Sustainable development requires well co-ordinated and functioning formal and informal institutions. In developing countries, courts, regulations and formal conventions are often observed in the breach or fail to function. By default, informal institutions – tradition, culture, family...

Some claim that the scarcity of natural resources, particularly renewable resources, is a "causal mechanism" behind civil war. Recent work in development studies and political science suggest that relative abundance of natural resources cause broad-based socio-economic and political problems,...

This study addresses state militarization under conditions of ethnic and other diversity. Recent scholarship in economics finds that high diversity leads to lower provision of public goods. At the same time, conflict studies find that highly diverse societies face a lower risk of civil war...

Some prominent recent studies of civil war argue that greed, not grievance, is the primary motivating factor behind violence, basing their conclusions on a strong empirical association between primary commodity exports and civil war. This study contrasts alternative propositions that see need-,...

Some report that human rights are likely to be violated when poor countries sign up to structural adjustment programmes (SAPs). These violations apparently occur because ordinary people revolt against the neo-liberal policies that SAPs push. This study examines the effect of the actual flow of...

This study investigates whether ethnic and other forms of social diversity affect militarization of society. Recent scholarship in economics finds that high diversity leads to lower provision of public goods. At the same time, many conflict studies find that highly diverse societies face a lower...

Empirical studies on the causes of civil war robustly show that poor countries are more likely to suffer civil war than rich ones. However, the interpretations of this finding differ. The literature proposes three different causal mechanisms: (1) poverty leads to grievances; (2) income proxies...

Recent research identifies state capacity as a crucial determinant of civil peace. Scholars often interpret the association between wealth and peace as state capacity effects, but they have not clearly distinguished the impact of administrative reach and capacity for coercion from those effects...

The existing literature identifies natural resource wealth as a major determinant of civil war. The dominant causal link is that resources provide finance and motive (the “looting rebels†model). Others see natural resources as causing “political Dutch disease,†which in turn...