. Of course, none of this should be happening at all. See admis.me/b/2un

I had been doubtful that we were going to have a "this is the crisis moment" with Trump, as opposed to "everything about this is a destructive catastrophe." But the Abrego Garcia case is the crisis moment. 1/

Before press came in — but while live feed was running on Bukele’s feed — Trump said to him: “home-growns are next. … You’re gonna need to build about 5 more places.” x.com/nayibbukele/...

Rare earths & other critical minerals are discussed in our new @unu-wider.bsky.social open access book. Download via www.wider.unu.edu/publication/...

The letter sent to Harvard shows why they and every other institution have no choice but to resist. It would amount to a government takeover of the university, giving the Trump regime control over hiring and admissions. www.harvard.edu/research-fun...

Translated primary sources for teaching the history of ethnicity in medieval China. A fabulous resource! #GlobalMiddleAges #MedievalSky www.academia.edu/community/ln...

Unprecedented corruption happening right in front of us

I gave a campus talk last night on Trump's first 100 days for the WUD Society & Politics group. A student asked me if I thought that, at some point, we might start to describe the US as a competitive authoritarian regime. I said that we were already there, it's just that most folks haven't noticed:

American Social Security Administration is cutting staff and shifting all its communications to X, owned by Musk. You could not make up the corruption now in US politics www.wired.com/story/social...

As of today all foreigners in America are required to carry proof of our status with us at all times. Print off your i-94s uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?r...

I’m not kidding; this is DOGE at work; multiple US citizens getting notices that they just leave the country because USCIS is revoking their humanitarian parole. www.politico.com/news/2025/04...

AI's electricity demand is accelerating: by 2030 data centres will consume as much energy as Japan today, says new @IEA report. Much of the energy will come from renewables & gas (though Trump is inevitably trying to promote coal). www.iea.org/reports/ener...

♻️ What do we know about plastic reuse models in LMICs? 📚 See this new rapid evidence review by @gsdrc.org's William Avis:

NEW: @nytimes.com reports that the Trump admin is moving to strip hundreds of thousands of immigrants of Social Security Numbers they got when they were granted work authorization, repurposing a "death master file" to try to erase their previous legal presence in the United States.

The fear among academics and lawyers now talking on the record on just about any topic that involves the federal government or the White House is really extraordinary and worrisome, and getting worse, it seems to me, every week. Dissent by an establishment figures becoming verboten in the US

The evidence is now overwhelming that a very big majority of those whom ICE and the Trump administration rendered to El Salvador had no criminal records. 3 links:

“Mommy, no. Mommy.” Daughter captures the moment masked ICE agents smash the window of her mother's car in order to take her into custody. The government claims the 52-year old seamstress is an associate of the MS-13 gang. www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/lo...

📚 New rapid evidence review from @gsdrc.org's own Siân Herbert on #climatechange and conflict in the Sahel:

📣The Call for Papers and Sessions of the 2nd international expert conference Fragile Lives on 30 September and 1 October 2025 at Humboldt-University of Berlin in Germany is about to close. 1/6 #callforpapers #Berlin #HiCN #FragileLives @isdcberlin.bsky.social

President Trump is using the Abrego Garcia case to establish a truly chilling proposition: that no one can stop him from imprisoning anyone he wants anywhere else in the world never to be seen or heard from again. His dream is to preside over a police state. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/o...

Over the weekend, Erwin Chemerinsky, Martha Minow, and Laurence Tribe submitted a proposed amicus brief as constitutional law scholars in support of Kilmar Abrego Garcia in DOJ's appeal of the order to return him to the United States. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Adam Przeworski, one of our most eminent scholars of democracy and political economy, shares his diary on what is happening in the US:

I decided to start a #thread 🧵 of stories about legal residents and tourists being (illegally) arrested, detained and/or deported by the Trump regime. I'll only post stories from serious sources, as rumors and conspiracies are really not needed in this authoritarian moment.

Georgetown scholar Dr. Khan Suri, who was abducted by ICE, was refused food/water to break Ramadan fast, housed in a room without a bed, and issued *used* underwear. His child cried for days after he was taken and has since stopped speaking. ccrjustice.org/home/press-c...

🍫🇺🇸 So how much cocoa could the US grow? Not much! Certainly less than Côte d'Ivoire 🇨🇮 Yet, Ivorian goods, inc. cocoa, now slapped with a 21% tariff! www.piie.com/blogs/realti... Excellent piece by @cullenhendrix.bsky.social sky.social on the madness of the Trump tariffs via @piie.com

What can the U.S. learn from other countries living through threats to democracy? Lessons from our global research and 15 case studies distilled in my new commentary with @beattyriedl.bsky.social Ken Roberts, and @muratsomer-eng.bsky.social include: (1/3) goodauthority.org/news/us-demo...

Trump's executive order tonight has illegally cancelled union contracts for 67% of the federal workforce & 75% of unionized federal employees — roughly 700,000 union workers This may be the single biggest attack on the labor movement in American history

This is horrifying! Family members of some of the people sent to do hard labor in a Salvadoran prison by Trump confirm their loved ones weren't members of a gang. One woman said her brother got a tattoo of a rose in Dallas, and because of that they accused him of being a gang member.

My comments on the Yemen chat affair (with comments from my @cipolicy.bsky.social colleague @mattduss.bsky.social) in @commondreams.org: “The messages contain ‘prima facie evidence of at least one war crime applauded by the people who conspired to commit it.’” www.commondreams.org/news/michael...

Nobody should be disappeared from the streets of Somerville – or anywhere in America. Everyone should be alarmed by the video of Rumesya Ozturk being handcuffed and taken away by agents. The government must immediately release her. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/03/26/m...

Just to note that we've now uploaded data and replication files for this work, including the contract lists.

Remember when people used to say the warnings about Trump were alarmist? He’s now explicitly saying US citizens who damage private property that’s linked to one of his oligarch cronies will be sent to prisons in El Salvador.

Sanders: I will tell you what I think the worst addiction in this country is, the most dangerous, and that is the greed of the oligarchs. Everybody wants to do well. These guys already have billions, tens of billions, hundreds of billions. How much money do you need?

Still six days to the application deadline for the V-Dem Directorship position!

Thread 👇🏽