Episode 6: Overcoming the Global Despondency Trap: Strengthening Corporate Accountability in Supply Chains

Why do global collective action problems persist, and how do we overcome them?

Drawing on 140 interviews with campaigners, politicians, and businesses in 10 European countries, Dr. Alice Evans' research suggests that many activists are stuck in a despondency trap. Never seeing radical reform, they lower their ambitions, and invest in more feasible but sub-optimal alternatives. This creates a negative feedback loop, in which the dearth of radical reform becomes self-fulfilling. But if reformists see advances at home and abroad, they may become more optimistic about collective mobilisation and break out of their despondency trap.

In this podcast, Salimah Samji, Director of Building State Capability, interviews Dr. Alice Evans about her latest work on overcoming global despondency traps.

This paper is published in the Review of International Political Economy https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09692290.2019.1679220