Why do insurgent victories in civil war sometimes produce states with strong civilian government control over their military forces – for example under the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) in Zimbabwe or the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in Rwanda – but sometimes do not? Building...

What explains the divergent trajectories of violence and political order in failed states and symmetric non-conventional (SNC) wars? The paper proposes a simple theoretical mechanism, “elite-proximity,” that drives variation in disorder at the sub-state level, and tests the theory...

Whereas some “rebel victories” in civil war are followed by the consolidation of well-organized military structures with a clear chain of command between civilian political rulers and the state's new armed forces, in other cases government control over former rebel military forces remains...

Does humanitarian aid delivered in the aftermath of civil conflict increase the risk of conflict resumption? And if so, under what conditions? In contrast to previous work that focuses on the terms of civil war resolution, we argue that humanitarian aid is most likely to play a de-stabilizing...

In this paper, we examine the extent to which political parties in a strong-party system hold individual politicians to account. Specifically, we consider the determinants of incumbent renominations and promotions in the context of South African local government elections. We find strong...