Aid is still an important feature of the development landscape. Fragile states, in particular, have the greatest development needs but due to their poor governance they are the least likely countries to use aid effectively to meet their development challenges. In this paper, we explore which...

Although the provision of security to all their citizens is a state's fundamental duty, over 50 countries experienced armed conflict in 2021. The international development community has identified armed conflict as an impediment to development and provides considerable resources to reduce armed...

A simple two-stage game-theoretic model of conflict is analysed, where the government can send raiders for terrorising the population to flee before the fighting proper begins. The resulting displacement of population reduces the efficiency of the guerrilla in the fight against the government....

The duration of large-scale violent civil conflict increases substantially if the society is composed of a few large ethnic groups, if there is extensive forest cover, and if the conflict has commenced since 1980. None of these factors affect the initiation of conflict. And neither the duration...