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From the Editor's Desk (March 2012)Tony Addison With the ice floes now gone from the harbour outside the UNU-WIDER building, and with the snow replaced by an icy hail, there is a...
Tony Addison With the ice floes now gone from the harbour outside the UNU-WIDER building, and with the snow replaced by an icy hail, there is a...
Tony Addison It’s now February, and Helsinki remains deep in snow. We had an extended blizzard last weekend, with temperatures hovering around minus...
Malokele Nanivazo Sexual violence crime (SV) in wartime is not a new phenomenon. Mass rapes have occurred in armed conflicts in Rwanda, Kosovo...
Previous UNU-WIDER research has shown that the risk of internal conflict is high in low-income societies rich in natural resources and characterised by ethnic fragmentation. Yet for each country in conflict there are many others with similar...
Reconstruction from conflict is a complex and demanding task, and a major challenge for the UN system as well as the wider donor community. National authorities and their donor partners are faced with multiple priorities - rebuilding infrastructure...
Poor governance and lack of state capabilities in around 45 countries pose a threat to global security and development. The involvement of the international community is required to help these states break out of their low-development–high-conflict...
Este resumo na área das políticas apresenta os resultados de um projecto do UNU/WIDER sobre a guerra e a reconstrução em África da autoria de Tony Addison, que se encontra actualmente publicado sob o nome de From Conflict to Recovery in Africa. Tal...
This policy brief summarizes the results of a UNU/WIDER project on war and reconstruction in Africa directed by Tony Addison, which is now published as From Conflict to Recovery in Africa. As this study makes clear, peace is often elusive and...
This study surveys the small but growing field of entrepreneurship and conflict in developing countries, which is also the topic of this special issue of the Journal of Small business and Entrepreneurship. We review recent contributions on how mass...
Sameeksha Desai Across countries, entrepreneurship is shown to support wealth and income generation, job creation and innovations in product and...
We survey selected parts of the growing literature on the microeconomics of violent conflict, identifying where academic research has started to establish stylized facts and where methodological and knowledge gaps remain. We focus our review on the...
This Research in Progress report is divided into two parts. Part I studies the operationalization and indicators of the different elements of complex humanitarian emergencies. It includes discussions of what to try to measure when looking into the...
This paper provides causal evidence on early-life exposure to war on mental health status in adulthood. Using an instrumental variable strategy, the evidence indicates that early-life exposure to bombing during the American war in Vietnam has long...
In Angola, the availability of two abundant resources (oil and diamonds) has prolonged the conflict beyond its Cold War context. The geography and political economy of these resources were crucial to the course taken by the conflict. Matching the...
In June 1998, Guinea-Bissau was thrown into conflict by a military revolt. This led to 11 months of fighting, extensive loss of life, and the displacement of up to a third of the country's population. This paper discusses the political economy of the...
This paper uses econometric methods and case-study evidence to examine the political economy of complex humanitarian emergencies, multidimensional crises characterized by warfare, disease, hunger, and displacement. We find that stagnation and decline...
This paper uses econometric methods and case-study evidence to examine the political economy of complex humanitarian emergencies, multidimensional crises characterized by warfare, state violence, disease, hunger, and displacement. We emphasize that...
This paper explains correlations between humanitarian emergencies and political economies of 'failing states' in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In both, Cold War era rulers acquired personal power through their influence over economic exchange...
The Age of Humanitarian Emergencies makes an effort to define and operationalize a humanitarian emergency. After having discussed extensively definitions related to collective violence, especially genocide and civil war, the paper opts for a more...
This paper provides causal evidence on early-life exposure to war on mental health status in adulthood. Using an instrumental variable strategy, the evidence indicates that early-life exposure to bombing during the American war in Vietnam has long...
Collecting public opinion data is challenging in the shadow of war. And yet accurate public opinion is crucial. Political elites rely on it and often attempt to influence it. Therefore, it is incumbent on researchers to provide independent and...
Does repression of opposition elites prevent resistance against foreign-imposed regimes? On the one hand, elimination of elites can undermine the opposition’s capacity for anti-regime resistance. Yet killing opposition elites deprives the new regime...
This paper presents evidence of political legacies of exposure to a violent class conflict over 100 years. We revisit the Finnish Civil War of 1918 and first trace out the impact of local conflict exposure on electoral outcomes over a quarter-century...
Under what conditions can legacies of past violence shape political behaviour? We propose a theory of how war victimization defines attitudes over the long run, and how these can be activated by changes in the political environment. We argue that...
The Ukrainian state, personified by its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been heroic and has surprised many by its 'stiff resistance'. However...
The recognition of disputed territories as independent states rarely brings underlying conflicts to an end. Instead, fully, and partially, recognized...
Last week we woke up to a conflict that had echoes of the Second World War, the Cold War, and the last two decades of hybrid conflict all mixed into...
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been fast shifting into a new phase, one many observers have noted is marked by increasing levels of Russian...
Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine has catalysed the European Union (EU) — criticised as a paper tiger yet acknowledged to evolve through crises —...
Shock over the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 continues to be felt. The heroic behaviour of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy...
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has rightly stirred outrage against an act of naked aggression, and sympathy for the plight of ordinary Ukrainians forced...
To date, there is limited understanding about the consequences of wartime dynamics for post-war state-building processes. This paper explores one such dynamics—the forms of governance exercised by armed groups during wartime—and proposes a...
Although baseline data for post-conflict situations are frequently unavailable, there is a clear deterioration in the health conditions of populations during and following conflict. Excess mortality and morbidity, displaced populations, and...
Wartime sexual violence is widespread across conflict zones and thought to leave a disastrous legacy for survivors, communities, and nations. Yet, systematic studies on i) the prevalence and ii) the social and political consequences of wartime sexual...
While there is much to discuss about the geopolitics of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, let's not forget the men, women and children of Ukraine who...
by Tony Addison The period 1990-2000 saw 19 major armed-conflicts in Africa, ranging from civil wars to the 1998-2000 war between Eritrea and Ethiopia...
by E. Wayne Nafziger and Raimo Väyrynen Since the end of the cold war, civil wars and state violence have escalated, resulting in millions of deaths...
Part of Book Democratic Trajectories in Africa
How do production firms adapt to civil war? The answer to this question will inform the potential for economic development during and after conflict. Many businesses survive violent conflict, and in some cases even thrive. Understanding these...
Since October 2000 Israel and the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have become entangled in a bloody confrontation. This paper focuses on the economic relationship between the Israeli economy and the Palestinian economy of the West Bank...
This paper models the instability of peace agreements, motivated by the empirical regularity with which peace agreements tend to break down following civil war. When war provides opportunities for profit to one side, or when other difficulties such...
Since the mid-1980s there have been substantial cuts in military spending everywhere except Pacific Asia. The reasons are both political, such as the end of the Cold War, democratization in Africa and Latin America, and economic, with structural...
Reconstruction from conflict is a complex and demanding task, and a major challenge for post-conflict countries as well as the international community. Countries and their donor partners face multiple priorities – rebuilding infrastructure, assisting...
In this lecture Frances Stewart expands on some of the central themes of her studies for WIDER. She documents the ways in which political power, social demarcations and economic differences combine to produce horizontal inequalities between...
Establishing peace and reconstructing Africa's war-damaged economies are urgent challenges. For Africa to recover, communities must reconstruct, private sectors must revitalize, and states must transform themselves. Thus, unless communities rebuild...
Since the mid-1980s there have been substantial cuts in military spending throughout the world, with the exception of Pacific Asia. The end of the Cold War, democratization in Africa and Latin America, structural adjustment programmes, debts and cuts...
Part of Journal Special Issue Civil War in Developing Countries
Civil wars in developing countries are amongst the most significant sources of human suffering in the world today. Although there are many political analyses of these emergencies, this two-volume work is the first comprehensive study of the economic...
Since the end of the cold war, the number of civil wars in developing countries has escalated to the point where they are the most significant source of human suffering in the world today. Although there are many political analyses of these...
Overcoming state fragility is one of the most important international development objectives of the 21st century. Many fragile states have turned into failed states, where millions of people are caught in deprivation and seemingly hopeless conditions...
Vietnam’s education system has recently attracted international attention for exceptional learning outcomes and success in improving schooling outcomes over a short period, despite being a lower-middle-income country. One potential explanation is the...
Support for entrepreneurship is widely seen as a mechanism to facilitate prosperity and peace in a growing number of post-conflict states. In this paper I critically evaluate this view. I argue that entrepreneurship is a ubiquitous quality in post...
The Maoist insurgency in Nepal is one of the highest intensity internal conflicts in recent times. Investigation into the causes of the conflict would suggest that grievance rather than greed is the main motivating force. The concept of horizontal or...
This paper shows that foreign aid in postwar Lebanon passed through two phases with distinct features that have had far reaching implications for postwar development. In the first phase lasting from 1992-97, foreign aid was mainly channeled towards...
Globally, state failure is hugely costly. We estimate the total cost of failing states at around US$276 billion per year. In this paper we apply our global framework and methodology to analyse the cost of failing states in the Pacific Ocean. Globally...
This paper identifies historic patterns in the dialectic between nationalism and development across various East, South, and Southeast Asian nations. Nationalism as the rationale for development is used by regimes to achieve high levels of growth...
It is important to make a careful distinction between illegal immigration, human smuggling, and human trafficking which are nested, but yet different concepts. This distinction is relevant because these different categories of the illegal movement of...
A common finding in the empirical civil war literature is that population size and per capita income are highly significant predictors of civil war incidence and onset. This paper shows that the common finding of population size and per capita income...
Financial development is vulnerable to social conflict. Conflict reduces the demand for domestic currency as a medium of exchange and a store of value. Conflict also leads to poor quality governance, including weak regulation of the financial system...
by Stephen BrowneEvery ‘conflict country’ is a special case. What distinguishes Rwanda is the intensity of human destruction to which the country...
by Tony Addison War has destroyed the lives and hopes of millions of Africans. It poses major challenges to the United Nations system and to the wider...
Part of Book Fragile States
Part of Book Poverty, International Migration and Asylum
Donors face distinct challenges in operating in fragile states and supporting the building of state capacity. This paper explores one type of assistance – the ‘embedding’ of highly-skilled staff members within local government agencies – through a...
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has the highest growth rate in net international migration in the world. The reasons for this migration are investigated in this paper. First, a survey of the literature on the profile and determinants of international...
This paper analyses the transmission channels through which mass violent conflict and post-conflict fragility affect households. It does so by pointing out how a fragile environment impairs a household’s core functions, boundaries, and its choice of...
This paper models transnational terrorism as a three-way strategic interaction involving a government that faces armed opposition at home, which may spill over in the form of acts of terrorism by the state’s opponents against the government’s...
Institutions are altered by conflict, depending on the scale, duration and type of war. At one extreme, formal political, social and economic institutions may be completely destroyed (e.g. Somalia), while the importance and type of informal...
Part of Book Making Peace Work
Part of Book Making Peace Work
Part of Journal Special Issue Fragility and Development in Small Island Developing States
Part of Book Foreign Aid for Development
Part of Journal Special Issue Vulnerability in Development
Part of Journal Special Issue Small Business, Entrepreneurship, and Violent Conflict in Developing Countries
Part of Journal Special Issue Small Business, Entrepreneurship, and Violent Conflict in Developing Countries
Warlords compete for turf that provides them with rents and ‘taxable’ resources but they can also offer a semblance of security within their respective territories. This article first examines two economic models of warlord competition. Because such...
A simple two-stage game-theoretic model of conflict is analysed, where the government can send raiders for terrorising the population to flee before the fighting proper begins. The resulting displacement of population reduces the efficiency of the...
This paper studies state failure and governance in two conflict-states in the Middle East: Iraq and Somalia. Iraq is currently undergoing a social experiment under which a new form of government is being constructed after the passage of autocratic...
Rachel M. Gisselquist There is much to commend in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as we approach their target deadline of 2015. In addition to...
This paper investigates the determinants of migration from 45 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries over the period 1965–2005. The significant determinants are armed conflict and lack of job opportunities. An additional year of conflict is estimated to...
This paper assesses the institutional constraints on the effectiveness of the United Nations over the course of its existence, especially in relation to its central mission to promote international peace and security. Only passing attention is...
This paper models transnational terrorism as a three-way strategic interaction involving a government that faces armed opposition at home, which may spill over in the form of acts of terrorism by the state's opponents against the government's...
Part of Book The End of Military Fordism
Part of Book The End of Military Fordism
The European Rupture focuses on the consequences of the end of the Cold War for defence sectors in Europe. It offers a theoretical framework supported by country case studies from both Western Europe and formerly centrally planned economies.
Part of Book New Wars
The role of the state has occupied centre stage in the development of economics as an independent discipline and is one of the most contentious issues addressed by contemporary economists and political economists. The immediate post-war years saw a...
Part of Journal Special Issue Civil War in Developing Countries
Part of Journal Special Issue Conflict and Peace-building
Part of Journal Special Issue Civil War in Developing Countries
The first half of the 1990s was a period of great optimism about humanitarian intervention. In the aftermath of the Cold War, it was hoped that the international community could begin to act cohesively in defence of fundamental international...
Part of Book The Mortality Crisis in Transitional Economies
Part of Book War, Hunger, and Displacement
Ce cahier de politique présente une synthèse des résultats d'un projet de l'UNU/WIDER sur la guerre et la reconstruction en Afrique, conduit sous la direction de Tony Addison, et qui viennent d'être publiés dans une étude intitulée From Conflict to...
The first half of the 1990s was a period of great optimism about humanitarian intervention. In the aftermath of the Cold War, it was hoped that the international community could begin to act cohesively in defence of fundamental international...
by Patrick Karl O’Brien ‘Good’ institutions have become a core ingredient of most modern day explanations of economic growth and development. The...
In Mozambique donors have shifted focus from project aid to budget support in an effort to reform the public sector and ‘justice, legality and public order’. While budget support has increased state capacity and helped Mozambique’s donor community...
Phillip Michael Kargbo's UNU-WIDER working paper, 'Impact of Foreign Aid on Economic Growth in Sierra Leone: Empirical Analysis' examines the impact of foreign aid on growth in Sierra Leone using a variety of econometric approaches. The paper finds...
This study explores the effects of foreign aid on democracy in Mozambique during the last decade. Aid for democracy built on historic relationships forged between donors and the government during the wartime humanitarian emergency. Foreign aid played...
This paper examines the impact of foreign aid on economic growth in Sierra Leone, a country where an empirical econometric study on aid effectiveness is yet to exist. Using a triangulation of approaches involving the ARDL bounds test approach and the...
Part of Journal Special Issue Civil War in Developing Countries
Part of Journal Special Issue Explaining Violent Conflict
Conflict depletes all forms of human and social capital, as well as supporting institutions. The scale of the human damage can overwhelm public action, as there are many competing priorities and resources are often insufficient. What then should be...
Part of Book War, Hunger, and Displacement
Part of Book From Conflict to Recovery in Africa
We show that the Russia–Ukraine-war-induced changes in the international price of wheat affected political violence in Asia. Using data from 13 countries and more than four million cell-level observations, we show that a higher wheat price increases...