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The five Ws—Who, What, Where, When and Why—have long guided journalists in making sense of complex events. During ESCR-Net’s Political Education Learning Series on the Political Economy of Violence, I suggested that these same questions, together with How, can also help us understand something far more complex: the political economy of violence. Drawing on the experience of the Philippines, I used this framework to explore violence not as a collection of isolated incidents, but as a political and economic system.

In late June, a leaked draft resolution revealed that the Board of Peace – whose executive board includes World Bank president, Ajay Banga – is seeking legal immunity for its members, forces and contractors. This kind of sovereign immunity is straight out of the World Bank’s playbook, which cannot be sued in its countries of operation, and consistently tries to resist accountability. The leaked draft also included a proposal to seize public property in Gaza without offering any compensation, again building on the World Bank’s long legacy of landgrabbing across the Global South.

As shifts in global power reshape the international order, movements are confronting new forms of militarization, extraction, and corporate power. The first in a series emerging from ESCR-Net’s Political Education Learning Series, Power, Repression, and Collective Struggle in a Changing World System, this article draws on collective reflections to explore what these transformations mean for struggles for economic, social, cultural, and environmental justice across regions.