Working Paper
Fiscal states in sub-Saharan Africa: conceptualization and empirical trends
This paper contributes to the debate on domestic revenue mobilization and state-building in the Global South by asking whether there are fiscal states in sub-Saharan Africa. To answer this question, we review the diverse understandings of the fiscal...
Book Chapter
Foreign aid and peacebuilding
Foreign aid is a core component of peacebuilding and among the largest external financial flows to fragile states and conflict-affected areas. Nevertheless, troubling critiques have been raised about its overall impact and effectiveness. Some of the...
Working Paper
Wartime governance and state-building trajectories in post-conflict societies
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...
Working Paper
The incursion of Leviathan: wartime territorial control and post-conflict state capacity in Peru
How do civil war dynamics affect state-building decisions in the aftermath of conflict? This paper argues that, in the post-conflict period, the state focuses its efforts to build state capacity on areas in which state power has been eroded during...
Working Paper
States of disorder
Why is the recent track record of state-building so poor? Over the past decade, international interventions in Afghanistan, Somalia, Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have not resulted in...
Working Paper
Power, institutions, and state-building after war
I examine whether and how the means through which a civil war ends affects the success of a country’s state-building strategy after conflict. I show that two distinct modes of conflict termination—military victories and negotiated settlements—lead to...
Working Paper
Civic legacies of wartime governance
In conflict zones around the world, both state and non-state actors deliver governance at local levels. This paper explores the long-term impact of individual exposure to ‘wartime governance’ on social and political behaviour. We operationalize...
Seminar
Kunal Sen discusses COVID-19 and subnational state capacity in India
Kunal Sen delivers a seminar on key findings from the UNU-WIDER research project COVID-19 and subnational state capacity in India at the School of Development Studies, Ambedkar University in Delhi, India. The project's detailed studies of the...
23 February 2023
School of Development Studies, Ambedkar University, Room 301, Admin Block, Kashmere Gate Campus, Delhi, India
Past event
Working Paper
No taxation without informational foundation
This paper combines cross-national statistical analysis and in-depth historical case studies of Argentina and Chile to explore the relationship between two crucial dimensions of state capacity.We show that information capacity contributes to the...