Fotini Christia

Alliance Formation in Civil Wars

Part I. Context and Theory: 1. Literature and research design 2. A theory of warring group alliances and fractionalization in multi-party civil wars Part II. Afghanistan: 3. The Afghan Intra-Mujahedin War, 1992-8 4. The Afghan Communist-Mujahedin War, 1978-89 5. The theory at the commander level in Afghanistan, 1978-98 Part III. Bosnia and Herzegovina: 6. The Bosnian Civil War, 1992-5 7. The Bosnian Civil War, 1941-5 Part IV. Further Extensions: 8. Quantitative testing on the universe of cases of multi-party civil wars.

Context Modularity of Human Altruism

Ethnic integration enhances cooperative behavior and sanctioning of free-riders. Whereas altruism drives the evolution of human cooperation, ethno-religious diversity has been considered to obstruct it, leading to poverty, corruption, and war. We argue that current research has failed to properly account for the institutional environment and how it affects the role diversity plays. The emergence of thriving, diverse communities throughout human history suggests that diversity does not always lead to cooperation breakdown. We conducted experiments in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina with Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosniaks at a critical historic moment in the city’s postwar history. Using a public goods game, we found that the ability to sanction is key to achieving cooperation in ethno-religiously diverse groups, but that sanctions succeed only in integrated institutional environments and fail in segregated ones. Hence, we show experimentally for the first time in a real-life setting that institutions of integration can unleash human altruism and restore cooperation in the presence of diversity.

Empowering Women: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan

In societies with widespread gender discrimination, development programs that encourage female participation in local governance can potentially redress gender imbalances in economic, political, and social outcomes. Using a randomized field experiment encompassing 500 Afghan villages, this study finds that a development program which incorporates mandated female participation increases female mobility and involvement in income generation, but does not change female roles in family decision-making or attitudes toward the general role of women in society.

Direct democracy and resource allocation experimental evidence from Afghanistan

Direct democracy is designed to better align public resource allocation decisions with citizen preferences. Using a randomized field experiment in 250 villages across Afghanistan, this paper compares outcomes of secret-ballot referenda with those of consultation meetings, which adhere to customary decision-making practices. Elites are found to exert influence over meeting outcomes, but not over referenda outcomes, which are driven primarily by citizen preferences. Referenda are also found to improve public satisfaction, whereas elite domination of allocation processes has a negative effect. The results indicate that the use of direct democracy in public resource allocation results in more legitimate outcomes than those produced by customary processes.

Do Elected Councils Improve Governance? Experimental Evidence on Local Institutions in Afghanistan

Using data from a field experiment in 500 villages, this paper studies how local institutions affect the quality of governance, as measured by aid distribution outcomes. In villages where elected councils exist and manage distributions, aid targeting improves. However, if the distribution is not clearly assigned to either the council or customary leaders, the creation of elected councils increases embezzlement and makes decision-making less inclusive. Requiring that women manage the distribution jointly with customary leaders also increases embezzlement. Thus, while elected councils can improve governance, overlapping mandates between new and existing institutions may result in increased rent-seeking.Using a randomized field experiment we look at the effect of the creation of democratically elected councils in rural Afghanistan on local governance quality, as measured by the outcomes of a food aid distribution. The results indicate that when the distribution is managed by democratic councils, rather than traditional leaders, the food aid targeting is improved and the level of embezzlement is not changed. However, in villages in which a council was created, but the responsibility for managing the aid distribution was not explicitly assigned to it, targeting was not improved and embezzlement increased. Requiring female participation in the distribution also increased embezzlement and did not improve targeting. Overall, the results show that the creation of democratic institutions can improve governance, but only if institutional responsibilities are clearly defined. But if democratic institutions are created in parallel with traditional ones and responsibilities are not clearly defined this may lead to an increase in corruption.

The National Solidarity Program: Assessing the Effects of Community-Driven Development in Afghanistan

Over the past two decades, community-based approaches to project delivery have become a popular means for governments and development agencies to improve the alignment of projects with the needs of rural communities and to increase the participation of villagers in project design and implementation. This article briefly summarizes the results of an impact evaluation of the National Solidarity Programme (NSP), a community-driven development programme in Afghanistan that created democratically-elected community development councils and funded small-scale development projects. Using a randomized controlled trial across 500 villages, the evaluation finds that NSP had a positive effect on access to drinking water and electricity, acceptance of democratic processes, perceptions of economic well-being and attitudes towards women. Effects on perceptions of local and national government performance and material economic outcomes were, however, more limited or short-lived.

Electoral rules and political selection : theory and evidence from a field experiment in Afghanistan

United States. Army Research Office. Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (Award W911NF-12-1-0509)

Doing the Least Harm: How to Prevent a Post-withdrawal Resumption of Violence in Afghanistan and Iraq

‘Sunnis in Iraq allied with US rejoin rebels’, read a recent cover story in the New York Times, detailing how a group the USA had paid and armed to act as a local police force is now losing its mem...