Christoph Zürcher

Conflict, state fragility and aid effectiveness: insights from Afghanistan

Aid is rarely an effective development tool in fragile states. This is particularly true of states that are at war, or have recently emerged from violent conflict. Based on research in Afghanistan, this paper examines three possible reasons for this ineffectiveness. First, in fragile states, the interests of donor-peace-builders and recipient governments are seldom aligned: recipients often lack the political will to implement reform, while donors lack the leverage necessary to promote fundamental change. Second, a lack of basic security is one of main impediments to aid effectiveness. At the same time, projects designed to increase security typically have little impact. Finally, aid is more likely to do harm in fragile states than in countries where a reasonably stable government is in place. This is because resource flows are difficult to track in fragile states, and because international actors frequently lack basic information about the host society. As a result, aid often fuels patronage and corruption.

Institutions and the organisation of stability and violence

I   and in Former Yugoslavia the collapse of the socialist empires has caused more hot conflicts and wars than in any other transition region. In each region there were four major armed conflicts. In the Caucasus, there was the disagreement between Armenians and Azeris over Nagorno-Karabakh (1988–93: no political settlement); the wars about Chechnya (1994–96 and 1999–today: no settlement); the internal war in Georgia (1991–92) and Georgia’s war with breakaway Abkhazia (1992–93: no settlement); and breakaway South-Ossetia (1989–92: no settlement). In Yugoslavia, the four major violent conflicts were the short campaign of the Yugoslav Army against the breakaway republic of Slovenia in June 1991; the wars between Croats and Serbs in eastern Slovenia and in the Krajina (1991–95); the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992–95); and the war about Kosovo, which was fought on the one hand between Serbs and Kosovo-Albanians in Kosovo, and on the other hand between NATO and Serbia (1998–99). Both the Caucasus and Former Yugoslavia are typical high-risk regions. At least four factors commonly held responsible for increasing the risk of violence are present.1 First, there is the legacy of the socialist system of ethno-federalism (Brubaker 1994; Bunce 1999). Socialist ethno-federalism had linked territories with a titular nation and provided these territories with quasi-state institutions, such as citizenship, borders, symbols, political institutions, and in the case of Yugoslavia, armed forces. Ethno-national mobilisation for independence was thus prepared by the socialist systems. Secondly, in most cases there was also a past history of grievance and conflicts. Armenians and Azerbaijanis, Chechens and Russians, Serbs and Kosovars, Croats and Serbs all have stories and experiences of old animosity. Thirdly, the peoples of Yugoslavia and the USSR experienced economic hardships during the 1980s. Lastly, all polities in Yugoslavia and in the Caucasus (that is, the former Federal Republics and the former

State formation as it happens: insights from a repeated cross-sectional study in Afghanistan, 2007–2015

Abstract This paper contributes to an empirical understanding of state formation. Based on an original household-level data set, we provide a detailed picture of the process of state formation in Afghanistan over the last decade. State formation happens when state and society engage in reciprocal relations. Central to this relationship is an exchange of services for the acceptance of authority and increased legitimacy. Our data allows us to assess state-society relations across different dimensions. We focus on the provision of services, on the responsiveness of the state, on conflict regulation and on taxation. As a result we find more evidence of state formation than expected, but also see this as a contested process that unfolds unevenly and with different speed across different sectors.

A theory of democratisation through peace-building

Abstract This contribution presents a theory of democratisation through peace-building. Peace-building is seen as an interactive process between external peace-builders and domestic elites; whether a post-war state develops into a democracy or not depends to a large extent on the outcome of the bargaining process between domestic elites and peace-builders. It is argued that domestic elites typically face many constraints which make adopting democratic reforms a risky and costly proposition. Also, peace-builders usually have much less leverage over domestic elites than one would expect given their resources and man-power. High adoption costs and low leverage explain the outcome of the interaction between peace-builders and domestic elites often results in a peace which is not democratic. The paper uses an analysis of 19 major peace-building missions for exemplifying the theory.