Fünf Jahre nach dem blutigen Militärputsch und inmitten eines Bürgerkrieges haben in Myanmar Wahlen stattgefunden. Sie waren weder frei noch fair, noch wurde bei ihrer Durchführung auch nur versucht, den Schein demokratischer Mindeststandards zu wahren. Der Hauptzweck der Wahlen war von...

Five years after the bloody military coup and amid a civil war, elections have taken place in Myanmar. They were neither free nor fair, nor was any attempt made to keep up an appearance of even minimum democratic standards. From the outset, the main purpose of the elections was not political...

Fünf Jahre nach dem blutigen Militärputsch und inmitten eines Bürgerkrieges haben in Myanmar Wahlen stattgefunden. Sie waren weder frei noch fair, noch wurde bei ihrer Durchführung auch nur versucht, den Schein demokratischer Mindeststandards zu wahren. Der Hauptzweck der Wahlen war von...

Der deutliche Wahlsieg der linken Nationalen Volksmacht-Koalition (Jathika Jana Balawegaya / National People's Power, NPP) bei der Parlamentswahl vom 14. November 2024 signalisiert den Wunsch nach einem politischen Neuanfang in Sri Lanka. Hierfür muss die neue Regierung von Präsident Anura...

Civil wars often erode state sovereignty, as institutions are replaced or co-opted by armed groups that establish informal governance structures. Among these, rebel taxation emerges as a key tool for financing wartime activities and administering territories. We explore whether rebel taxation...

Can the exposure to civil war make people more motivated to pay taxes and (re)build the state? Our project examines this question in the context of Africa, a region where civil wars have frequently undermined state capacity. We move from the popular Tillian view of war-making as state-making to...

How do new leaders rebuild the state after a civil war in which the central government disintegrates, and the army is defeated? The end of the Porfirian regime and dissolution of the army in 1914 during the Mexican revolution gave way to armed conflict between three factions: Constitucionalista,...

Despite growing attention being paid to the societal impacts of violent conflict, little is known about how exposure thereto shapes gender attitudes, particularly in Africa. This study addresses that gap by examining the relationship between exposure to violent conflict and attitudes toward...

How do rebel groups incorporate locals into their economic systems, and how do these civil-military relations affect the political dynamics of armed conflicts? This study explores the economic institutions regulated by rebel groups in conflict areas and their impact on the duration of the...

The war in Sudan, which broke out on 15 April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has triggered the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. Civilians are being directly attacked by the warring parties. The violent actors are destroying...

This handbook chapter provides a synthesis of the literature on armed conflicts, with a special focus on development economics, while covering also other disciplines. The piece starts off with a discussion of the main consequences of conflict before investigating its root causes. First, a series...

Der deutliche Wahlsieg der linken Nationalen Volksmacht-Koalition (Jathika Jana Balawegaya / National People’s Power, NPP) bei der Parlamentswahl vom 14. November 2024 signalisiert den Wunsch nach einem politischen Neuanfang in Sri Lanka. Hierfür muss die neue Regierung von Präsident Anura...

Wars fueled by resource wealth pose complex challenges for conflict resolution. I combine data on conflict events, rebel resource dependence, world market prices, and ceasefire details to investigate how fluctuations in rebel funding affect the likelihood of ceasefires. Increased funding...

Ethnic federalism has long been a cornerstone of Ethiopia’s political system - and a recurrent source of violent conflict. Despite its centrality to the country’s governance and conflict dynamics, there is a notable absence of large-N quantitative research examining how exposure to violence...

Colombia’s prolonged conflict has made the country one of the most affected by forced internal displacement (FID) in the world. This study examines the impact of the FARC’s 2014 unilateral and permanent ceasefire on FID. We use a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits the timing of...

How can states rebuild fiscal capacity after a civil war? Trust in political institutions and trust in fellow citizens are cornerstones of tax compliance, necessary for a functioning fiscal contract. We posit that transitional justice (TJ) can influence both channels. We use a simple game of tax...

This study analyzes how violent conflict influences taxation in a poor, conflict-affected country, Burkina Faso. We use a unique, large, and representative panel dataset on tax collection of firms between 2015 and 2022 and geographically match these data with indicators of violent conflict at...

The aim is to analyze the armed conflict persistence in Colombia from 2008 to 2018 based on the financial viability hypothesis (rebellion occurs when war net revenue is nonnegative).The methodology is quantitative. Firstly, a nonparametric Kaplan-Meier functions and survival risk functions are...

The existential catastrophe faced by the population of the Gaza Strip currently looms large in the foreign policy and security debates. The plight of civilians there is par­ticularly acute. Yet, severe crises persist elsewhere too - from Ukraine and Sudan to Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of...

The international context is changing profoundly, owing to rising autocratisation and the return of international war. These transformations also impact the long-standing problem of state fragility. The IDOS Constellations of State Fragility (CSF) provides a differentiated model to measure state...

This study examines the ideology-driven armed conflicts in the Philippines and analyzes the peacebuilding elements that have contributed to durable peace across conflict-affected regions. Focusing on separatist movements in Mindanao and communist insurgencies in various places nationwide, the...

We investigate how Reconstruction affected Black socio-economic advancement after the American Civil War. We use the location of federal troops and Freedmen’s Bureau offices to indicate more intensive federal enforcement of civil rights. We find that Black people made greater socio-economic...

How do violent conflicts shape cross-border lending? Using data on syndicated loans by 14,021 creditors to firms in 179 countries (1989-2020), we document a dual effect: foreign banks reduce overall lending relative to domestic banks but significantly increase financing to military and dual-use...