The Politics of Development

Everything about development, really, is political. While development actors will often reference ‘political constraints’ or a ‘lack of political will’ in development processes, research on the politics of development across the past few decades has created a wealth of conceptual and empirical work that disentangles these broad strokes into detailed analyses of the politics of changing social contracts, food systems, or industrial policy in the context of lower-income countries. Recognising that politics is central to the way economic development happens moves development out of the sometimes overly technocratic approaches of technical assistance, and into the realm of political science, widening its empirical lens beyond what is often an excessive focus on high-income countries. This section builds on a successful and well-attended section on the Politics of Development at the ECPR Conference in Dublin in 2024, seeking to extend those conversations and continuing to anchor work on the politics of development within ECPR. It seeks to bring together current cutting-edge research done in this area today, as well as broaden the conversation to new topics and new members. While the panels cover a wide range of practical discussions and the papers within each panel cover a wide range of country contexts, the section is united by shared theoretical approaches, questions and puzzles: and by a shared backdrop of development politics today, ranging from the collapse of USAID under the Trump Administration to the changes that climate change is heralding for food systems and industrial policy alike. While development research often operates interdisciplinarity, and much of the work presented here will have been developed by teams and projects that span different disciplines and approaches, this project is explicitly political and explicitly comparative, encouraging projects to highlight these connections in their contributions. It also aims to bring into conversation both well-established and junior researchers in this field and across institutions, seeking to further develop and embed these conversations within the ECPR more widely. The core of the section is made up of six proposed panels. Together, they reflect a broad yet interconnected set of debates at the heart of contemporary development politics. We begin the section by looking to the shifting global context within which development is taking place – looking in particular at the impact of geopolitical realignments and the rise of “Trumpist” approaches on development and industrial policy. A set of subsequent panels then zooms in on core thematic areas of development where political contestation is especially visible: the governance of food and agricultural systems; the restructuring of fiscal relations and public authority beyond classic notions of the “social contract”; and the politics surrounding informal economies and state–society interactions outside formal regulatory frameworks. These panels foreground how everyday politics, social norms, and collective action shape development trajectories and reveal the limits of technocratic reforms when they collide with entrenched interests and lived practices. Finally, the section emphasises policy processes as political arenas in themselves. Panels explore how development policies are designed, negotiated, and enforced; they explore the politics of why gaps persist between policy ambition and implementation; and how illicit and criminalised networks adapt to – and increasingly influence – development outcomes. Both panels again centre these conversations in the current global context. Like all panels in this section, they take stock of the moment – but also seek to look forward, and to make connections between different conversations and policy areas. In line with this, we are also open to additional paper and panel submissions.