Why do some states, with foreign assistance, transition from 'fragile' to 'robust?' Scholars in state-building have argued that neotrusteeship is an effective strategy by which external organizations might build post-conflict states. This working paper tests this hypothesis, and two related...

Conflict depletes all forms of human and social capital, as well as supporting institutions. The scale of the human damage can overwhelm public action, as there are many competing priorities and resources are often insufficient. What then should be the priorities for 'post-conflict' policy?...

To date, there is limited understanding about the consequences of wartime dynamics for post-war state-building processes. This paper explores one such dynamics-the forms of governance exercised by armed groups during wartime-and proposes a theoretical framework outlining how forms of wartime...

While much of the literature studies causes and consequences of war, the reverberations of peace have rarely been studied. By focusing on the universe of ceasefire agreements since 1993, we study the causal effect of peace on economic recovery using a regression discontinuity in time approach....

Rebuilding state legitimacy is a thorny challenge in the aftermath of civil wars. The international community has stepped in to support post-conflict states in rebuilding state capacity, sometimes replacing governments in providing public goods. Most notably, research shows that UN peacekeepers...

This article explores whether legal empowerment can address horizontal inequalities in post-conflict settings, and if so, how. It argues that legal empowerment has modest potential to reduce these inequalities but that there are risks of strengthening group identities, reducing social cohesion,...

Why are some countries more successful at carrying out post-conflict reconstruction programmes than others? Why has Sierra Leone been more successful in the reform of its armed forces than Liberia has after the end of the Mano River Basin wars? This paper argues that the diverging outcomes are...

Violent conflicts affect the lives and livelihoods of almost one quarter of the world's population. But the effects of violent conflict are not uniform. This study assesses the differential effects of violent conflict on young people's education, job prospects, and forms of civic engagement and...