What Do We (Not) Know About Development Aid and Violence? A Systematic Review

Zürcher, Christoph

doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.05.013

Cited by 70 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 46 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Moreover, the literature offers scant evidence that aid projects have been a systematically effective tool to mitigate civil conflict that could spark emigration. Zürcher (: 506) reviews all 19 existing studies on this topic that deploy some strategy for causal identification—including single‐country studies (in such varied contexts as Afghanistan and Colombia) and cross‐country studies. He concludes, “The evidence for a violence‐dampening effect of aid in conflict zones is not strong.…”

Section: The Effect Of Aid On Conditions In Migrant‐origin Countriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deterring Emigration with Foreign Aid: An Overview of Evidence from Low‐Income Countries

Clemens¹,

Postel²

2018

Population & Development Rev

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: The Effect Of Aid On Conditions In Migrant‐origin Countriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deterring Emigration with Foreign Aid: An Overview of Evidence from Low‐Income Countries

Clemens¹,

Postel²

2018

Population & Development Rev

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Yet credible evidence that these programs actually influence combatant support remains scarce. As one meta-analysis concludes, we still have few rigorous studies of these economic interventions in wartime settings (Zürcher 2017). 1 Worse, we have almost no individual-level data from aid recipients themselves.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Economic Assistance Shape Combatant Support in Wartime? Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Governments, militaries, and aid organizations all rely on economic interventions to shape civilian attitudes toward combatants during wartime. We have, however, little individual-level evidence that these “hearts and minds” programs actually influence combatant support. We address this problem by conducting a factorial randomized control trial of two common interventions—vocational training and cash transfers—on combatant support among 2,597 at-risk youth in Kandahar, Afghanistan. We find that training only improved economic livelihoods modestly and had little effect on combatant support. Cash failed to lift incomes, producing a boom-and-bust dynamic in which pro-government sentiment initially spiked and then quickly reversed itself, leaving a residue of increased Taliban support. Conditional on training, cash failed to improve beneficiaries’ livelihoods but did increase support for the Afghan government for at least eight months after the intervention. These findings suggest that aid affects attitudes by providing information about government resolve and competence rather than by improving economic livelihoods.

show abstract

“…Humanitarian and post-disaster assistance, on the other hand, may offer rebels the chance to appropriate external resources for their purposes, as has been shown to be the case for humanitarian and development aid (Uvin 1999;Wood and Sullivan 2015;Zürcher 2017).…”

Section: Changes In the Balance Of Forcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Disaster–Migration–Violent Conflict Nexus in a Warming World: The Importance of International Policy Interventions

Brzoska

2019

Social Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The importance and extent of some of the linkages between disasters, migration and violent conflict are not very well understood. There has been controversy in the empirical analytical literature both over core elements of the nexus and over the mechanisms driving it. One reason for the current state of the pertinent literature is the widespread neglect of international policy interventions in the policy fields of disaster risk reduction, conflict prevention and peacebuilding, migration management as well as humanitarian and development assistance. This contribution highlights the importance of international interventions in these fields with respect to elements of the nexus. Based on a brief review of the comparative empirical evidence concerning the disputed links between disasters, migration and violent conflict it demonstrates how international policy interventions are affecting them. The study concludes with a call for more research into the ways in which international policy interventions contribute to shaping the disaster–migration–violent conflict nexus, arguing that a better understanding would enhance the potential for better policies to address its negative consequences.

show abstract

What Do We (Not) Know About Development Aid and Violence? A Systematic Review

Cited by 70 publications

References 46 publications

Deterring Emigration with Foreign Aid: An Overview of Evidence from Low‐Income Countries

Deterring Emigration with Foreign Aid: An Overview of Evidence from Low‐Income Countries

Can Economic Assistance Shape Combatant Support in Wartime? Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan

Understanding the Disaster–Migration–Violent Conflict Nexus in a Warming World: The Importance of International Policy Interventions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About