Why do different services encounter particular constraints and opportunities in their delivery? This working paper identifies a set of characteristics that can be used to differentiate between services, and between functions within them, and asks how these defining or ‘fixed' characteristics...

Received wisdom holds that the provision of vital public services necessarily improves the legitimacy of a fragile or conflict-affected state. In practice, however, the relationship between a state's performance in delivering services and its degree of legitimacy is nonlinear. Specifically, this...