He has written widely on the politics of development, in particular on the role of coalitions, leadership and power in reform processes and how development actors can think and work politically as part of the Developmental Leadership Program; the drivers of global migration, finance and trade and how these processes shape national development; and how people in rich countries engage with global development issues, as part of the Gates Foundation's Development Engagement Lab and the Aid Attitudes Tracker before that.

Current and recent research projects involve fieldwork or data collection in Fiji, France, The Gambia, Germany, Indonesia, Jamaica, Myanmar, Rwanda, Senegal, Solomon Islands, UK, and the US and uses a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, including survey data, network analysis, as well as experiments, text analysis, interviews and focus groups.