Suchergebnisse

Building a capable public service is fundamental to postconflict state building. Yet in postconflict settings, short-term pressures often conflict with this longer-term objective. To ensure peace and stabilize fragile coalitions, the imperative for political elites to hand out public jobs and better pay to constituents dominates merit. Donor-financed projects that rely on technical assistants and parallel structures, rather than on government systems, are often the primary vehicle for meeting pressing service delivery needs. What, then, is a workable approach to rebuilding public services postconflict? Paths between Peace and Public Service seeks to answer this question by comparing public service reform trajectories in five countries—Afghanistan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Timor-Leste—in the aftermath of conflict. The study seeks to explain these countries' different trajectories through process tracing and structured, focused methods of comparative analysis. To reconstruct reform trajectories, the report draws on more than 200 interviews conducted with government officials and other stakeholders, as well as administrative data. The study analyzes how reform trajectories are influenced by elite bargains and highlights their path dependency, shaped by preconflict legacies and the specifics of the conflict period. As the first systematic study on postconflict public service reforms, it identifies lessons for the future engagement of development partners in building public services.

Reducing coup risk is imperative and expensive for postconflict leaders. A theoretical framework is therefore needed to explain the subset of leaders who spend on development following civil war. The low-windfall coup-proofing hypothesis proposed here suggests that only postconflict leaders who lack natural resources and offer no strategic importance to donors choose to reduce coup risk by using nonstrategic aid for development. A nested research design with data on postconflict coups (1970–2009) and a case study based on fieldwork are used to test the hypothesis. The hypothesis is supported across robustness checks, indicating that development from aid reduces coup risk for postconflict leaders with low windfall.

Reducing coup risk is imperative and expensive for postconflict leaders. A theoretical framework is therefore needed to explain the subset of leaders who spend on development following civil war. The low-windfall coup-proofing hypothesis proposed here suggests that only postconflict leaders who lack natural resources and offer no strategic importance to donors choose to reduce coup risk by using nonstrategic aid for development. A nested research design with data on post-conflict coups (1970-2009) and a case study based on fieldwork are used to test the hypothesis. The hypothesis is supported across robustness checks, indicating that development from aid reduces coup risk for postconflict leaders with low windfall. [Reprinted by permission; copyright Sage Publications Ltd.]

Promoting democracy and strengthening good governance have become core components of post-conflict peace-building initiatives of the United Nations (UN). An often overlooked dimension of the analysis of UN peace support operations has been the crucial role played by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) at the critical juncture linking peacekeeping to sustainable development. UN peace operations in Central America over the last decade have pioneered the organisation's involvement in the uncharted territory of post-conflict peace building. UNDP's Central American experience was the first step in the organisation's evolution away from providing traditional development assistance, towards playing an active and openly political role in post-conflict democracy building and governance reform. This new role of the UNDP has had dramatic repercussions on its mandate, administrative structures, corporate policies and operational strategies. The current institutional renewal of UNDP has its roots in its endorsement of democratic governance as essential dimensions of its mandate to promote sustainable human development. This article assesses the significance, promises and dilemmas of the governance agenda for UNDP and analyses the scope, nature and institutionalisation of democracy and governance programmes within UNDP, using Central America as a case study. It argues that the future of UNDP democracy assistance will largely depend on how successful it is at resolving the inherent tensions between democracy promotion and national sovereignty, while retaining its multilateral approach to peace and democracy.

In this summary report and a series of country case studies, infoDev is exploring the transformative role that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can have in post-conflict nations during the process of reconstruction. The case studies look at countries at different stages of post-conflict reconstruction in Afghanistan, Liberia, Rwanda and Timor-Leste, and post-revolution in Tunisia. The report examines how policy-makers, the donor community, and the private sector have prioritized and sequenced ICT initiatives in the aftermath of conflict. In addition, the report proposes a conceptual framework to understand how ICTs can contribute to improving service delivery and assisting with nation-building. The opening chapter of the report gives an overview of the relationship between conflict, reconstruction and the role of ICTs. It builds on experience within the Bank as well as on a wide range of practitioner, academic and other literature. The second chapter seeks to establish a framework for understanding the ways in which ICTs interact with societies in transition from violence to stability, and for leveraging their potential to further that transition. The roots of this lie in understanding two fields of study, policy and practice: analysis of conflict and post-conflict reconstruction, and analysis of ICTs and the development of an information society. Chapter three then analyses the relationship between these two fields and proposes a framework for analysis and policy development. The final chapter makes a number of recommendations to the World Bank Group, to other donors and development actors, as well as to the governments of countries emerging from violent conflict, and suggests areas for further research.

'Reconciliation(s)' considers the definition of the concept of reconciliation itself, focusing on the definitional dialogue that arises from the attempts to situate reconciliation within a theoretical and analytical framework.