Political Change, Conflict and the Environment

Research on development requires a critical approach to the state and dominant institutions, focussing on how power is created and exercised, and the resistance of excluded groups. This essential political process involves conflict as much as cooperation, where security (and insecurity), historical identity and environmental sustainability are central issues.

Our research in this area is characterised by strong disciplinary roots in history, politics and anthropology; an interdisciplinary empirical research methodology; and primary fieldwork.

Work in this theme is mainly conducted by individual faculty members with their research students and post-doctoral fellows. Between 2003 and 2010 the DfID-funded Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE) built on pioneering work in the Department during the 1990s on the relationship between war and underdevelopment.

• Mobile Peoples and Conservation

• A Micro Level Analysis of Violent Conflict

• Global Uncertainties and Support for Islamic Militancy - Female Madrasas in Pakistan

• A History of Political Imprisonment in Zimbabwe, 1959-2011

• Mobile Peoples and the Politics of Oil

• Regime Change, Intra-state Competition and Violence

• India's Enterprise Culture: Social and Political Implications Beyond the Economy

• Islam Research Project (Abuja)

• Valuing Nature Today

• Preparing the Next Green Revolution from the Bottom Up: A Study of Permanent Latin American Food Systems

• Climate Change and Energy Scarcity

• Carbon Intensity, Energy Efficiency, and Investment in Technological Innovation

• Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and The State

• Religion in the Making of a Region

• Landscapes of Liberalisation

• Global Islamism and World Society

• Life After Guns: The Life Chances and Trajectories of Ex-combatant and War-Affected Youth in Monrovia, Liberia

• Illicit Authority as Territorial Governance: Informal Institutions and Para-States in the Developing World

• Indigenous Biodiversity Governance and Climate Change in Bolivia: Looking for Effective Solutions in a Complex Landscape

• Rebuilding Fragile Conflict-Affected States With a Young Majority

• Prosperity Within Valued Limits: Novel Governance Initiatives Stimulating Moral Human Development Shifts and Sustainable Development in a Globalizing World

• Power Politics: The Political Economy of Indian Electricity

• Youth Unemployment and Political Mobilisation in Sierra Leone: Understanding the Relationship between Labour Markets and Political Violence

• Multi-tiered Environmental Management and Social Well-being: The Case of Lake Titicaca between Peru and Bolivia

• The Origins of Hindu-Christian Conflict in Rural India

• The Politics of Land: Media, Cultural Productions & the Role of Social Networks in Zimbabwe's land reform post-2000

• Social Movements' Impact on the Policy-making Process in Chile during the Concertacion Governments (1990-2010). A Comparative Study of the Policy Areas of Education and Labour

• Humanitarian Technologies in Historical Perspective

• Complex Interrelations of Violent Non-state Actors in Border zones: A Risk for regional Stability? Case Study - Andean Region

• Guerilla Governance: State-building during Wartime - The Cases of UNITA in Angola and SPLM in Sudan

• The Nuosu's Bridewealth: An Anthropological Inquiry into the Nuosu's Encounter with Development (provisional)

• What Women Want: An Ethnographic Investigation into the Sexual Desires and Experiences of Young Women in Urban India

• Ethnography of Social Change in the Maoist Base Areas of Nepal

• Performing Political Partiality: The Theatrical Power of Law in Zimbabwe's Magistrates' Courts

• How Things Work: An Investigation into the Political and Economic Practices of the Pakistani Intermediate Classes

• Diamonds and Crisis: The Politics of Zimbabwe's Marange Diamond Fields

• People Out of Place: Development and Cairo's Garbage Collectors

• Perceptions of the 'Social Contract' in South Africa: A Case Study of Crime and Policing in Informal Settlements, Durban

• The Political Legitimacy Implications of Donor-Government Relationships and Aid Dependence in Malawi

• Economic and Political Aspects of the Russian Financial Crisis

• Working in a Global Village: An Ethnography of Semi-skilled Workers in India's Formal Economy

• Shaping States in the Andes: A Comparative Historical Analysis of Mineral States, 1850s-1930s

• Hidden Democracy in Rwanda - The Experience of Ubucehe: Is Rwanda More Democratic Than We Are Made to Believe? Examining a Rwandan 'Home Grown' Development Strategy and its Contribution to Post-conflict Development and Democracy in Rwanda

• Estimates of the Welfare Impact of Climate Change in Rural West Africa

• Agrarian Reform and Crop Production in a High Potential Agro-ecological Zone: A Study of Small-scale Producers in Mashonaland East, Zimbabwe

• Making of the Muslim Identity in West Bengal: Politics, Economy, Community

• Jocelyn Alexander
  Professor of Commonwealth Studies and Director of Graduate Studies 2011-12

• Masooda Bano
  ESRC Research Fellow

• Dawn Chatty
  Professor of Anthropology & Forced Migration and Director, RSC

• David Ehrhardt
  Research Officer

• Joerg Friedrichs
  University Lecturer in Politics

• John Gledhill
  Departmental Lecturer in the Politics of Security Governance

• Nandini Gooptu
  Reader in South Asian Studies

• James Morrissey
  Research Officer, RSC

• Abdul Raufu Mustapha
  University Lecturer in African Politics

• Laura Rival
  University Lecturer in Anthropology and Development

• Frances Stewart
  Professor Emeritus in Development Economics

• Nikita Sud
  University Lecturer in Development Studies

• Miles Blessing Tendi
  Departmental Lecturer in African History and Politics

• Corneliu Bjola Discusses Use of Illegitimate Force in Interview with Global Policy (14 May, 2012)

• New CRISE Book: The Developmental Challenges of Mining and Oil (11 Apr, 2012)

• Two New Books by Masooda Bano: The Rational Believer and Breakdown in Pakistan (16 Mar, 2012)

• Book Launch: Women, Leadership and Mosques Edited by Masooda Bano and Hilary Kalmbach (6 Mar, 2012)

• MSc Student Gets Pulitzer Grant to Interview Artists and Musicians in Post-revolutionary Egypt (17 Feb, 2012)

• DPhil Student Helps Make Documentary on Trash in Cairo (17 Jan, 2012)

• New Special Issue on the Role of Religion in the Making of a Region (16 Nov, 2011)

• New CRISE Book on Collective Political Violence Published (14 Nov, 2011)

• Masooda Bano's Work on Radicalisation Features in ESRC Video (11 Nov, 2011)