Contemporary civil wars are rooted in a partial or complete breakdown of the social contract, often involving disputes over public spending, resource revenues, and taxation. A feasible social contract gives potential rebels something akin to a transfer. When this is improbable, and the potential...

The paper analyses credibility and reputation in the context of peace negotiations. Where war provides economic gains to one side, peace is not incentive compatible, and peace agreements will necessarily degenerate, as they become time inconsistent. Levels of conflict are an increasing function...

The relationship between an economy's financial sector and the occurrence and resolution of conflict may at first sight appear tenuous. Banking systems, financial regulation, and currency arrangements do not appear to be relevant in understanding why nations collapse or why people kill each...

War provides economic opportunities, such as the capture of valuable natural resources, that are unavailable in peacetime. However, belligerents may prefer low-intensity conflict to total war when the former has a greater pay-off. This paper therefore uses a two-actor model to capture the...

This paper analyzes problems of implementing noneconomic conditionality, such as military expenditure reduction, in the granting of foreign aid given the presence of asymmetric information. The authors present two conceptually separate principal-agent models to capture the stylized facts of...

This paper argues that both socio-economic disadvantage and political factors, such as the West’s foreign policy with regard to the Muslim world, along with historical grievances, play a part in the development of Islamic radicalized collective action in Western Europe. We emphasise the role...