Progress in Development Studies

This study investigates whether there is an institutional quality threshold effect on income distribution. We employ the dynamic panel threshold model developed by Kremer et al. (2013: Empirical Economics 44(2): 861–878) and a panel of both developing and advanced countries from 1995 to 2017. Our findings suggest the inequality-reducing effect of institutional quality is disproportionate. More specifically, we find two-pronged results: (i) when institutional quality is measured by World Governance Indicators, we find quadratic effect for advanced countries, but a monotonic negative effect for developing countries; (ii) when the International Country Risk Guide-based measure of institutional quality is used as the threshold variable, we find a Kuznets inverted U-shaped relationship between institutions and income inequality for both advanced and developing countries. The results also show a higher threshold value for developing countries compared to advanced economies. These results are robust to both measurement and endogeneity issues. The results have interesting policy implications for income inequality in developing economies.

In the Great Lakes region of Central Africa, land-use rights underwent profound changes following processes of colonization, commodification and conflict, leading to an increased individualization and privatization of tenure. Despite these evolutions, customary tenure continues to be described as a common-property system managed through a strong hierarchical and tribute-based land allocation mechanism. This central place of the commons in policy discourses either stems from a romantic, often Western, notion on communal land governance or from a neoliberal privatization discourse that frames communal land governance as chaotic and non-productive. In this article, we will use cases from Eastern DRC, Burundi and Rwanda to demonstrate how communal land governance has always existed in the region, but in modalities that do not correspond to the notions found in policy discourses. These cases demonstrate how the memory and the actual practice of communal land governance continues to play a role in contemporary land access negotiations. Through a process of institutional bricolage, the discourse of the, often imaginary, commons is used by different actors to legitimize the restructuring of land claims in their favour. Hence, the commons do not correspond to an idealized or normative situation, but they are rather a starting point to rethink land governance in a contextualized socio-historical perspective.

Archaeology and heritage projects can have profound social, economic, environmental and cultural impacts on the development of communities. Yet, their impacts are rarely articulated or measured in development terms, to the detriment of their accountability, sustainability and replicability.

This article explores the potential for a more systematic evaluation of these impacts through the case study of the Sustainable Preservation Initiative (SPI) and their evaluation strategies in Peru. Informed by an evaluability assessment framework, this study highlights the practical challenges in evaluating small-scale projects in the Global South and the scope for overcoming them, appraising how SPI’s contribution to local development can be measured in practice. Development evaluation methods are measured against the practical concerns expressed by project staff and participants.

The article reflects on the importance of evaluating the wide-ranging development impacts of archaeology and heritage projects and concludes with practical suggestions for documenting these multifaceted impacts and for further comparative research.

International development policy and programming that is geared towards women’s empowerment through reversing normalization around gendered violence tends to focus either on social norm change (in line with much social science research) or, more commonly, on increasing women’s paid work. In this article, we argue that neither exclusive focus on social norm/mindset change nor on women’s economic engagement can come to grips with what sustains or may end violence. This is because such approaches cannot unpack the intersectional and dynamic interaction of social relationships, power, institutions and environmental dimensions that shape perceptions, attitudes and behaviours. We suggest that Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, combined with a concept of collective agency, pushes us to focus on the dynamics of the different spheres and types of relationships that sustain violence and can help us to untangle them. Drawing on data from Myanmar and Nepal, we argue that understanding the complexity of how different forms of violence feed from each other and link to symbolic, structural and behavioural dimensions is critical alongside a clearer idea of how collective agency can facilitate change.

Spaces for social and political dialogue within communities and across social levels in inequitable contexts generally do not incorporate difference across community, or enable the most marginalized people to participate meaningfully. In this article, we propose that participatory video can contribute to building agonistic pluralism, namely a recognition of the unavoidable tensions between perspectives, and maintaining, rather than erasing, difference when working towards positive change. We draw on our comparable experience using participatory video methodologies to consider how it can be used to progressively build agency and deeper criticality, address difference across communities and to collectively construct political leverage.

Livingston, J. 2019: Self-devouring Growth: A Planetary Parable as Told from Southern Africa. Durham, NC: Duke University Press,. 160 pp. $23.95. ISBN: 978-1-4780-0639-8 Paper.

Deeming, C. and Smyth, P. (eds.). 2018: Reframing Global Social Policy: Social Investment for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth. Bristol: Policy Press, 350 pp. GBP 80.00 (Hardcover). ISBN: 978-1-4473-3249-7.

Lenhard, J. and Samanani, F. 2020: Home: Ethnographic Encounters. Encounters: Experiences and Anthropological Knowledge Series. London: Bloomsbury Academic. xii + 216 pp., £85.00 (Hardback). ISBN: 978-1-3501-1594-1.

Wani, Aijaz A. 2019. What Happened to Governance in Kashmir? New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 387 pp. $13.63 (hardcover). ISBN: 9780199487608.