Power after Peace: The Political Economy of Post Conflict Statebuilding

Professor Mats Berdal (King's College London) and Dr. Dominik Zaum (University of Reading) have been awarded a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York in support of their three-year research project on Power after Peace: The Political Economy of Post-Conflict Statebuilding.

The last fifteen years have seen the increased involvement of donor countries and international organisations in the governance and development of post-conflict countries, to assist with the creation of representative political institutions, build governance capacities, promote judicial reform, and reform economic structures. Their efforts of institutional and societal transformation aim to change the underlying structures and dynamics that are thought to have fuelled a conflict. However, the results of these efforts have been mixed at best.

This project will provide an in-depth analysis of the political economy of post-conflict statebuilding, assessing the impact of statebuilding on the distribution of power and of scarce resources in post-conflict societies. To that end, it will establish a research group bringing together renowned international scholars and practitioners to examine nine case studies of post-conflict statebuilding, as well as three major thematic issues cutting across the different cases: institution-building and political representation; economic reform; and the statebuilding practices of selected international actors.

Detailed Information about the Research Group

For more information on the project, please contact Dominik Zaum (d.zaum@rdg.ac.uk) or Mats Berdal (mats.berdal@kcl.ac.uk).