War, state collapse and reconstruction: phase 2 of the Crisis States Programme

The political economy of conflict is central to understanding the prospects of peace-building. The situations where conflicts are based more on indivisible stakes, it may be necessary to inject significant resources across contending groups to maintain political legitimacy and stability. This research paper takes a harder look at the actual processes of collapse into war and intense episodes of violence, or prolonged episodes of violence and war where the state has remained intact, as well as differential experiences in securing peace and pursuing reconstruction. It outlines Phase 2 of the Crisis States Research Centre’s work on crisis states, which will be divided around three major interrelated components:

• Development as State-making: collapse, war and reconstruction:
  The focus of this component will be on the organisations and institutions that make up fragile states and the proposition that the quality of political action and organisation at the level of the state determines the trajectory of collapse, the avoidance of collapse and processes of reconstruction. This will be done through case studies of eight countries, six that have experienced war and two as a control group.
  

• Cities and Fragile States:
  This element of the research is specifically focused on the urban dynamics (social, political, economic) that contribute to state making and/or collapse over time, explored through an historical investigation of urban dynamics and the extent to which they can be explained by:

1. Demographic and spatial issues
2. The nature of the built environment
3. The level of integration of the urban economy into state/regional/international markets
4. Collective action and coalitions of interest acting in and on the city.
   

• Regional and global axes of conflict:
  The planned work will take place around three central issues at the regional and global levels:

1. The impact of economic reforms prescribed by international agencies on processes of state collapse and reconstruction
2. The regional dimensions of war and peace
3. The impact of the international security architecture on processes of collapse and reconstruction.

All three of these issue areas will be studied through comparative country and city cases, but an understanding of trends and their policy implications also requires separate attention and investigation at regional and global levels of inquiry.