Decentralization and Popular Democracy: Governance from Below in Bolivia

Jean-Paul Faguet uses the remarkable case of Bolivia, a radical reformer over two decades, to investigate what happens when a country decentralizes.


Latest working paper

Is Extraction Bad? Encomienda And Development In Colombia Since 1560

Faguet, J.P., F. Sánchez and C. Matajira. 2017. “Is Extraction Bad? Encomienda and Development in Colombia Since 1560.” LSE Manuscript.

Latest publication

The Perversion Of Public Land Distribution By Landed Elites: Power, Inequality And Development In Colombia

Faguet, J.P., F. Sánchez and J. Villaveces. Forthcoming. “The Perversion of Public Land Distribution by Landed Elites: Power, Inequality and Development in Colombia.” World Development.

Invited lectures and conference papers

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Economic Impacts of COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean

Collection of photos from GFB research and travels

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About the Governance from Below website

This website supports Decentralization and Popular Democracy, and related research projects by Jean-Paul Faguet and his colleagues. It includes additional material from the book project, such as a bonus web chapter on seven further case studies, graphs, charts, PPT presentations, and video and audio from lectures. It also provides detailed research materials that may be of use to readers, such as databases, questionnaires, video, and images. New material on the book, and from new research projects, will be added gradually as it becomes available.


Awards this research has won

  • LSE Historic Theses Project – selected as an LSE PhD thesis of historic significance, 2010
  • Corporación Andina de Fomento International Research Paper Prize, 2008
  • LSE-STICERD New Researcher Award, 2006-2008
  • British Academy Small Research Grant, 2006-2008
  • DFID-Crisis States Programme Research Grant, 2001-2005
  • World Bank Research Committee Award for Participatory Planning and Decentralization in Bolivia, 1997-2001
  • William Robson Memorial Prize for best PhD dissertation at the LSE, 2002
  • Overseas Research Scholarship - national (UK) PhD award, 1996-98

This website and much of the research on it are supported by the generosity of Niko Vardapetyan. The Niko Vardapetyan Research Award supports studies of the evolution and reform of economic and political systems. Niko Vardapetyan, the CFO of Geotransgaz Group, studied Global Market Economics at the LSE. He is a firm believer that the challenges of global instability call for imaginative thinking about our economies and institutions through research unconstrained by traditional paradigms.