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PODCAST

In Pursuit of Development

Step into conversations that travel across continents and challenge the way you think about progress. From democracy and inequality to climate resilience and healthcare, Dan Banik explores how societies navigate the complex terrain of democracy, poverty, inequality, and sustainability. Through dialogues with scholars, leaders, and innovators, In Pursuit of Development uncovers how ideas travel, why policies succeed or fail, and what it takes to build a more just and resilient world. Expect sharp

science social sciences

All Episodes

00:47:53

The European Union and global development — Johanne...

In Pursuit of Development ·

2023/03/29

The European Union is collectively the biggest provider of international aid in the world, contributing over € 50 billion a year to the fight against poverty and the advancement of global development. However, while the EU’s capacities and impact in foreign and security policy have been extensively discussed among scholars and policymakers, its role in promoting global development has attracted less attention. Our guest has focused her research on the contestation of international norms and values,

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00:57:44

Banking on Beijing — Axel Dreher

In Pursuit of Development ·

2023/03/22

China plays a crucial role in the development policies of many countries around the world. It offers grants and loans, and builds major infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, power plants, parliament buildings, hotels, and football stadiums. A new book claims that that much of the conventional wisdom about Chinese development finance rests on untested assumptions, individual case studies, and incomplete data sources. The authors argue that Beijing’s use of debt rather than aid to bankroll

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00:54:29

Africa’s youth in the race for climate action — Hilda...

In Pursuit of Development ·

2023/03/18

Fridays For Future is a youth-led movement that began in August 2018. This movement was inspired by 15-year-old Greta Thunberg and other young activists, who sat in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks, to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis. While Greta has become a household name, there are many other young activists around the world who are also making a vital contribution by pressuring their governments to undertake climate action. Our guest –

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00:49:49

Poverty and the new threat to prosperity — Indermit Gill

In Pursuit of Development ·

2023/03/15

The onset of the pandemic in 2020 marked a turning point in the 30-year pursuit of successful global poverty reduction. According to recent World Bank estimates, the incomes of the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population likely fell by 4 percent in 2020. And as a result, the number of people living in extreme poverty likely increased by 11 percent in 2020—i.e. it increased from 648 million to 719 million. The pandemic also increased global inequality. In terms of lost income, the world’s poor

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00:54:53

Rethinking "evidence" — Eivind Engebretsen and Mona...

In Pursuit of Development ·

2023/03/11

In the past few decades, we have witnessed the rise and consolidation of “evidence-based medicine” among health professionals. This refers to a systematic approach to medicine in which doctors and other health care professionals use the best available scientific evidence from clinical research to help make decisions about the care of individual patients. But the COVID-19 pandemic has managed to transform what constitutes reliable medical evidence into a topic of public concern and debate. These

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01:02:27

Locally led development and the future of aid —...

In Pursuit of Development ·

2023/03/08

The global development domain currently faces huge challenges. Apart from trying to stimulate economic growth and ensuring a fair distribution of the benefits of that growth, national governments and their international partners must also tackle complex conflicts, provide humanitarian assistance, and not least address the harmful impacts of climate disruption. What then should the role of external actors be? How can good intentions be best mobilized into effective actions on the ground?Håvard

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00:58:12

The Wild World of WhatsApp — Jamie Hitchen

In Pursuit of Development ·

2023/03/01

The role of social media in spreading political misinformation has received considerable attention. But various forms of social media also facilitate and enable participatory democracy across boundaries. They help to hold leaders to account as well as provide channels for airing the needs and demands of marginalised communities and vulnerable groups. These demands can sometimes even be propelled to the centre of public debates. While there has been considerable focus on Twitter and Facebook, the

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00:08:46

Christmas special – The acronisation game

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/12/26

While much of the success of the show is due to my fabulous guests, I am also lucky to have a wonderful team to assist me at the University of Oslo. I wish to in particular thank Kristoffer Ring, our IT guru, and Oda Fagerland, Bella Reid, and Eliska Sottova for research assistance and transcripts.My colleague Desmond McNeill, who was on the show earlier this year discussing the power of ideas and metaphors in international development policy, has invented a game which he calls “acronisation”. The

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00:51:50

Just copy us! Why can’t the rest of the world be more...

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/12/21

Scandinavian countries are well-known for high standards of living and many people wonder about the origins of the welfare state model in Scandinavia and why it has worked so well. The features of the welfare state in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden typically include high state spending, strong universal public services, and relatively high equality in gender roles.But what explains the success of this model of development and how did these countries get to where they are today? These are some of the

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00:58:12

Contemporary state building and elite taxation in...

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/12/14

While many Latin American states have experienced severe public-safety crises in the context of fiscal duress, elite engagement in state building has taken place in some countries but not in others. Why is that the case?In explaining the adoption of elite taxes for public safety, Gustavo Flores-Macías argues that the conventional crisis-centered explanations are insufficient. Whereas economic elites are generally reluctant to shoulder a greater tax burden, public-safety crises can soften this

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00:55:05

The power of the Chinese state: Examination,...

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/12/07

Ever wondered why the state in China is so powerful? Yasheng argues that Keju — the Imperial civil service examination — has historically maximized a specific type of knowledge in the minds of the population such as memorization. It also reduced the scope of, or eliminated, alternative ideas. Keju made the state all powerful. The state was able to monopolize the very best of human capital. And in doing so, the state deprived society access to talent and pre-empted organized religion, commerce, and

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00:49:37

Show me the money: Why cash transfers matter for...

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/11/30

Cash transfer schemes have grown in popularity in many parts of the world in the past few decades. Numerous studies find that cash transfer programs can be one of the most effective social protection tools at our disposal in the fight against poverty. There is now also growing empirical evidence of how cash transfers can provide quick relief during major economic crises. In addition to economic effects, they may change gender hierarchies and improve the position of women in local society, increase

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00:52:20

Crises of democracy — Adam Przeworski

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/11/23

Democracy is valued by many people because it enables us to achieve freedom and political equality in addition to numerous economic and social goals. But democracy also allows us to decide from time to time by whom we wish to be governed. Through elections, we can place in office those who we expect to like and also remove from office those we do not like.Adam Przeworski argues that the essence of democracy is that it processes in relative liberty and peace whatever conflicts that arise in society

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01:06:23

Silenced voices in global health — Address Malata

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/11/16

Global health organizations are mainly located in the global North and experts from low- and middle-income countries are underrepresented in global health leadership positions. Thus, it is unsurprising that there has been considerable criticism and heated debate on who should represent the underrepresented. According to our guest this week, it is crucial to ask: Who Speaks for Whom and About What?Professor Address Malata is the Vice Chancellor of the Malawi University of Science and Technology

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01:01:21

The development bargain — Stefan Dercon

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/11/09

Development is a gamble because success is not guaranteed when benefits materialize in the long-term and a host of factors may undermine elite positions. Some countries are able to settle on elite bargains that favour growth and development, and others are unable to reach such settlements.While elite bargains in China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Ghana ended up being development bargains, the opposite was the case in Nigeria, DRC, Malawi and South Sudan. Stefan Dercon is Professor at

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00:57:57

Transforming our global food system — Gunhild Stordalen

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/11/02

Over 2 billion people in our world lack access to adequate food, and over 3 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. Between 2014 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people going hungry and suffering from food insecurity had been gradually rising. The pandemic only made things worse. And the Ukraine war has further disrupted global supply chains. In 2021, 702-828 million people faced hunger. The gender gap in food insecurity has widened under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic

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00:58:01

Why we fight — Chris Blattman

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/10/26

While there are millions of hostile rivalries around the world, only a fraction of these erupt into violence. It is easy to overlook the underlying strategic forces of war and to see war mainly as a series of errors and accidents. It is also easy to forget that war shouldn’t happen—and most of the time it doesn’t. Chris Blattman is a Professor at the University of Chicago in the Harris School of Public Policy. He is an economist and political scientist who studies violence, crime, and

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00:54:24

Africa's right to development — Mo Ibrahim

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/10/19

Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-British entrepreneur, founded one of the largest mobile phone companies that operated on the African continent. In 2006, he established the Mo Ibrahim Foundation with the goal of fostering improved governance. The foundation publishes The Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which assesses governance performance in 54 African countries. It also awards the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership (worth $5 million) to African leaders who have successfully delivered

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00:52:28

The pursuit of liberty and prosperity along a narrow...

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/03/30

In the bestselling book – Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012), Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson ask why some nations are rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine. They claim that it is neither culture, weather, nor geography. Rather, they argue that economic success depends on man-made political and economic institutions. In their latest book, The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (2019),

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00:52:58

Can fixing dinner fix the planet? — Jessica Fanzo

In Pursuit of Development ·

2022/03/23

A complex web of factors affects our ability not only to meet nutritional needs, but also our efforts to sustain biodiversity and protect the environment. As the world's agricultural, environmental, and nutritional needs intersect—and often collide—how can nations, international organizations and consumers work together to reverse the damage by changing how we make, distribute, and buy food? And do we have the right to eat wrongly?Jessica Fanzo is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food

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