Neopatrimonialism is a concept that has predominately been applied to describe governance in sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, though, it has also been used to describe states from other world regions. However, scholars have rarely attempted to systematically compare neopatrimonial rule in different...

This paper seeks to explain how Iran's regime persisted in the face of international sanctions during Mahmud Ahmadinejad's presidency, from 2005 to 2013. It reconstructs the interplay between the intensifying UNSC, US and EU sanctions and the targeted regime's strategies to advance the nuclear...

Natural resources are often held responsible for intrastate conflicts. As a consequence, both national and international measures to avoid the detrimental impact of resource endowments have increasingly been discussed and implemented in resource-rich countries. These measures include...

This article challenges claims that liberalising state regulated markets in developing countries may induce lasting economic development. The analysis of the rise of tourism in Egypt during the last three decades suggests that the effects of liberalisation and structural adjustment are...

Historical institutionalism has been used to explain the emergence of democracy and dictatorship in various regions of the world, but not applied to political development in Africa. Based on the recently refined concepts of historical institutionalism, the aim of this study is to provide a...

The debate on institutional engineering offers options to manage ethnic and other conflicts. This contribution systematically assesses the logic of these institutional designs and the empirical evidence on their functioning. Generally, institutions can work on ethnic conflict by either...

Analyses of the shape and functioning of systems of political rule need to address informal institutions, which exist alongside and can relate to formal institutions in various ways. In this paper, I first discuss some analytical foundations of the study of such institutions. I then suggest that...

Half a century after independence, African elites, at least those in conflict-ridden countries, often live in constant fear for their life. Real or invented coup attempts, political assassinations, beatings of opposition leaders, the distribution of death lists, etc. have a profoundly...

Causal mechanisms and related contextual variables are crucial to the study of the resource-conflict link, but little systematic research has been done on their exact functioning. This paper contributes to the filling of this gap by comparing four major oil exporters (Algeria, Iran, Nigeria, and...

This paper focuses on the evolution of the institutional presidency - meaning the cluster of agencies that directly support the chief of the executive - in Argentina and Brazil since their redemocratization in the 1980s. It investigates what explains the changes that have come about regarding...