Our History
Here, we present some of the key events from each year since the founding of GLD at the University of Gothenburg in 2015.
2024
- We launched a GLD Executive Summaries Series in March.
- In May, GLD held its 7th Annual Conference, The Dynamics of Change in Governance and Local Development.
- The Competing Authorities in the Middle East and North Africa project held its second workshop, with scholars from around the world exploring how the Everyday Choices framework applies to cases across the Middle East and North Africa.
- Erica Metheney and Ellen Lust presented the LGPI at a Chalmers University Ventures group, undertook extensive validity testing using the 2019 LGPI data and held a workshop with an international group of local governance experts to review the instrument, validity reports, and provide feedback.
- We welcomed five new associates.
- Post-doctoral fellow Michael Chanda Chiseni went to Zambia for fieldwork, where he studied the effects of local chieftaincies and governance on the impact of Chinese and World Bank aid.
- Hans Lueders, Erica Metheney, and Ellen Lust finalized analyses and presented two conference papers from their book project, Boundaries and Barriers Social Institutions and Domestic Migraion in Southern Africa.
- The fall of 2024 marked a new milestone for GLD as we established a second branch at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, United States.
- GLD Director Ellen Lust started a new role at Cornell University on September 1st as the Director of the Einaudi Center for International Studies and Professor in the Department of Government and the Brooks School of Public Policy.
- The Political Change and Local Governance in Emerging Cities project presented its first conference paper at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting in September and implemented focus groups in Brazil, Ghana, and Tunisia during the fall.
- Two new post-doctoral fellows, Prisca Jöst and Dave Namusanya, were hired for the Survive, Thrive, or Deprive? Drivers and Outcomes of Resilience During the Covid-19 Pandemic in Malawi project. They prepared for the first fieldwork phase in Malawi in early 2025.
2023
- The GLD website got an updated look and new functions, like the launch of an educational page (providing educational material for different academic and professional levels) and the integration of Harvard Dataverse.
- We started two new research projects: Competing Authorities in the MENA and Political Change and Local Governance in Emerging Cities.
- We held another round of the Work-in-Progress Workshop Series.
- The GLD podcast, Governance Uncovered, moved from SoundCloud to Acast and we introduced a new podcast format with shorter interviews and more guests per episode.
- GLD's 6th Annual Conference, Contested Authority at the Local Level: Implications for Governance, Policy Outcomes, and Service Provision, was held at Nääs Fabriker between 22-25 May.
- The workshop Competing Authorities in the Middle East and North Africa, was held together with the Hicham Aloui Foundation in Aspenäs, between 12-15 June.
- We introduced the "GLD Research Seminar Series," which provides an introduction to the research process.
2022
- GLD changed its name to "Governance and Local Development Institute" to reflect the expansion of our projects and institutionalization of the organization.
- GLD updated its logo and look.
- 2022 was the first year of hosting our first class of Program Fellows.
- We welcomed 11 GLD Associates.
- Five new staff members joined.
- During the course of six weeks, we held three different conferences with a total of 129 participants.
- The Gender and Politics in the MENA conference was held at Varbergs Kusthotell between 10-12 May.
- GLD's 5th Annual Conference, Giving and Taking: Studies on Extraction and Participation in Local Governance, was held at Vann Spa, Lysekil, between 23-26 May.
- The SWEMENA conference, Building Networks Across Sweden, the Middle East, and North Africa, was held at the Department of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, between 13-14 June.
- Ellen Lust's book Everyday Choices: The Role of Competing Authorities and Social Institutions in Politics and Development (Cambridge University Press, 2022) was published as OpenAcces and as an Audiobook on Acast.
2021
- GLD had its first fully digital Annual Conference via Zoom: GPS - Governance, People, and Space.
- 31 different digital events were held.
- A three-day conference on Gender and Politics in the MENA region was arranged.
- GLD’s Work-in-Progress Workshop premiered.
- We started producing and publishing policy briefs to summarize our research to a non-academic audience.
- Another new initiative in 2021 was the Policy Roundtable sessions, in which panelists from organizations worldwide join to discuss current political events.
- Our three-year-long Covid-19 project reached the finish line and was summarized in a report that you can find here.
- The project Zambian Election Panel Survey was carried out.
- GLD received a research grant from The Carnegie Corporation of New York to support the project Governance and Local Development in the Middle East and North Africa.
- GLD received a research grant from Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council) for the project Survive, Thrive, or Deprive? Drivers and Outcomes of Resilience During the Covid-19 Pandemic in Malawi.
2020
- GLD launched the GLD SSRN eJournal.
- Safer Field Research in the Social Sciences: A Guide to Human and Digital Security in Hostile Environments was published by Sage Publications.
- GLD and its partners collected over 6,800 telephone surveys in Malawi and Zambia for the project Developing a Locally Rooted Approach to Covid-19 Response between May and August 2020.
- GLD disseminated results in the Fall through reports, working papers, webinars, and the public release of four new data sets.
- GLD, in collaboration with TIFA Research, fielded a limited battery of questions adapted from the Malawi and Zambia Covid-19 surveys as part of a larger survey run by TIFA Research. Director Lust then participated in a webinar with TIFA to discuss and disseminate results at local and policy-levels.
- Creation of GLD Data.
- GLD launched three new research projects:
- Developing a Locally Rooted Approach to Covid-19 Response in Malawi and Zambia (GLD Program Recruitment Grant – Swedish Research Council; FORMAS).
- To Punish or Pardon? Attitudes Towards Justice and Reintegration for Europeans Who Cooperated with the Islamic State (Lundgrens Vetenskapsfond).
- Gender and Politics in the MENA: A Decade after the Arab Uprisings (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond).
2019
- GLD held its Annual Conference, Routes to Accountability, in Varberg, Sweden.
- GLD-QoG-V-Dem-UCDP Joint Policy Dialogue Day – “New Challenges to Democracy, Governance and Peace.”
- GLD launched its podcast series, Governance Uncovered.
- The LGPI was utilized in large national surveys in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia.
- GLD and its partners surveyed over 24.000 individuals during the period May to November. The data was collected as part of two research projects, Social Institutions and Governance: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa and Urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa: Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia.
- GLD launched four new research projects:
- Governance and Local Development in the MENA (Hicham Alaoui Foundation).
- Local Governance under Decentralization: Oman and in the Arab Region (Carnegie Corporation of New York).
- From Revenge to Forgiveness: Strengthening Durable Peace in Post-Conflict Societies (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond; Folke Bernadotte Academy).
- Public Goods Provision in the Shadow of Urbanization: Learning from Experiences in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia (Swedish Research Council).
2018
- GLD hired postdoctoral research fellow Josephine Gakii Gatua and PhD student Elise Tengs.
- GLD held its Annual Conference, Layered Authority, in Gothenburg, Sweden.
- GLD-QoG-V-Dem-UCDP Joint Policy Dialogue Day – “New Research=Better Policies: Insights on Democracy, Governance, and Armed Conflict.”
- GLD and IPOR found the Edward Chiwayula Scholarship, supporting students at the University of Malawi.
- GLD launched two new research projects:
- Refugee Migration and Cities: Social Institutions, Political Governance and Integration in Jordan, Turkey, and Sweden (SIPGI) (Swedish Research Council).
- SAFEResearch: Safer Field Research in the Social Sciences (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and Swedish Research Council).
2017
- GLD disseminated results from the LGPI in Tunisia (2015) and Malawi (2016), including reports, working papers, presentations, workshops, and the public release of the truncated Malawi 2016 LGPI data set.
- GLD held its first Annual Conference, Seeking Solutions, in Hindås, Sweden.
- GLD, QoG, V-Dem, and UCDP organized the first joint Policy Dialogue Day – “From Knowledge to Action: Current Insights on Democracy, Governance, and Armed Conflict.”
- GLD awards its first six Short-Term Grants.
- GLD hired PhD students Prisca Jöst and Ezgi Irgil.
- GLD launched two new research projects:
- Social Institutions and Governance: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa (Swedish Research Council).
- Urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa: Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia (FORMAS).
2016
- GLD hired postdoctoral research fellow Ruth Carlitz.
- 2016 LGPI Malawi: GLD and its partners from IPOR Malawi, University of Bergen, and Christian Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway implemented the LGPI survey in Malawi. We collected over 8,100 household surveys and 270 elite surveys during the period March to April 2016.
2015
- GLD moved to the University of Gothenburg.
- GLD hired postdoctoral research fellows Kristen Kao and Adam Harris and PhD student Felix Hartmann.
- The first GLD Gothenburg working paper by Ariel I. Ahram, War-Making, State-Making, and Non-State Power in Iraq was published.
- 2015 LGPI Tunisia: Data was collected in Tunisia between February and March 2015, funded by the Moulay Hicham Foundation and Yale University. GLD researchers began analysis and dissemination of findings after GLD moved to Gothenburg in June.
- GLD began preparations for the 2016 LGPI survey.