The two-decade effort by the United States and its NATO allies to build a modern liberal state in Afghanistan envisioned electoral democracy replacing village councils and other forms of customary authority. But citizens still rely on these community-based bodies to resolve disputes, provide small-scale public goods and services, and broker relations with local government. Customary institutions may also provide protection against predatory government officials. Although the international community has largely overlooked customary authority, US and NATO military forces eventually recognized their importance. Throughout history, Afghan rulers have regarded customary authorities as threats to their power, and they have been largely excluded from ongoing peace talks among the United States, the Afghan government, and the Taliban.

For centuries, malaria kept European colonial interests away from the Maldive islands, leaving the remote Indian Ocean island chain on a distinct and largely self-governed trajectory. Successful mosquito eradication in the twentieth century paved the way for development. The COVID-19 pandemic posed a new challenge to the economy, which is now heavily dependent on tourism. But resorts were able to reopen relatively quickly, since they are mostly set up on islands apart from those inhabited by local communities. The nation also has proved adept at finding ways to make tourism compatible with Muslim traditions, though imported harder-line Islamic ideology has raised tensions in recent years. Now the islanders must manage their entanglements with rival regional powers, as China and India compete to provide infrastructure.

Two new books about the China–Latin America relationship reach different conclusions about the implications of growing trade ties for Latin American development. One author argues that countries in the region have had varying success in taking advantage of opportunities created by increasing Chinese engagement, while the other sees old patterns of dependency in the exchange of raw commodities for Chinese manufactured goods.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative is best known as a massive set of infrastructure projects stretching from Asia to Europe. But more than that, it is a sweeping foreign policy vision that provides China with opportunities for deep engagement with virtually every aspect of state and society in its partner countries. Many developing countries welcome the investments and opportunities for trade linked to the initiative, but some of the projects have sparked local resistance over fears of unfair terms or potential opportunities for Chinese intelligence penetration.

“Data-driven governance assumes the need for constant adaptation to change.” Fourth in a series on ways of governing .

Rather than assuming that host communities must serve the industry, expectations should be adjusted so that tourism genuinely aligns with those communities' own priorities.

The consequences of this missed opportunity are serious and will be felt in the not-so-distant future when the oil deposits have drained away.

The lack of planning can be understood as an art of governing, for it ensures the operation of informality.

[T]urning the page on decades of conflict and underdevelopment in the Horn of Africa will require … democratization and the institutionalization of transparent, accountable governance.

Ideally, the free movement of goods and services should coexist with the free movement of people.

Few big countries … have had their fortunes so profoundly shaped by a weak position in the global system.

Hurricane Maria laid bare the painful reality that Puerto Rico is an inconsequential American territory inhabited by second-class US citizens.

“The AKP's neoliberal regime created the ideology and conditions for transformative change in Turkey's new upper-middle-class culture, which trickled down to both the laic and Islamic middle-class factions.” Fourth in a series on social mobility around the world .

Beijing's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative is modernizing ancient patterns of commerce across the region, but small-scale traders may be left behind.

[S]tudies have revealed a high level of intergenerational transfer of class and social status, privileged and otherwise.

What used to be viewed as relatively self-defined polities in a previous era … are now being reconfigured by competing centripetal and centrifugal tensions.

Clearly, Nepalis have to adapt to climate change. It is less clear what precisely the challenges are and who is best positioned to lead the response.

[T]he plan aims for massive urbanization through the extension of formal permanent residency to current and future migrants in small cities and towns rather than large urban centers.

[O]ne-size-fits-all adaptation will not work, given the wide variety of regional impacts in Vietnam.

The Morales administration sought to give indigenous peoples more rights and greater influence in government, effectively breaking down traditional patterns of exclusion.