Publication

This paper explains the ideas and approaches that underpin the World Bank’s Justice for the Poor (J4P) program. J4P conducts research aimed at understanding the ways in which development processes shape and are shaped by local context, and in particular how the poor engage with the multiple rule systems ('legal pluralism') governing their everyday lives. Using three case studies, this paper illustrates how understanding the various roles of law in society provides an innovative means of analyzing and responding to particular development problems.