Skip to main content
EadiEadiEadi
JOIN
EADISEARCH

Welcome to the EADI Blog!

We cordially invite you to join this blog which we have set up as a discussion platform for the international development research community. The world is facing dramatic changes and challenges and so is science. What is the role of development research in these times and what are the most pressing issues it needs to address? What are the different existing positions on these issues, where are open questions and what requires further elaboration? What makes sense in relation to the larger picture and where do scientists need to take a stand?

This blog invites you to share your opinion, thoughts and insights on everything that might be of interest to the broader community – and of course also on articles that appear on our blog. If you disagree with something you read here, feel free to let us know and tell us why. We explicitly encourage discussion, and hope that a diversity of positions will enrich everyone’s perspective.

To showcase the wide range of approaches and research areas our members represent, we feature research projects or studies from our member institutes and organisations, as well as outstanding blog articles from their websites. Sometimes we also publish thought-provoking pieces from other sources when we feel that the covered topics are of broader interest and could trigger fruitful discussions.

Below you find the most recent blogposts, linking you directly to the EADI Debating Development Research Blog where you can also subscribe to get notified whenever a new post is published. This happens around two to five times a month. Enjoy the read!

Recent Blogposts

Results: 1 to 3 of total 142

Merit, Meritocracy, and Decolonising Knowledge for Development

Amitabha Sarkar - European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI)
I grew up in a family shaped by the complexities of colonial misadventure in Calcutta, a refugee past marked by economic hardship and structural violence. For my mother, merit was the only way out. She believed that humility, hard work, and academic excellence could open doors that history had closed. As a child and young adult in South Asia, I absorbed this moral ideal without question.
continue

Convergence, Divergence, Flatlining or Plateau: What has Happened to Inequality between and within Countries over the Last Decade?

Saumik Paul, Andy Sumner - European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI)
Understanding inequality trends remains central to assessing both development progress and global justice. Two major dimensions—inequality between countries and inequality within countries—have long structured debate in Development Studies. In the 1990s, Lant Pritchett’s provocation that the world was experiencing “divergence, big time” captured the mood of an era in which income gaps between countries were seen to be widening. More recently, the “converging-divergence” thesis proposed by Horner and Hulme in late 2010s argued that while inequality between countries was declining, inequality within countries was on the rise. In this blog, we argue that something new has emerged over the last decade akin to a flatlining or plateauing.
continue

US Abdication of Leadership and the “Rise of the Rest”: What does this Mean for International Cooperation?

Brendan M. Howe - European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI)
The demise of the liberal international order (LIO) is a prominent topic of conversation among contemporary academics and practitioners. The first administration of Donald Trump disdained multilateralism in all forms and dealt global governance a serious blow. Joe Biden’s single-term administration, despite recommitting to some of the inter-national accords from which Trump had signalled an intention to withdraw, exacerbated rather than alleviated international concerns about US leadership (or a lack thereof).
continue

Read More