Journal Article
Development programs, security, and violence reduction
India has employed a variety of military, political and economic measures to combat the long running insurgency in Kashmir with little evidence on what contributes to stability in the region. This paper uses a variety of tests to detect structural...
Working Paper
An exploration of the association between fuel subsidies and fuel riots
Between 2005 and 2018, 41 countries had at least one riot directly associated with popular demand for fuel. We make use of a new international dataset on fuel riots to explore the effects of fuel prices and price regimes on fuel riots. In line with...
Blog
Our project on the institutional legacies of violent conflict
One of the most critical challenges in international development today is to understand how best to support peace, security, economic recovery, and...
Blog
Why do we see boom-and-bust growth in fragile and conflict-affected states?
One of the most pressing challenges in development policy is to bring about rapid, sustained, and inclusive growth in developing countries. Apart from...
Working Paper
Secession and social polarization
Does secessionism lead to social polarization? Despite much research on independence movements, their relationship to polarization, a key mechanism theorized as increasing the chances of violent conflict, remains less understood. We argue that...
Working Paper
The legacy of conflict: aggregate evidence from Sierra Leone
This paper studies the general equilibrium impact of civil war in Sierra Leone. I first use an instrumental variable (IV) strategy and geographic conflict variation to estimate reduced-form effects. I show that civil war leads to affected areas...
Blog
Nobel Peace Prize acknowledges link between preventing hunger and promoting peace
Professor Patricia Justino is a leading expert on the links between political violence and economic development. Her work has greatly expanded...
Working Paper
Aid targeting to fragile and conflict-affected states and implications for aid effectiveness
While significant amounts of foreign aid have been allocated to the group of so-called fragile and conflict-affected states in recent years, it is not clear whether that aid is targeted to where it is most needed. This paper extends recent work by...
Working Paper
Aid and fragile states
Aid is still an important feature of the development landscape. Fragile states, in particular, have the greatest development needs but due to their poor governance they are the least likely countries to use aid effectively to meet their development...
Blog
What are foresight methods and how can they secure our common futures?
by
Aicha Robei
May 2024
Future tools and foresight thinking are crucial instruments to improve decision-making for a common future. As a Youth Foresight Fellow with UNICEF, I...
Working Paper
Aid and violence reduction
Although the provision of security to all their citizens is a state’s fundamental duty, over 50 countries experienced armed conflict in 2021. The international development community has identified armed conflict as an impediment to development and...
Working Paper
Frontier rule and conflict
We examine whether frontier rule, which disallows frontier residents from a recourse to formal institutions of conflict management and disproportionately empowers tribal elites, provides a more fragile basis for maintaining social order in the face...
Book
Development Assistance for Peacebuilding
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is free to read at www.tandfebooks.com and offered as a free PDF download from Taylor & Francis Group and selected open access locations. Development assistance...
Working Paper
Do fences make good neighbours?
India has employed a variety of military, political, and economic measures to combat the long running insurgency in Kashmir with little evidence on what contributes to stability in the region. This paper uses a variety of tests to detect structural...
Journal Article
Early life shocks and mental health
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...
Working Paper
Early life shocks and mental health
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...
Working Paper
Conflict and development
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...
Journal Article
The economic effects of a counterinsurgency policy in India
Using the synthetic control method, we analyze the economic effects of a unique counterinsurgency response to the Naxalite insurgency in India. Of all the states affected by Naxalite violence, only one state, Andhra Pradesh, raised a specially...
Blog
Missing school years for girls: The case of the Assam insurgency
by
Prakarsh Singh
March 2017
Girls in India face many challenges. From the moment they are conceived, they are less likely to be born as compared to boys. This presence of...
Workshop
UNU-WIDER at UN Youth of Finland's Youth Peace Week: Young voices in peace research
UNU-WIDER takes part in UN Youth of Finland's Youth Peace Week 21 September 2023. In partnership with UN Youth of Finland and Saferglobe, UNU-WIDER organizes Young voices in peace research.
Thu, 21 September 2023
Huolintatalo,
Pasilankatu 2, 00101,
Helsinki,
Finland
Past event
Seminar
Aid effectiveness in fragile states
UNU-WIDER researchers offer a seminar on aid effectiveness in fragile states to an audience of Swedish development officials and foreign officers. The seminar is organized by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).
Tue, 23 May 2023
Online,
Sweden
Past event
Panel discussion
Policy panel on war and reconstruction in Ukraine
Tue, 9 May 2023
The crypt of Helsinki Cathedral,
Kirkkokatu 18,
Helsinki,
Finland
Past event
Workshop
Research workshop on war and reconstruction in Ukraine
From 8–9 May 2023, UNU-WIDER holds a research workshop bringing together an international group of researchers with expertise in conflict and peacebuilding to discuss new research that can support policymakers’ discussions on the stabilization...
Mon, 8 May 2023
–
Tue, 9 May 2023
UNU-WIDER,
Katajanokanlaituri 6 B,
Helsinki,
Finland
Past event
Project workshop
Workshop on Institutional legacies of violent conflict
Thu, 12 May 2022
–
Fri, 13 May 2022
UNU-WIDER,
Katajanokanlaituri 6b,
Helsinki,
Finland
Past event
Panel discussion
UNU-WIDER at ISA 2022 Annual Convention
UNU-WIDER Senior Research Fellow Patricia Justino and Research Associate Rute Martins Caeiro join in a virtual panel discussion Trust and Governance in Unstable Democracies on 29 March 2022 14:00 - 15:30 (UTC-5) as part of the International Studies...
Tue, 29 March 2022
Online,
Nashville,
United States
Past event
Presentation
UNU-WIDER at the World Village Festival 2022
Sun, 29 May 2022
Market Square,
Helsinki,
Finland
Past event
In the media
UNU-WIDER experts and the WIDER Development Conference featured in the media
Kalle Hirvonen, Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER, was interviewed by YLE for a news article published on 10 March 2022 on the effects of the Ukraine war on global food security. ‘The war in Ukraine is causing a major supply shock to the world food market...
Working Paper
Civic legacies of wartime governance
In conflict zones around the world, both state and non-state actors deliver governance at local levels. This paper explores the long-term impact of individual exposure to ‘wartime governance’ on social and political behaviour. We operationalize...
Blog
Superpowers, super-spoilers, and hybrid warfare: What the new Cold War means for global cooperation
by
Erica Gaston
March 2022
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...
Working Paper
Wartime governance and state-building trajectories in post-conflict societies
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...
Working Paper
Mothers at peace: post-conflict fertility and United Nations peacekeeping
Armed conflict can shape reproductive behaviour as high child mortality and a lack of health services lead to higher fertility rates. Yet women often postpone childbearing in expectation of better times. Given the theoretical ambiguity, the extant...
Working Paper
Understanding Somalia’s social contract and state-building efforts
Building on a World Bank regional study in Africa aiming at measuring social contracts concepts and within the framework of reflecting on future donor interventions, this paper applies social contracts measurement and complements with qualitative...
Working Paper
The legacy of church–state conflict
A burgeoning literature on repression against civilians argues that exposure to violence changes victims’ identities by strengthening attachment to the in-group and creates downstream effects for political and social behaviour that persist across...
Journal Article
An exploration of the association between fuel subsidies and fuel riots
Between 2005 and 2018, 41 countries had at least one riot directly associated with popular demand for fuel. We make use of a new international dataset on fuel riots to explore the effects of fuel prices and price regimes on fuel riots. In line with...
Working Paper
The legacies of armed conflict: insights from stayees and returning forced migrants
How does conflict, displacement, and return shape trust, reconciliation, and community engagement? And what is the relative impact of exposure to violence on these indicators? In this paper we explore these questions by focusing on the legacies of...
Blog
The conflict in Ukraine - the role of civilians
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...
Blog
How will the Russia-Ukraine war be fought?: External support and insurgency tactics
by
Kit Rickard
March 2022
The Ukrainian state, personified by its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been heroic and has surprised many by its 'stiff resistance'. However...