Yamini Aiyar is currently Senior Visiting Fellow, Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia and Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, Providence, USA, where she is working on a comparison of welfare states in the global South. Previously, she was President and Chief Executive of the Centre for Policy Research, a leading multidisciplinary thinktank in New Delhi, from 2017 to 2024. Yamini’s research spans the fields of contemporary politics, state capacity, welfare policy, federalism, and India’s political economy. Her latest book, Lessons in State Capacity from Delhi Schools, was published by Oxford University Press in December 2024.
Manuela Caiani is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence, Italy. Her research focuses on populism, radical right politics, social movements and political participation in Europe, and qualitative methods of social research. She has directed and collaborated in various international projects on these themes. Manuela has published in many journals including Social Movement Studies, EJPR, Mobilization, Acta Politica, West European Politics, Government and Opposition, European Union Politics, South European Society and Politics, RISP, and for Oxford University Press, Ashgate, Palgrave, and Routledge. Among her recent publications is Caiani and Tranfić (2024) ‘Weaving the Transnational Anti-Gender Networks’, Mobilization 29.4.
Thomas Carothers directs the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program and holds the Harvey V. Fineberg Chair in Democracy Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, USA. He has written extensively on issues relating to comparative democratisation and international support for democracy. His most recent book is Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization (co-edited with Andrew O’Donohue) (2019, Brookings Press).
Batuhan Eren is a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS), Florence, Italy and a member of the Center on Social Movements Studies (COSMOS). He holds a PhD in Political Science and Sociology from SNS. He has worked in various projects including AuthLIB and Emerging Welfare. His research mainly focuses on collective action and social movements, with a particular interest in the cross-national diffusion of protests and global waves of mobilisation. He also investigates the mechanisms of the transnationalisation of far-right politics, and the use of grounded theory methodology in social movement research.
Anne Marie Goetz is a Clinical Professor at the Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University, USA. She worked on women’s engagement in governance and peace and security at the UN (2005–2014) in the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and UN Women. Anne Marie is currently researching the challenges of peace-building in the southern Philippines, and gendered dynamics in the drift towards electoral autocracy, or illiberal democracy, particularly in conflict-affected states.
Rob Jenkins is Professor of Political Science at Hunter College, The City University of New York, USA. His research has focused on contemporary India, including work on the politics of economic policy reform, movements against corruption, rights-based social development, and politics in the state of Rajasthan. He has also conducted research on post-conflict peace-building, particularly as it relates to gender issues. Since 2019, Rob has been researching the politics of governance in the Bangsamoro region of the Philippines. He was previously Professor of Politics at Birkbeck, University of London. He is the co-editor (with Louise Tillin) of Deconstructing India’s Democracy (2025, Orient BlackSwan).
Hamid M. Khalafallah is a researcher, policy analyst, and development practitioner. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, researching grass-roots movements and political transitions in Africa. Previously, Hamid worked for various international organisations, including the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and the British Council. He holds a master’s degree in International Development (University of Bradford, UK) where he was a Chevening Scholar and was awarded the Development Studies Association dissertation prize. Hamid is a former Fellow of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, Washington DC, USA, and the Young African Leaders Programme, European University Institute, Fiesole, Italy.
Don Leonard is a regional planner and political economist at The Ohio State University (OSU), USA. His work focuses on the causes of economic inequality and its consequences for institutional development. Before arriving at OSU, he pursued this topic as a US Peace Corps volunteer in central Bolivia, as a doctoral researcher at Cornell University, and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton and Tulane universities. He has consulted for the Inter-American Development Bank as well as the former UK Department for International Development together with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). He is currently working on a book project related to the USA’s living wage crisis.
Maíra Kubík Mano is a Professor of Feminist Theory at the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. She holds a PhD from Campinas State University (UNICAMP) and is the author of Atuar como mulheres – um olhar sobre a política institucional [Acting Like Women – A Glance at Institutional Policy] (2020, Appris). She is the coordinator of the Núcleo de Estudos Interdisciplinares sobre a Mulher (NEIM – Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies on Women) research group in the Institute of Development Studies (IDS)-led Countering Backlash: Reclaiming Gender Justice research programme.
Shandana Khan Mohmand is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), where she leads its Governance research cluster and the IDS Pakistan Hub. She is also an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS), Lahore, Pakistan and a Fellow at the Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Her main area of research is inequality, inclusive politics, and the political economy of development. Her research has increasingly focused on the relationship between democracy, inequality, and accountability, including in her book Crafty Oligarchs, Savvy Voters: Democracy Under Inequality in Rural Pakistan (2019, Cambridge University Press).
Mick Moore is a political economist. He has done extensive field research in Asia and Africa, especially Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and India. His broad research interests are in the domestic and international dimensions of good and bad governance in poor countries, with a focus on democracy and taxation. Between 2010 and 2020, he was the founding Chief Executive Officer of the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD), Brighton, UK. He is now Senior Fellow at the ICTD. His most recent book is Taxing Africa: Coercion, Reform and Development (with Wilson Prichard and Odd-Helge Fjeldstad) (2018, Zed Books and 2019, HSRC Press, Pretoria).
Oluwole Ojewale is the Regional Coordinator for Central Africa at the Institute for Security Studies in Senegal. His research spans security, conflict, and resilience in Africa. He has undertaken studies and stakeholder engagements in Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, São Tomé, and Senegal. He is the co-author of Urbanisation and Crime in Nigeria (2019, Palgrave Macmillan). His commentaries have been published in the Harvard Bulletin, and for the Brookings Institution and Africa at LSE. He features frequently as a public affairs analyst on CNN, France 24, the BBC, Newzroom Afrika, TVC, and CGTN, among others.
Marjoke Oosterom is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), and the Cluster Leader of the Power and Popular Politics research cluster. Her research concentrates on forms of political action in contexts of autocratisation, conflict, and violence, with a specific focus on youth politics and political socialisation in sub-Saharan Africa. She currently leads research on youth and transnational dimensions of polarisation and autocratisation across Europe and the majority world. Through commissioned work, Marjoke has advised diverse civil society actors, UN bodies, and bilateral donors that fund and implement programmes in relation to democracy, participation, and youth.
Mark Robinson is Executive Director of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), Oslo, Norway, which brings together governments, companies, and civil society organisations to promote governance reforms in the energy and extractive sectors. Mark has over 30 years’ experience in governance, energy, climate, and international development, and a career spanning the worlds of policy, research, and philanthropy. Prior to joining EITI, Mark served as Global Director for Governance at the World Resources Institute, Washington DC, USA. He previously held senior positions at the former UK Department for International Development, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), the Ford Foundation, and the Overseas Development Institute.
Cecília M.B. Sardenberg is a Brazilian feminist with a PhD in Anthropology from Boston University, USA. She is a Professor of Anthropology and a researcher in the Núcleo de Estudos Interdisciplinares sobre a Mulher (NEIM - Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies on Women), Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Brazil, and currently acting as Editor of Revista Feminismos. She is co-coordinator of NEIM’s research group in the Institute of Development Studies (IDS)-led Countering Backlash: Reclaiming Gender Justice research programme.