The coherence and effectiveness of engagement with the world's 'fragile and conflictaffected states' - beyond ethical imperatives and geo-strategic considerations - turns on answers to two vexing questions. First, on what defensible basis is any given country, at any given historical moment,...

Many reform initiatives in developing countries fail to achieve sustained improvements in performance because they are merely isomorphic mimicry - that is, governments and organizations pretend to reform by changing what policies or organizations look like rather than what they actually do. The...

Small states have always been more vulnerable in the global economy. This is so because trade comprises a larger proportion of their economic activity, and because they lack the power to set the terms or make any of the rules that govern globalization. Studies of small states tend to focus on...

In recognizing that poverty is 'multi-dimensional,' contemporary policy discourses – drawing on scholarship on ‘networks,’ ‘exclusion,’ and ‘culture’ – have made important (if often underappreciated) steps to incorporate insights from social and political theory, but these...