INSTITUTIONS & GOVERNANCE
How does change take hold?
Institutions are the rules, organisations and routines through which power is organised and outcomes are produced. This theme examines how institutions enable or foreclose development, how they are built and reformed, and how they are captured, resisted or transformed. Essays gathered here read policy outcomes not as the product of good or bad design alone, but as the result of structures, incentives and relationships — the political economy of institutions, and the conditions under which institutional change takes hold.
Essays in this theme
Global Governance
No New Historical Injustices? AI Governance, the Global South and the Caribbean’s Place in the Emerging Technological Order
On Friday afternoon as I was milling about with Bloomberg in the background, I caught a sound bite of Xi Jinping’s speech on AI. As I listened, I got the feeling that a race was beginning or had perha…
Dr Dinah Hippolyte
17 Jul 2026 · 5 min read
Global Governance
The WTO Does Not Have Arthritis. It has Politics
I read a recent article “The WTO Is Not in Crisis, It Has Arthritis” that was the initial spark for this essay. The article argues that the World Trade Organization is not collapsing but rather strugg…
Dr Dinah Hippolyte
15 Jul 2026 · 3 min read
Regional Integration
On Caribbean Math and the Limits of CARICOM Unity
Disagreement within CARICOM is not new. From a political economy perspective, conflict is not evidence that regional integration is failing. It is evidence that states are pursuing and negotiating int…
Dr Dinah Hippolyte
10 Jul 2026 · 4 min read
Regional Integration
When Money Is “Left on the Table”: A Critical Political Economy Reflection on Access to Development Aid
This week, I found myself reflecting on a discussion prompted by an international development agency’s claim that Caribbean countries had failed to access available funding and had therefore “left mon…
Dr Dinah Hippolyte
20 Mar 2026 · 2 min read