Research Project
Mapping Governance Assemblages in
Development Cooperation
Mapping Governance Assemblages in
Development Cooperation
We explore how organisations engaged in development cooperation and humanitarian action collaborate to deliver development outcomes. What governance systems emerge, and how do these function, flow, and dissolve?
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ABOUT Geoformations is the study of how, why, and in what ways organisations engaged in development cooperation and humanitarian action cooperate and collaborate to deliver development outcomes. We study the interactions among international and national non-governmental organisations, civil society organisations, and civil actors in assembling governance structures, and how these interactions ensure effective and appropriate governance of sustainable development programs. What governance systems, structures and processes emerge, and how do these function, flow, and dissolve?
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Focus and Objectives
Map the governance regulatory and policy landscape governing civil society relations and partnership models at multiple scales.
Assemblage Collaborations
Critically assess how and why international and national civil society collaborations form using assemblage thinking and methodologies.
Realist Evaluations
Develop novel critical realist evaluation methodologies to evaluate governance structures and processes and support comparative, internal, and peer evaluation in this space.
Governance Flows
Trace the intersecting governance functions and flows across spaces and territories to understand how and why governance responsibilities and processes are distributed, who is represented at each stage, what contextual factors influence power and decision-making, and how information, insights, knowledge, and experiences flow between entities.
Strategic Assemblies
Use issue framing through participant assemblies to explore the degree to which affected populations are engaged in assemblages of transnational organisational governance structures and processes and their opportunities to input into and have oversight of strategic planning activities.
Map the governance regulatory and policy landscape governing civil society relations and partnership models at multiple scales.
Assemblage Collaborations
Critically assess how and why international and national civil society collaborations form using assemblage thinking and methodologies.
Realist Evaluations
Develop novel critical realist evaluation methodologies to evaluate governance structures and processes and support comparative, internal, and peer evaluation in this space.
Governance Flows
Trace the intersecting governance functions and flows across spaces and territories to understand how and why governance responsibilities and processes are distributed, who is represented at each stage, what contextual factors influence power and decision-making, and how information, insights, knowledge, and experiences flow between entities.
Strategic Assemblies
Use issue framing through participant assemblies to explore the degree to which affected populations are engaged in assemblages of transnational organisational governance structures and processes and their opportunities to input into and have oversight of strategic planning activities.
Featured Publications
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Journal Article
December 31, 2025
Turkish Journal of International Development (TUJID)
Assemblage Thinking and Methodological Reorientation in Development Studies
Maeve McGandy, Dr Susan Murphy, Ruby Paterson
In the context of interconnected crises and shifting geopolitical dynamics, the imperative to reimagine how development is practiced and studied has grown increasingly urgent. This paper advances a methodological intervention in development research by drawing on insights from multi-sited empirical work that examines development governance through the lens of assemblage thinking. Using illustrative cases from studies from Ukraine and Costa Rica, we demonstrate how assemblage approaches can illuminate development governance as a dynamic, relational, and multi-scalar field of practice. Assemblage thinking pushes analysis beyond fixed spatial, temporal, and institutional frameworks, offering a productive lens through which to examine the entangled, emergent, and contested nature of development governance.
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Journal Article
November 10, 2025
Geopolitics
A New Brussels Consensus? Qatargate and the (Re)articulation of EU International Development Cooperation Governance
Dr Susan Murphy, Cian McMahon
As the polycrisis of the current conjuncture interacts and unfolds across sites and scales, the core democratic institutions of the European Union experienced their own localised crises of confidence and legitimacy with the eruption of Qatargate, a bribery and corruption scandal involving cash transfers through fake non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to European Parliamentarians, in December 2022. We examine the longer-term geo-historical context within which this crisis is embedded and undertake a critical policy analysis of EU policies and parliamentary deliberations on development cooperation and NGO accountability and transparency. We find evidence of a distinct drift over time from universal to EU values and interests with a deepening role for the EU/state in controlling NGO relationships.
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Latest News
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Doing things right, or doing the right things? Researching organisational …
Akila Munir
February 16, 2026
This blog draws on postgraduate research, which explored how international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) learn and make strategic decisions in a period of growing uncertainty. Introduction: International development is navigating a period of profound change. Overlapping global crises are placing increasing pressure on development actors, while international aid budgets continue to contract. Within this shifting landscape, international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) have become both central and contested actors, operating across geographies and scales to respond rapidly to crises, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected settings. At the same time, INGOs face growing expectations to demonstrate effectiveness, accountability, and adaptability. In response, many have become
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Encountering Context: Reflections from a Pilot Visit to Dar es Salaam, TanzaniaÂ
Ruby Paterson
February 4, 2026
Introducing the pilot visit, situating the study: In September of 2025 I embarked on a pilot field visit as part of my doctoral research journey. Travelling from Dublin to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (which is the site of my research), my goal was to engage with civil society organisations working in the development space.  Broadly speaking, my PhD research explores the emergence, functioning, and governance of rights based civil society organisations within development cooperation. In this blog, I reflect on 3 weeks spent in Dar es Salaam, paying particular attention to the methodological insights that emerged and to the ways in which these experiences have reoriented the direction of my research. Taking this pilot trip was an important step within the context of my PhD research, and thus, my time in the field was guided by several objectives: Reflections from the field:  I left Ireland feeling both excited and apprehensive. I’d spent the summer before preparing for this
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The Paradox of Participatory Empowerment: Analysing Horizontal Power Dynamics in …
Fionn Casey
December 10, 2025
This blog features a guest post by Fionn Casey Ó Siochrú drawing on postgraduate field research carried out in rural Uttar Pradesh in 2025. Participation & Empowerment: Participatory development is widely promoted as an approach that actively engages local people, and project and programme ‘beneficiaries’, at every stage of design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. Emphasising collaboration and rooted in a desire to shift power from external ‘experts’ to community members and local populations, it highlights the importance of local knowledge, encourages for collective decision-making, and aspires to build capacities for self determination. However, the near universal appeal of participation can obscure
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Shifting Aid, Shifting Ground: How NGOs are Adapting in Costa Rica’s …
Ivonne Lopez
November 21, 2025
This blog forms Part 2 of a two-part series reflecting on field research undertaken in Costa Rica’s Pacific Region. At Geoformations, our work in Costa Rica’s Pacific Region offered a case study for understanding how shifting funding conditions, across scales, influence the governance space in which NGOs engaged in climate-adaptation operate. The first instalment in this blog series traced adaptation aid in the region through an assemblage lens, highlighting how the field is influenced by donor-NGO relations, climate politics, and scalar developmental dynamics. In this blog, we focus specifically on how shifting funding conditions are affecting NGOs in the region, and how organisations are navigating the changes. Though 2025 has brought with it profound changes to the aid system globally, the patterns observed and discussed below may appear familiar to those who have experienced or studied aid downturns in the past. The current conjuncture is marked by top-down decision-making, weak – or in
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Researching NGOs & Climate Adaptation amid Global Aid Shifts: Field …
Ivonne Lopez
October 28, 2025
This blog forms Part 1 of a two-part series reflecting on field research undertaken in Costa Rica’s Pacific Region. When tropical storm Sara hit the Pacific region of Costa Rica, infrastructure was damaged, roads were blocked, houses and businesses were flooded, and lives were disrupted for weeks. While the country’s central valley tends to receive more political and economic attention, coastal communities are left with fewer resources to prepare for and respond to extreme weather events like this. In the immediate aftermath, it is largely community-based organisations that step in and take the lead. They coordinate emergency response efforts and, just
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