This publication addresses the question of whether political, fiscal, and administrative decentralization improves government effectiveness and the debate on whether it is a viable and desirable state-building strategy for post-conflict countries. The publication is a collection of eight papers...

"Keefer and Vlaicu demonstrate that sharply different policy choices across democracies can be explained as a consequence of differences in the ability of political competitors to make credible pre-electoral commitments to voters. Politicians can overcome their credibility deficit in two ways....

Mexico is in the midst of a transition. The defeat of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) in the 2000 presidential election marked a watershed, and with the repeated defeat of the PRI in the 2006 election, the era of the single?party dominance appears to be long gone. The demise of the...

"In recent years donor countries have committed to dramatic increases in the supply of foreign aid to developing countries. Meeting and sustaining such commitments will require sufficient support among donor country voters and taxpayers. The determinants of public opinion in donor countries on...