J Goodhand
Biographic Data
| ID | 71235 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Goodhand |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Goodhand |
| SIGNATURE | GOODHAND J |
| AFFILIATIONS | SOAS University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2036-0655 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 361 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Fixing the past, mediating the future? Human rights brokers in Nepal and Sri Lanka
In this article we focus on human rights brokerage in Nepal and Sri Lanka – two countries undergoing different kinds of post-war crises, which opened spaces and demands for brokers. We zoom in on the lives of two individuals who became human rights brokers in these turbulent moments of change, and explore their positionalities, roles and effects as brokers. We seek to move beyond simplistic portrayals of such brokers as a dissembling, self-intere…
The political economy of illicit drug crops: Forum Introduction
This article and the forum it introduces examine illicit drug crop (IDC) economies from agrarian perspectives. Examining IDCs as a group implies analysing how prohibition distinguishes them from other (licit) crops. We identify seven mechanisms through which prohibition shapes the agrarian political economy of IDCs and explore how these mechanisms and their effects generate distinctive patterns of development and political action amongst 'illicit…
Drugs, frontier capitalism and illicit peasantries: Towards a Comparative Research Agenda
A defining character of drugs-affected frontier regions is their dynamic instability and their boom-and-bust cycles. These are violent and disturbed landscapes, in which illicit drug economies play a transformative role. But not all frontiers are the same, and nor are the 'illicit peasantries' who inhabit the 'narco-frontier'. In this article we explore the complex dialectical relations between frontiers, drug economies, illicit peasantries and p…
(Re)making the margins: Frontier assemblages and brokerage in Hambantota, Sri Lanka
This article examines the dynamics of brokerage surrounding two moments of rupture (the tsunami and the end of the war) in Hambantota, a district in southern Sri Lanka and a key site of frontier development. We contrast the two development assemblages that emerged from these moments, examining how structural transformations shape the dynamics of brokerage, and how brokers mediate the effects of these transformations. By tracing the shifting fortu…
Fixes and Flux: Frontier Brokers, Political Settlements and Post-War Politics in Nepal and Sri Lanka
This article examines post-war politics in Nepal and Sri Lanka through the prism of centre-periphery relations, drawing upon and expanding political settlements analysis. We highlight two key features neglected in existing research on political settlements: first, the spatial dimensions of these settlements – particularly the salience of frontier regions in shaping post-war orders. These ‘sensitive spaces’ continue as sites of struggle in the pos…
Entangled lives: Drug assemblages in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan
This article, focussing on Badakhshan province in north-east Afghanistan, explores the lifeworld of drugs and their entangled connections with people, places and things. It follows the journeys of drugs from the farmers’ fields, through their various stages of transportation, storage and transformation, until they arrive at the border with Tajikistan. The paper draws upon the notion of a ‘drugs assemblage’ – the interweaving of plants, institutio…
Beyond the narco frontier; rethinking an imaginary of the margins
Critical policy frontiers: The drugs-development-peacebuilding trilemma
Drugs, conflict and development
Marginal gains: Borderland dynamics, political settlements, and shifting centre-periphery relations in post-war Nepal
In post-war transitions, how do centre-periphery relations change, and what is the role of actors at the margins of the state in negotiating these changes? This article explores these questions by examining Nepal’s post-war transition following the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Agreement focusing on three borderland districts (Saptari, Bardiya and Dolpa). The article analyses contrasting dynamics in these districts to highlight changes in centre-perip…
The Pat Jasan drug eradication social movement in Northern Myanmar, part one: Origins & reactions
The Tangled Politics of Postwar Justice in Sri Lanka
It was perhaps naive and overly optimistic to believe that regime change was the answer to a problem that has much deeper structural roots
Flooding the lake? International democracy promotion and the political economy of the 2014 presidential election in Afghanistan
The introductory article to this volume positions the Afghan case within the broader literature on the political economy of war-to-peace transitions. The paper begins by critiquing the rise of democracy promotion, and then employs a political economy framework to understand the more focused research on democratisation and elections. The paper highlights some of the major features of the Afghan case that provided a backdrop for the 2014 election: …
Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque: A Collaborative Ethnography of War and Peace
Contested boundaries: NGOs and civil–military relations in Afghanistan
In recent years there has been a growing focus in academic and policy circles on the changing roles of military and civilian actors in the context of multi-mandate peace and stabilization operations. This focus on ‘civil–military cooperation’ (CIMIC) and the related notion of the ‘security–development nexus’ reflect changed thinking about the causes of (and solutions to) to wars and insecurity, the role of external actors, and the balance between…
Rethinking liberal peacebuilding, statebuilding and transition in Afghanistan: An introduction
Eyal Weizman (Citation2011), for example, writes about 'humanitarian violence', the result of what he calls humanitarianism as the 'practice of lesser evils', a philosophy that links the interventions of Medicins Sans Frontieres in humanitarian crises and Israel's projection of power in Gaza. Humanitarian action and military interventions are both 'crucial means by which the economy of violence is calculated and managed' (4). Both are based upon …
Sri Lanka in 2012
Since the end of the civil war in May 2009, Sri Lanka’s government has continued to consolidate the unitary state and centralize power by combining political reform, patronage, and economic development. However, two forces countering such unity and centralization became evident during the course of the year. First, tensions and contradictions associated with the simultaneous pursuit of political centralization alongside rapid economic development…
Sri Lanka in 2011
Local elections consolidated the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration's grip on power. State-led efforts to stimulate economic growth continued with major infrastructure projects in the northeastern and southern parts of Sri Lanka. No significant progress was made toward a political settlement and reconciliation with the Tamil community, and the government came under increasing international pressure about its conduct in the last months of the civil …
Who owns the peace? Aid, reconstruction, and peacebuilding in Afghanistan
It is unclear how international donors' stated commitment to ownership and partnership 'translates' in fragile state or 'post-conflict' settings. The very notion of ownership is violently contested in Afghanistan and donors have to negotiate with, and choose between, multiple state and non-state interlocutors. The developmentalist principles outlined in the 2005 Paris Declaration may carry little meaning in such contexts and their application can…
Stabilising a victor's peace? Humanitarian action and reconstruction in eastern Sri Lanka
This paper focuses on the 'Sri Lankan model' of counter-insurgency and stabilisation and its implications for humanitarian and development actors. The Sri Lanka case shows that discourses, policies and practices associated with 'stabilisation' are not confined to 'fragile state' contexts in which there is heavy (and often militarised) international engagement-even though exemplars such as Afghanistan and Iraq have tended to dominate debates on th…
The Limits of Liberal Peacebuilding? International Engagement in the Sri Lankan Peace Process
This essay explores international engagement in the Sri Lankan peace process between 2002 and 2008. The internationalization of peacebuilding in Sri Lanka is analysed as part of a broader international shift towards a model of ‘liberal peacebuilding’, which involves the simultaneous pursuit of conflict resolution, liberal democracy and market sovereignty. The essay provides a detailed and disaggregated analysis of the various exporters, importers…
Religion, Conflict and Boundary Politics in Sri Lanka
Corrupting or Consolidating the Peace? The Drugs Economy and Post-conflict Peacebuilding in Afghanistan
This article examines how the drugs economy emerged, evolved and adapted to transformations in Afghanistan's political economy. With a primary focus on the conflictual war to peace transition following the signing of the Bonn Agreement, the relationship between drugs and political (dis)order is explored. Central to the analysis is an examination of the power relationships and institutions of extraction that developed around the drug economy. Expa…
Bribes or Bargains? Peace Conditionalities and ‘Post-Conflict’ Reconstruction in Afghanistan
This article focuses on the role of international aid donors in Afghanistan since the signing of the Bonn Agreement in 2001. Specifically, it explores the scope and utility of peace conditionalities as an instrument for peace consolidation in the context of a fragile war-to-peace transition. Geo-strategic and institutional concerns have generally led to an unconditional approach to assistance by international actors. It is argued that large inflo…
The Paternalism of Partnership: A Postcolonial Reading of Identity in Development Aid by Maria Eriksson Baaz
Corrupting or Consolidating the Peace? The Drugs Economy and Post-conflict Peacebuilding in Afghanistan
This article examines how the drugs economy emerged, evolved and adapted to transformations in Afghanistan's political economy. With a primary focus on the conflictual war to peace transition following the signing of the Bonn Agreement, the relationship between drugs and political (dis)order is explored. Central to the analysis is an examination of the power relationships and institutions of extraction that developed around the drug economy. Expa…
Social Capital and the Political Economy of Violence: A Case Study of Sri Lanka
This article examines the links between militarised violence and social capital (trans)formation. It first maps out emerging theoretical and policy debates on social capital and violent conflict and questions a number of the assumptions underpinning these debates. This is followed by an empirical analysis of several war-affected communities in Sri Lanka. The case studies illustrate that the links between militarised violence and social capital ar…
Stabilising a victor's peace? Humanitarian action and reconstruction in eastern Sri Lanka
This paper focuses on the 'Sri Lankan model' of counter-insurgency and stabilisation and its implications for humanitarian and development actors. The Sri Lanka case shows that discourses, policies and practices associated with 'stabilisation' are not confined to 'fragile state' contexts in which there is heavy (and often militarised) international engagement-even though exemplars such as Afghanistan and Iraq have tended to dominate debates on th…
Who owns the peace? Aid, reconstruction, and peacebuilding in Afghanistan
It is unclear how international donors' stated commitment to ownership and partnership 'translates' in fragile state or 'post-conflict' settings. The very notion of ownership is violently contested in Afghanistan and donors have to negotiate with, and choose between, multiple state and non-state interlocutors. The developmentalist principles outlined in the 2005 Paris Declaration may carry little meaning in such contexts and their application can…
From wars to complex political emergencies: Understanding conflict and peace-building in the new world disorder
In recent decades the nature of large-scale violent conflict has fundamentally changed from an era of 'wars' to one that is characterised by complex political emergencies (CPEs). A number of conceptual shifts have occurred in the attempt to better understand the nature of these multiple 'small wars'. Classic analytical frameworks focusing on the relationships between states, military capacities and strategies and international political economy a…
Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better? War, the State, and the 'Post-Conflict' Challenge in Afghanistan
This article investigates the challenges currently facing Afghanistan. It argues that 'post-conflict' peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan may depend on a dramatic expansion of institutionalized economic interdependence: this will not necessarily require obeisance to standard international policy paradigms and it will have to draw on existing patterns of interdependence, even though many of these are rooted in brutally exploitative war economy…
Frontiers and Wars: The Opium Economy in Afghanistan
Aiding violence or building peace? The role of international aid in Afghanistan
The political and military landscape in Afghanistan has been transformed since 11 September. Whether the fall of the Taliban and the transition to an Afghan Interim Administration signify the emergence of a new peaceful order or a dangerous disorder it is too early to tell. The underlying dynamics of the Afghan crisis have yet to be addressed and it will be argued in this article that the main challenge for the newly installed interim administrat…
Religion, Conflict and Boundary Politics in Sri Lanka
From Holy War to Opium War? A Case Study of the Opium Economy in North-eastern Afghanistan
This paper examines the recent growth of the opium economy in north-eastern Afghanistan. A detailed analysis of one village in Badakshan Province reveals profound changes in the local economy and social institutions. The paper describes two major shifts in the local economy: first, the switch from wheat to poppy cultivation; and second, the shift from the livestock trade to the opium trade. It then examines the underlying causes and impacts of th…
Bribes or Bargains? Peace Conditionalities and ‘Post-Conflict’ Reconstruction in Afghanistan
This article focuses on the role of international aid donors in Afghanistan since the signing of the Bonn Agreement in 2001. Specifically, it explores the scope and utility of peace conditionalities as an instrument for peace consolidation in the context of a fragile war-to-peace transition. Geo-strategic and institutional concerns have generally led to an unconditional approach to assistance by international actors. It is argued that large inflo…
Rethinking liberal peacebuilding, statebuilding and transition in Afghanistan: An introduction
Eyal Weizman (Citation2011), for example, writes about 'humanitarian violence', the result of what he calls humanitarianism as the 'practice of lesser evils', a philosophy that links the interventions of Medicins Sans Frontieres in humanitarian crises and Israel's projection of power in Gaza. Humanitarian action and military interventions are both 'crucial means by which the economy of violence is calculated and managed' (4). Both are based upon …
The Pat Jasan drug eradication social movement in Northern Myanmar, part one: Origins & reactions
From holy war to opium war? A case study of the opium economy in North Eastern Afghanistan
(2000). From holy war to opium war? A case study of the opium economy in North Eastern Afghanistan. Central Asian Survey: Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 265-280
The Limits of Liberal Peacebuilding? International Engagement in the Sri Lankan Peace Process
This essay explores international engagement in the Sri Lankan peace process between 2002 and 2008. The internationalization of peacebuilding in Sri Lanka is analysed as part of a broader international shift towards a model of ‘liberal peacebuilding’, which involves the simultaneous pursuit of conflict resolution, liberal democracy and market sovereignty. The essay provides a detailed and disaggregated analysis of the various exporters, importers…
Entangled lives: Drug assemblages in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan
This article, focussing on Badakhshan province in north-east Afghanistan, explores the lifeworld of drugs and their entangled connections with people, places and things. It follows the journeys of drugs from the farmers’ fields, through their various stages of transportation, storage and transformation, until they arrive at the border with Tajikistan. The paper draws upon the notion of a ‘drugs assemblage’ – the interweaving of plants, institutio…
Marginal gains: Borderland dynamics, political settlements, and shifting centre-periphery relations in post-war Nepal
In post-war transitions, how do centre-periphery relations change, and what is the role of actors at the margins of the state in negotiating these changes? This article explores these questions by examining Nepal’s post-war transition following the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Agreement focusing on three borderland districts (Saptari, Bardiya and Dolpa). The article analyses contrasting dynamics in these districts to highlight changes in centre-perip…
Drugs, frontier capitalism and illicit peasantries: Towards a Comparative Research Agenda
A defining character of drugs-affected frontier regions is their dynamic instability and their boom-and-bust cycles. These are violent and disturbed landscapes, in which illicit drug economies play a transformative role. But not all frontiers are the same, and nor are the 'illicit peasantries' who inhabit the 'narco-frontier'. In this article we explore the complex dialectical relations between frontiers, drug economies, illicit peasantries and p…
Flooding the lake? International democracy promotion and the political economy of the 2014 presidential election in Afghanistan
The introductory article to this volume positions the Afghan case within the broader literature on the political economy of war-to-peace transitions. The paper begins by critiquing the rise of democracy promotion, and then employs a political economy framework to understand the more focused research on democratisation and elections. The paper highlights some of the major features of the Afghan case that provided a backdrop for the 2014 election: …
Sri Lanka in 2012
Since the end of the civil war in May 2009, Sri Lanka’s government has continued to consolidate the unitary state and centralize power by combining political reform, patronage, and economic development. However, two forces countering such unity and centralization became evident during the course of the year. First, tensions and contradictions associated with the simultaneous pursuit of political centralization alongside rapid economic development…
Sri Lanka in 2011
Local elections consolidated the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration's grip on power. State-led efforts to stimulate economic growth continued with major infrastructure projects in the northeastern and southern parts of Sri Lanka. No significant progress was made toward a political settlement and reconciliation with the Tamil community, and the government came under increasing international pressure about its conduct in the last months of the civil …
The political economy of illicit drug crops: Forum Introduction
This article and the forum it introduces examine illicit drug crop (IDC) economies from agrarian perspectives. Examining IDCs as a group implies analysing how prohibition distinguishes them from other (licit) crops. We identify seven mechanisms through which prohibition shapes the agrarian political economy of IDCs and explore how these mechanisms and their effects generate distinctive patterns of development and political action amongst 'illicit…
Contested boundaries: NGOs and civil–military relations in Afghanistan
In recent years there has been a growing focus in academic and policy circles on the changing roles of military and civilian actors in the context of multi-mandate peace and stabilization operations. This focus on ‘civil–military cooperation’ (CIMIC) and the related notion of the ‘security–development nexus’ reflect changed thinking about the causes of (and solutions to) to wars and insecurity, the role of external actors, and the balance between…
Sri Lanka: Ngos and peace-building in complex political emergencies
This 'work in progress' gives an overview of the conceptual background and preliminary field work findings of a research programme investigating the consequences of violence and conflict in villages in the Trincomalee and Batticaloa Districts of eastern Sri Lanka.1 Initial and speculative conclusions from these community surveys indicate that NGOs have only a limited impact on the local dynamics of conflict, and point to a need for NGOs to unders…
Dancing with the prince: Ngo's survival strategics in the Afghan conflict
Afghan NGOs have been a major provider of humanitarian aid throughout the Afghan conflict. They remained operational during this period by 'dancing' with and between the various parties to the conflict, their survival contingent on their ability to build ad hoc patterns of alliance and cooperation. This article explores the nature of 'the dance' between NGOs, the warring parties, and the NGOs' constituencies. It asks whether 'dancing with the pri…
Dancing with the prince: Ngo's survival strategics in the Afghan conflict
Afghan NGOs have been a major provider of humanitarian aid throughout the Afghan conflict. They remained operational during this period by 'dancing' with and between the various parties to the conflict, their survival contingent on their ability to build ad hoc patterns of alliance and cooperation. This article explores the nature of 'the dance' between NGOs, the warring parties, and the NGOs' constituencies. It asks whether 'dancing with the pri…
From wars to complex political emergencies: Understanding conflict and peace-building in the new world disorder
In recent decades the nature of large-scale violent conflict has fundamentally changed from an era of 'wars' to one that is characterised by complex political emergencies (CPEs). A number of conceptual shifts have occurred in the attempt to better understand the nature of these multiple 'small wars'. Classic analytical frameworks focusing on the relationships between states, military capacities and strategies and international political economy a…
Sri Lanka: Ngos and peace-building in complex political emergencies
This 'work in progress' gives an overview of the conceptual background and preliminary field work findings of a research programme investigating the consequences of violence and conflict in villages in the Trincomalee and Batticaloa Districts of eastern Sri Lanka.1 Initial and speculative conclusions from these community surveys indicate that NGOs have only a limited impact on the local dynamics of conflict, and point to a need for NGOs to unders…
From holy war to opium war? A case study of the opium economy in North Eastern Afghanistan
(2000). From holy war to opium war? A case study of the opium economy in North Eastern Afghanistan. Central Asian Survey: Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 265-280
Social Capital and the Political Economy of Violence: A Case Study of Sri Lanka
This article examines the links between militarised violence and social capital (trans)formation. It first maps out emerging theoretical and policy debates on social capital and violent conflict and questions a number of the assumptions underpinning these debates. This is followed by an empirical analysis of several war-affected communities in Sri Lanka. The case studies illustrate that the links between militarised violence and social capital ar…
From Holy War to Opium War? A Case Study of the Opium Economy in North-eastern Afghanistan
This paper examines the recent growth of the opium economy in north-eastern Afghanistan. A detailed analysis of one village in Badakshan Province reveals profound changes in the local economy and social institutions. The paper describes two major shifts in the local economy: first, the switch from wheat to poppy cultivation; and second, the shift from the livestock trade to the opium trade. It then examines the underlying causes and impacts of th…
Beyond the Taliban? The Afghan conflict and United Nations peacemaking
The start of military action on 7 October 2001 by the ??-led ‘coalition against terrorism’ has had a profound impact on the con?ict in Afghanistan. This article examines the roots and dynamics of the war, charting its evolution from a Cold War con?ict to a hybrid con?ict (part regional proxy war, part civil war). Past e?orts by the United Nations (??) to resolve the war are examined—Afghanistan has been described as a ‘graveyard for ?? negotiatio…
Aiding violence or building peace? The role of international aid in Afghanistan
The political and military landscape in Afghanistan has been transformed since 11 September. Whether the fall of the Taliban and the transition to an Afghan Interim Administration signify the emergence of a new peaceful order or a dangerous disorder it is too early to tell. The underlying dynamics of the Afghan crisis have yet to be addressed and it will be argued in this article that the main challenge for the newly installed interim administrat…
Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better? War, the State, and the 'Post-Conflict' Challenge in Afghanistan
This article investigates the challenges currently facing Afghanistan. It argues that 'post-conflict' peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan may depend on a dramatic expansion of institutionalized economic interdependence: this will not necessarily require obeisance to standard international policy paradigms and it will have to draw on existing patterns of interdependence, even though many of these are rooted in brutally exploitative war economy…
Enduring Disorder and Persistent Poverty: A Review of the Linkages Between War and Chronic Poverty
Frontiers and Wars: The Opium Economy in Afghanistan
Bribes or Bargains? Peace Conditionalities and ‘Post-Conflict’ Reconstruction in Afghanistan
This article focuses on the role of international aid donors in Afghanistan since the signing of the Bonn Agreement in 2001. Specifically, it explores the scope and utility of peace conditionalities as an instrument for peace consolidation in the context of a fragile war-to-peace transition. Geo-strategic and institutional concerns have generally led to an unconditional approach to assistance by international actors. It is argued that large inflo…
The Paternalism of Partnership: A Postcolonial Reading of Identity in Development Aid by Maria Eriksson Baaz
Corrupting or Consolidating the Peace? The Drugs Economy and Post-conflict Peacebuilding in Afghanistan
This article examines how the drugs economy emerged, evolved and adapted to transformations in Afghanistan's political economy. With a primary focus on the conflictual war to peace transition following the signing of the Bonn Agreement, the relationship between drugs and political (dis)order is explored. Central to the analysis is an examination of the power relationships and institutions of extraction that developed around the drug economy. Expa…
The Limits of Liberal Peacebuilding? International Engagement in the Sri Lankan Peace Process
This essay explores international engagement in the Sri Lankan peace process between 2002 and 2008. The internationalization of peacebuilding in Sri Lanka is analysed as part of a broader international shift towards a model of ‘liberal peacebuilding’, which involves the simultaneous pursuit of conflict resolution, liberal democracy and market sovereignty. The essay provides a detailed and disaggregated analysis of the various exporters, importers…
Religion, Conflict and Boundary Politics in Sri Lanka
Who owns the peace? Aid, reconstruction, and peacebuilding in Afghanistan
It is unclear how international donors' stated commitment to ownership and partnership 'translates' in fragile state or 'post-conflict' settings. The very notion of ownership is violently contested in Afghanistan and donors have to negotiate with, and choose between, multiple state and non-state interlocutors. The developmentalist principles outlined in the 2005 Paris Declaration may carry little meaning in such contexts and their application can…
Stabilising a victor's peace? Humanitarian action and reconstruction in eastern Sri Lanka
This paper focuses on the 'Sri Lankan model' of counter-insurgency and stabilisation and its implications for humanitarian and development actors. The Sri Lanka case shows that discourses, policies and practices associated with 'stabilisation' are not confined to 'fragile state' contexts in which there is heavy (and often militarised) international engagement-even though exemplars such as Afghanistan and Iraq have tended to dominate debates on th…
Sri Lanka in 2011
Local elections consolidated the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration's grip on power. State-led efforts to stimulate economic growth continued with major infrastructure projects in the northeastern and southern parts of Sri Lanka. No significant progress was made toward a political settlement and reconciliation with the Tamil community, and the government came under increasing international pressure about its conduct in the last months of the civil …
Contested boundaries: NGOs and civil–military relations in Afghanistan
In recent years there has been a growing focus in academic and policy circles on the changing roles of military and civilian actors in the context of multi-mandate peace and stabilization operations. This focus on ‘civil–military cooperation’ (CIMIC) and the related notion of the ‘security–development nexus’ reflect changed thinking about the causes of (and solutions to) to wars and insecurity, the role of external actors, and the balance between…
Rethinking liberal peacebuilding, statebuilding and transition in Afghanistan: An introduction
Eyal Weizman (Citation2011), for example, writes about 'humanitarian violence', the result of what he calls humanitarianism as the 'practice of lesser evils', a philosophy that links the interventions of Medicins Sans Frontieres in humanitarian crises and Israel's projection of power in Gaza. Humanitarian action and military interventions are both 'crucial means by which the economy of violence is calculated and managed' (4). Both are based upon …
Sri Lanka in 2012
Since the end of the civil war in May 2009, Sri Lanka’s government has continued to consolidate the unitary state and centralize power by combining political reform, patronage, and economic development. However, two forces countering such unity and centralization became evident during the course of the year. First, tensions and contradictions associated with the simultaneous pursuit of political centralization alongside rapid economic development…
Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque: A Collaborative Ethnography of War and Peace
Flooding the lake? International democracy promotion and the political economy of the 2014 presidential election in Afghanistan
The introductory article to this volume positions the Afghan case within the broader literature on the political economy of war-to-peace transitions. The paper begins by critiquing the rise of democracy promotion, and then employs a political economy framework to understand the more focused research on democratisation and elections. The paper highlights some of the major features of the Afghan case that provided a backdrop for the 2014 election: …
The Tangled Politics of Postwar Justice in Sri Lanka
It was perhaps naive and overly optimistic to believe that regime change was the answer to a problem that has much deeper structural roots
Political science (34 works) · Law (28 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Law (23 works) · Politics (22 works) · Political economy (21 works) · Economics (20 works) · Development economics (16 works) · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East (16 works) · Peacebuilding and International Security (15 works)