terrefebiruk.bsky

ALT This study offers a political economy explanation of why authoritarian parties and legislatures vary in strength, and why this variation matters. Without claiming to explain all institutional variation, the book outlines how diverse trajectories of state-led capitalist development engender differing patterns of wealth accumulation and elite contestation, which in turn, reshape institutional landscapes across regimes. Where accumulation is more closely controlled by state and party leaders, rival factions remain subdued, ruling parties can consolidate relatively strong institutional structures, and parliament remains marginal. Conversely, where a class of private wealth accumulators expands, factions can more easily form, both eroding party institutions and encouraging greater legislative strength. The book uses this analysis to reassess the significance of a stronger legislature. It considers parliament’s influence on distributive politics, both regressive and progressive. It also cons

ALT Infrastructure has long been understood as central to enabling “progress”, a visible sign of modernity and development. Urban scholars have pushed back against modernist notions of the networked city as the teleological end of infrastructure, yet there remains uncertainty and debate over how to make sense of infrastructure’s temporality. We emphasize that – analytically – infrastructure is always “in formation”. To understand infrastructure’s politics, we consider how progress and completion are narrated, imagined, adjusted to and politicized by providing three contrasting infrastructure vignettes in Nairobi. In our analysis of a bus rapid transit system, we see incremental changes and proclamation of an envisioned final state. In our consideration of the laying of pipes, wires and sidewalks, we see acceptance of what are seemingly indefinite disruptions and politicians wanting to be associated – for as long as possible – with the building of infrastructure. Finally, we examine sanitat