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

June 2017
World Development 98

DOI:10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.05.013

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University of Ottawa

The paper presents findings from the first-ever systematic review of the causal impact of development aid on violence in countries affected by civil war. The review identifies 19 studies: Fourteen within-country studies from Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, Philippines, and India, and five cross-national studies. These studies investigate the impact of six aid types: Community-driven development, conditional cash transfers, public employment scheme, humanitarian aid, infrastructure, and aid provided by military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. The evidence for a violence-dampening effect of aid in conflict zones is not strong. Aid in conflict zones is more likely to exacerbate violence than to dampen violence. A violence-dampening effect of aid appears to be conditional on a relatively secure environment for aid projects to be implemented. A violence-increasing effect occurs when aid is misappropriated by violent actors, or when violent actors sabotage aid projects in order to disrupt the cooperation between the local population and the government.

details the screening process.

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What Do We (Not) Know About Development Aid and

Violence? A Systematic Review

Authors

Christoph Zürcher

Source Information

World Development

October 2017Volume, 98(IssueComplete)Page, p.506To-522

This is the final draft. Access the published version here:

doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.05.013

What Do We (Not) Know about Development Aid and

Violence? A Systematic Review

Abstract

The paper presents findings from the first-ever systematic review of the causal impact of

development aid on violence in countries affected by civil war. The review identifies 19 studies:

Fourteen within-country studies from Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, Philippines and India, and

five cross-national studies. These studies investigate the impact of six aid types: Community

driven development, conditional cash transfers, public employment scheme, humanitarian aid,

infrastructure and aid provided by military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. The evidence

for a violence-dampening effect of aid in conflict zones is not strong. Aid in conflict zones is

more likely to exacerbate violence than to dampen violence. A violence-dampening effect of aid

appears to be conditional on a relatively secure environment for aid projects to be implemented.

A violence-increasing effect occurs when aid is misappropriated by violent actors, or when

violent actors sabotage aid projects in order to disrupt the cooperation between the local

population and the government.

Keywords: development aid; violence; insurgency; COIN; systematic review

Introduction!

The past fifteen years witnessed an unprecedented securitization of foreign aid. In the wake of the

9/11 terror attacks, war-torn and fragile states came to be seen as a global security threat (Patrick,

2011; WDR, 2011). Foreign aid, alongside with diplomacy and defense, was turned into a major

strategic tool for addressing this threat. The lengthy asymmetrical wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

only reinforced the expectation that development assistance could be used as an effective means

to stabilize war-torn countries. Multi-lateral and bi-lateral donors increasingly saw aid as an

important instrument for addressing development and security issues simultaneously (Brown and

Grävingholt 2014) and the military lavishly spent aid as “monetary ammunition” in

counterinsurgencies in order to win mind and hearts.

But can development aid really reduce violence? The debate about the effects of aid on conflict

is not a new one. Development economists have argued, on mainly theoretical grounds, that aid

should help to lower the risks of war. The literature on civil war has long claimed that low levels

of economic development and low growth rates tend to increase the risk for war. Growth spurred

by aid should therefore reduce the risk for war (Collier and Hoeffler 2002). Unfortunately,

whether aid actually leads to economic growth remains hotly debated (cf. Doucouliagos and

Paldam 2009). Another strand of the literature linked aid to reduced risk of war by suggesting

that aid might be fungible, allowing recipient governments to boost their military spending. This

in turn should deter potential rebels (Collier and Hoeffler 2007, Ree and Nilesen 2009). Other

scholars were more skeptical and believed that aid might actually increase the propensity for war.

A prominent argument was that foreign aid could increase the spoils to be won from rebellion

(Azam 1995; Grossman 1991). As a result, seizing the state may become an attractive option for

rebels, which would make civil war more likely (Arcand & Chauvet, 2001; Grossman, 1992).

This argument tied in with the sizeable qualitative “do-no-harm” literature which warned that aid

could be misappropriated by local violent actors and used for sustaining violence (for example,

Anderson, 1999; Uvin, 1998). Scholars have argued that aid can be misused by rebels for

financing their war (Bradbury and Kleinmann, 2010; Goodhand, 2002; De Waal, 1997; Easterly,

2001), that it can alleviate the pressure of local actors to provide basic services to their

constituencies, freeing up resources that can be invested in violence (Polman, 2010; Duffield

1994; Luttwak 1999), that it can fuel conflict by increasing corruption (Goodhand, 2005; 2006),

or provide perverse incentives to private security firms to fuel conflict (Aikins, 2010; Wilder and

Gordon, 2009).

This scholarly debate has been renewed and intensified over the last decade. As billions of aid

dollars are being spent in the hope that foreign aid can buy stability, a new wave of scholarship

emerged, committed to rigorous tests and evidence-based policies. Newly available disaggregated

sectoral and subnational aid data and subnational security event data opened up new avenues for

causal inference and led to theoretical innovation. This paper takes stock of the available

evidence on the impacts of aid on violence. It is based on a systematic review covering the years

2001–2016 (cut-off date: November 1, 2016). A systematic review differs from a traditional

literature review in important ways. It is primarily a stock-taking exercise, designed to identify all

available evidence on a given topic.1 Systematic reviews depend largely on what studies are

available, how they were carried out (the quality of the tests) and the outcomes that were

measured. The most important criteria for including a study in a systematic review is that the

study has a clearly defined identification strategy which allows inferring causal mechanisms.

This is a high threshold which will often reduce the number of included studies, but relaxing that

threshold would lead to the inclusion of studies which do not provide robust causal evidence.

Furthermore, a systematic review requires a transparent search strategy based on a search

protocol and transparent criteria for inclusion and exclusion, which are a priori defined in order to

minimize any selection bias. Systematic reviews are thus different from traditional reviews,

where authors are at liberty to include and exclude studies based on, for example, theoretical

preferences or anticipated findings.

Whether or not a study meets the inclusion criteria is determined by reliable and replicable

coding procedure. For this review, three researchers independently assessed the studies. Only

studies that met the inclusion criteria according to all three researchers were included in the final

sample.

Four inclusion and exclusion criteria were used:

1) The independent variable is development aid, or a closely related concept, such as foreign aid,

foreign assistance, humanitarian aid, etc. Military aid was excluded.

2) The dependent variable is violence, or a closely related concept such as armed conflict, civil

war, insurgency etc. Also included were the opposite of these concepts, such as security, stability,

counterinsurgency, etc.

3) Only published studies were included. Working papers and grey literature were not included.

1 I follow the standard definition for systematic reviews; for example, see the Campbell

Collaboration, “What is a systematic review” (Campbellcollaboration.org). Also, Waddington

et al. (2012). Similar definitions are offered by DFID (2012) and Petticrew & Roberts (2006).

4) Finally and most importantly, only studies with a clear and transparent identification strategy

allowing for causal inference were included. The minimum threshold for this criterion is that the

methodological set-up of the studies allows assessing the counterfactual: what would have

happened without the intervention. Such a criterion does not a priori exclude qualitative studies.

Careful process-tracing or structured comparison allow for discussing the counterfactual.

Nevertheless, all included studies turned out to be quantitative studies with an experimental or

quasi-experimental design.

The following steps were carried out to identify studies to be included. The researchers had

previously identified ten seminal papers that needed to be included in the review. Search terms

based on concepts found in these studies were selected and tested in preliminary searches

conducted in EconLit. This helped determine appropriate keywords that would yield relevant

results.

After further validation by all researchers, a final search strategy was devised that included the

two core concepts of this review: development aid and violence. For each of these concepts,

keywords were identified along with relevant subject terms found in the database’s unique

thesaurus, when appropriate. Searches were executed by a research librarian in the following

electronic databases: PAIS International (ProQuest), EconLit (ProQuest), International Political

Science Abstracts (EBSCO), Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (ProQuest) and Web of

Science (Social Sciences Citation Index). Searches were limited to articles published in English

between 2001 and November 2016. Results were then exported to a bibliographic management

tool and duplicates were removed

Upon completion of the database searches, three researchers screened the identified articles to

exclude those which did not meet the criteria for inclusion. Eventually, 107 full text studies were

read by all three researchers. 88 were excluded because they did not meet all inclusion criteria.

By far the most frequent reason for exclusion was that the study was descriptive in nature without

a clear causal identification strategy. We also excluded studies that make a formal argument but

do not provide an empirical application (for example Child and Scoones 2015 and Scoones

2013), and studies that used the “wrong “ independent variable (for example, transnational

terrorism, in Young and Findley 2011, Azam and Delacroix 2006, Azam and Thelen. 2008). We

also excluded four studies which used ODA as their independent variable (Collier and Hoeffler

2007, Nielsen 2011, Ree and Nillesen 2009, Tahir 2015), because this high level of aggregation

masks important differences between aid sectors and made it impossible to infer causal processes

(cf. Findley et al. 2011,Young & Findley 2011). Unpublished studies and working papers were

also excluded (for example Arcand and Labonne,2010, van Weezel, Stijn, 2015, Iyengar et al.

2011, Böhnke et al., 2015), but their content was assessed in order to ensure that there was no

publication bias in the included studies.

Figure 1 details the screening process.

The final sample consisted of 19 studies, which can be considered a normal sample size for

systematic reviews in the field of development.2

2 For example, the median of included studies in all 26 systematic reviews which the

International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) has conducted between 2009 and 2017 is 20.

The average is 27.8, and the range is 5 to 93. 14 out of 27 studies are based on a sample smaller

than 19. Note that for this calculation, I exclude one outlier which is based on 420 studies on

educational outcomes in middle-income countries. Without excluding this outlier, the average is

Out of 19 included studies, 18 are published in peer-reviewed journals, and one is a report

published by the World Bank. 14 studies focus on the sub-national level: Six on Afghanistan,

three on India, two on Iraq, two on the Philippines and one on Colombia. Five studies are cross-

national. Two of these are global in reach and focus on all civil wars after 1945, respectively after

1989. One focuses on all wars (civil and international) in non-OECD countries after 1971; two

focus on 22 sub-Saharan African states between 1989 and 2008. With the exception of one study

(Nunn & Qian 2014) which also includes international wars, all studies investigate the impact of

aid in civil wars. This should give us confidence that differences in outcomes are not driven by

conceptually different forms of violence.

The studies investigate the effects of six different aid types: community driven development

programs (7 instances), commander emergency response program (6), humanitarian aid (5),

employment programs (3), conditional cash transfer programs (2), and large-scale infrastructure

programs (1). Note that one study can cover more than one aid type.

This paper makes several important contributions.

It is the first systematic review on the topic and therefore the first paper to map and summarize

the available evidence base for assessing the impact of aid in conflict zones. With 19 studies, the

evidence base is surprisingly small, given the massive sums which donors spend on aid in

conflict zones. Even more surprising is the fact that development organizations have so far made

no serious efforts to rigorously evaluate their efforts. Out of 19 studies, only one was conducted

by a development actor, while four were financed by the military, underlining once more the

securitization of aid.

Secondly, the study shows that the evidence for a violence-dampening effect of aid in conflict

zones is not strong. On the aggregate, aid in conflict zones is more likely to exacerbate violence

than to dampen violence. This is especially true for “font-line aid” which is spent in highly

insecure regions, with strong presence of anti-government forces. Most worrisome is that

40 and the median is 23. One important reason for what may seem a small number of studies is

that rigorous tests require rich, longitudinal data which is not often available from poor, war-torn

countries.

humanitarian aid is consistently associated with more, not less violence. But also aid given by the

military and community driven development projects implemented in insecure region rarely

dampen violence.

Thirdly, the review offers a stock-taking of the possible causal paths that lead to more or less

violence. The reviewed studies identify three causal paths that reduce violence and two that

increase violence. The causal mechanisms which are most often thought to account for a

violence-increasing effect of aid are “predation” and “sabotage”. Predation refers to aid being

misappropriated and reinvested in financing violence. Sabotage refers to a strategic response of

insurgents to the possibility that aid can mobilize support for the government. In order to counter

that threat, insurgents sabotage aid projects and deter collaboration between the local population

and the government. Importantly, the evidence shows that all six aid types which the studies

review can trigger predation or sabotage. This means that there is no aid type which is immune to

doing harm.

Fourthly, there is strong evidence that a violence-reducing or violence-increasing effect of aid is

not primarily caused by how much aid is given, or by what type of aid is given, but rather by the

conflict environment in which aid is implemented. Aid injected in insecure regions appears to

increase violence. By pointing out the importance of the local conflict environment, this review

moves the discussion away from whether aid works towards under what conditions aid may

work. An important implication for scholars is that future research must engage in a much more

systematic way with the scope conditions for aid effectiveness, especially with the sub-national

security environment. As long as our understanding of scope conditions and causal processes is

limited, it would wise to not allocate aid projects in highly insecure regions, since the available

evidence strongly suggests that this will do more harm than good.

The remainder of this paper is organized in four sections. The first section describes the six types

of aid which the reviewed studies investigate. The second section summarizes the evidence of the

impact of aid on violence. The third section discusses the causal mechanisms which the reviewed

studies propose. The last sections discusses the results and offers conclusions, including

suggestions for future research.

Reviewed!studies!!

1. Adams, Greg. 2015. “Honing the proper edge: CERP and the two-sided potential of

military-led development in Afghanistan”. The Economics of Peace and Security

Journal, v. 10, n. 2: 53-61

2. Beath, Andrew, Fotini Christia, and Ruben Enikolopov. 2012. “Winning Hearts and

Minds through Development: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan“. Policy

Research Working Paper 6129. (The World Bank)

3. Berman, Eli, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Joseph H. Felter. 2011. “Can Hearts and Minds Be

Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq.” Journal of Political Economy

119, no. 4: 766–819.

4. Berman, Eli, Joseph Felter, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Erin Troland. 2013. “Modest, Secure

and Informed: Successful Development in Conflict Zones”. American Economic

Review: Papers & Proceedings,103(3): 512–517

5. Böhnke, Jan Rasmus, and Christoph Zürcher. 2013. “Aid, Minds and Hearts: The Impact

of Aid in Conflict Zones.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 30, 5: 411–32.

6. Child, Travers B. 2014. “Hearts and Minds Cannot Be Bought: Ineffective

Reconstruction in Afghanistan.” Economics of Peace and Security Journal 9, 2: 43–49.

7. Chou, Tiffany. 2012. “Does Development Assistance Reduce Violence? Evidence from

Afghanistan.” Economics of Peace and Security Journal 7, no. 2: 5–13.

8. Crost, Benjamin, Joseph Felter, and Patrick Johnston. 2014. “Aid under Fire:

Development Projects and Civil Conflict.” The American Economic Review 104, no. 6:

1833–56.

9. Crost, Benjamin, Joseph H. Felter, Patrick B. Johnston. 2016. “Conditional Cash

Transfers, Civil Conflict and Insurgent Influence: Experimental Evidence from the

Philippines.” Journal of Development Economics, v. 118 (Jan. 2016): 171-182.

10. Dasgupta, Aditya and Gawande, Kishore and Kapur, Devesh. 2016. (When) Do Anti-

Poverty Programs Reduce Violence? India's Rural Employment Guarantee and Maoist

Conflict (April 22, 2016, forthcoming in International Organization).

11. Hoelscher, Kristian, Jason Miklian, and Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati. 2012.

“Hearts and Mines: A District-Level Analysis of the Maoist Conflict in India.”

International Area Studies Review 15, 2: 141–60.

12. Khanna, Gaurav, and Laura Zimmermann. 2014. “Fighting Maoist Violence with

Promises: Evidence from India’s Employment Guarantee Scheme.” Economics of Peace

and Security Journal 9, no. 1: 30–36.

13. Narang, N. “Humanitarian Assistance and the Duration of Peace after Civil War.”

Journal of Politics 76, no. 2 (April 2014): 446–60.

14. Narang, N. 2015. “Assisting Uncertainty: How Humanitarian Aid Can Inadvertently

Prolong Civil War.” International Studies Quarterly 59 (1): 184–95.

15. Nunn, Nathan, and Nancy Qian. 2014. “US Food Aid and Civil Conflict.” American

Economic Review 104 (6): 1630–66.

16. Sexton, Renard. 2016 “Aid as a Tool against Insurgency: Evidence from Contested and

Controlled Territory in Afghanistan,” American Political Science Review,110, 4: 731-

749.

17. Weintraub, Michael. 2016. “Do all good things go together? Development Assistance

and Violence in Insurgency”. Journal of Politics,78,4: 989-1002

18. Wood, Reed M., and Emily Molfino. 2016. “Aiding Victims, Abetting Violence: The

Influence of Humanitarian Aid on Violence Patterns During Civil Conflict.” Journal of

Global Security Studies 1 (3): 186-203

19. Wood, Reed, and Christopher Sullivan. 2015. “Doing Harm by Doing Good? The

Negative Externalities of Humanitarian Aid Provision during Civil Conflict.” Journal of

Politics 77 (3).

Types!of!aid!reviewed!in!the!included!studies!

The 19 studies included in this review investigate the impact of six different types of aid:

community driven development programs, commander emergency response program,

humanitarian aid, employment programs, conditional cash transfer programs and large-scale

infrastructure programs. The next section briefly describes the main characteristic of these aid

types.3

Community driven development (CDD)

CDD programs are classical development tools primarily aimed at poverty-reduction. The

defining feature of CDD is that it requires the participation and continuous involvement of the

local communities. Typically, communities first assess their needs and prioritize them in a

participatory way and then apply for a grant. CDD interventions are typically small infrastructure

such as irrigation, flood protection, rehabilitation of transport infrastructure and the like, or

capacity building measures. CDD programs have long been viewed as particularly relevant

development interventions in conflict zones (cf. World Bank 2013, World Development Report

2011) because the programs are flexible, small-scale and demand driven, thereby promising local

ownership and quick results. Because of the involvement of the communities, development actors

may get access to remote and insecure regions which would otherwise be off-limit. Often, CDD

interventions are also used as a means to reestablish a direct link between communities and the

subnational government, which in many cases is lacking after conflict.

Commander Emergency Reconstruction Program (CERP)

CERP is a program of the US military that was specifically designed as a tool for

counterinsurgency. It is “monetary ammunition” intended to improve security through non-lethal

means (Bodnar and Gwinn, 2010). The program was considered critical to supporting military

3 I exclude large-scale infrastructure from this discussion. Only one study (Berman et al. 2013)

tries to measure the effect of large-scale infrastructure built by the US Army Corps of Engineers

in Iraq. But since this study is mainly on CERP, it provides not enough information on the type

and scale of the infrastructure to warrant a discussion here.

commanders in the field (SIGIR, 2013). CERP funds are handed out by US commanders to fund

projects for local communities with the aim of garnering the population’s support and

cooperation where the military is active. Between 2003 and 2008, CERP spending amounted to

$3 billion in Iraq (Berman et al., 2011) and $2.2 billion in Afghanistan (Child, 2014).

CERP funded a wide range of projects, for example road construction, cash-for-work,

agricultural assistance, water projects, militia payoffs, healthcare, or rehabilitation of schools.

Since its main objective was to win over the local population, commanders funded projects which

they thought the communities wanted or needed most. CERP projects were rather small on

average (around $100k) and rather short (around 80 days, cf. Berman et al. 2011). However,

there were also large projects well over $100k, mainly for roads and bridges. In Afghanistan 60%

of the spending went onto road and bridges (Johnson et al, 2012).

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT)

CCT programs are another staple of traditional development programming. CCT programs intend

to reduce poverty by providing grants to poor households, based on some number of conditions.

For example, households may have to ensure that their children attend school and receive a

variety of medical treatments in order to receive funding. The monetary value of transfers is

typically small, but can make a significant contribution to the income of the poorest households.

CCT programs primarily intend to protect the most vulnerable segments of society. Recently

CCT programs have been increasingly used in contexts of conflict and fragility, for example, in

Afghanistan, Colombia, the Philippines, Sudan, Somalia, Haiti, Liberia and Mozambique (for an

overview see Holmes 2009). While they are not primarily intended as a tool for conflict

transformation and stabilization, development actors hope that CCT can also increase social

capital and trust, strengthen the sense of sense of citizenship and improve the social contract

between communities and the government, all of which is particularly important in post-conflict

settings.

Employment Programs

Employment creation programs include a range of interventions, ranging from enabling macro-

level policy measures to stimulate employment growth to interventions aimed at promoting self-

employment and to direct employment creating (Holmes et al. 2013), the latter often in the form

of cash-for-work, food-for-work or temporal guaranteed employment. Employment programs are

primarily meant as a means to fight poverty and inequality. However, in contexts of fragility and

conflict, employment schemes are also seen as contributing to stability (2011 World

Development Report WDR). The United Nations Policy for Post-Conflict Employment Creation

(UN PCEI 2009 ) states that employment has a crucial role to play for growth, reintegration and

sustainable peace. Accordingly, donors have supported numerous direct employment creation

initiatives as part of post-conflict reconstruction in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Nepal and

Liberia and elsewhere (cf. McCord and Chopra 2010, McCord and Slater 2009).

While authors have remarked that there is no robust evidence so far to support these claims

(Brück et al. 2015, Holmes et al. 2013), the theoretical arguments for a stabilizing effect of

employment are plausible. Employment may increase the state’s legitimacy, reduce poverty,

inequality and grievance, all of which are seen as drives of conflict, or raise the cost of violence

by drawing the population away from insurgent activity (GIZ 2013, Blatmann and Annan 2015).

Humanitarian Aid

Humanitarian aid is defined as assistance designed to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain

and protect human dignity during and in the aftermath of emergencies. Humanitarian aid includes

relief and assistance, protection, support services, and material assistance like food and medical

supplies. Running refugee camps, which can include services such as education, training and

labor programs, also falls into the humanitarian aid category. The majority of humanitarian aid is

allocated in conflict zones. Much of it is distributed by NGO, because government actors may not

have access to conflict regions.

These six types of aid fall by and large in distinct categories, but there are some overlaps. This is

especially true for CDD programs and CERP, which both deliver a wide range of similar project

outputs. CERP and many CDD programs aid at improving local basic infrastructure and service

delivery and predominantly provide small infrastructure. There may also be some overlap

between CERP and humanitarian aid, as some CERP funding was spent on urgent humanitarian

needs (cf. Sexton 2016). However, there are important differences in the mode of delivery. CDD

require the structured and prolonged engagement with local communities. CERP projects were

commissioned by commanders and rarely based on structured engagement with the communities.

Furthermore, CDD projects and humanitarian aid is delivered by civilian organizations, in

collaboration with the local communities, whereas CERP projects were usually delivered by the

military. Also, CERP projects were implemented in the most insecure regions, because they were

primarily meant to improve the environment for the military in contested regions. CDD projects,

while also used in conflict-affected states, are usually only implemented in regions where NGOs

have secure access.

In theory, there could also be some overlaps between CDD, CERP and employment schemes.

Many CDD projects use local labor to build infrastructure, and a small fraction of CERP projects

involved cash-for-work. In both cases, the employment effects would be small, short term, and a

side effect of the infrastructure project. By contrast, the employment scheme in our sample is a

massive public employment scheme which guarantees 100 days of work per year for all members

of eligible communities.

The next section summarizes the impact of aid on violence. I group aid interventions in the

aforementioned six categories, but remain aware of the fact that there are some overlaps in

outputs.

The!impact!of!aid:!The!evidence!

On the aggregate, out of the 24 interventions which the sample covers, only seven had a violence-

reducing effect. Three had a heterogeneous treatment effect, six had no effect at all, and nine had

a violence-increasing effect. When looking at the different aid types separately, the following

picture emerges: Humanitarian aid never had a violence-dampening effect: In all five cases

humanitarian aid actually increased violence. Of seven community driven development

programs, only one had an unqualified violence dampening effect. Another one had a violence-

dampening effect only in relatively secure regions, but not in insecure regions. Three had no

effect, and two increased violence. Likewise, for aid which is given by the military, only one out

of six studies finds an unqualified violence dampening effect (Berman et al. 2011). A subsequent

study by the same authors qualifies that result in important ways. Berman et al. (2013) find that

the violence dampening effect actually occurs only in interaction with increased troop presence.

Two studies find no effect, and three more found that CERP projects could also increase

violence, when they were large, or implemented in insecure regions. Out of two conditional cash

transfer programs, one dampened violence, but the other one increased violence. Finally, two out

of three studies on employment programs find a violence reducing effect. However, this finding

must be treated with caution because all three studies investigate the same program, hence

external validity may be limited.

In sum, the evidence for a violence-dampening effect of aid in conflict zones is not strong. No

effects, heterogeneous effects and violence increasing effects appear to occur much more often.

Table 1 summarizes the results. The next section offers a more detailed discussion of the

findings.

Table 1: Aid Types and Outcomes

Type

Aid Programs and Source

Country

Outcomes

Community driven

development (CDD)

USAID Community Stabilization

Program (CSP)

Berman et al. (2013)

Iraq

Violence-

reducing

National Solidarity Program

Beath et al. (2012)

Afghanistan

Violence-

reducing / only

in secure regions

USAID Community Action

Program

Berman et al. (2013)

Iraq

No effect

National Solidarity Program

Chou (2012)

Afghanistan

No effect

USAID Governance Local

Community Development in

Afghanistan

Chou (2012)

Afghanistan

No effect

Asian Development Bank

KALAHI CIDSS – National

Community-Driven Development

Project in the Philippines

KALAHI-CIDSS

Crost et al. (2016)

Philippines

Violence-

increasing

Multi-sectoral, community-level

Afghanistan

Increases

aid

Böhnke and Zürcher (2013)

perceived

insecurity of

communities

Conditional cash

transfer (CCT)

Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino

Program / Bridging Program for

the Filipino Family, Phillipines

Crost et al. (2014)

Philippines

Violence-

decreasing

World Bank / Interamerican

Development Bank, Familias en

acion, Colombia

Weintraub (2016)

Columbia

Violence-

increasing

Employment

program

National Rural Employment

Guarantee Act (NREGA)

Dasgupta et al. (2016)

India

Violence-

decreasing

National Rural Employment

Guarantee Act (NREGA)

Khanna & Zimmermann (2014)

India

Violence-

increasing in the

short run

National Rural Employment

Guarantee Act (NREGA)

Hoelscher et al. (2012)

India

Violence-

decreasing

Large-scale

infrastructure

Program of US Army Corps

Berman et al. (2013)

Iraq

No effect

Aid given by the

military in

counterinsurgencies

Commanders Emergency

Response Program (CERP)

Berman et al. (2011)

Iraq

Violence

decreasing

Commanders Emergency

Response Program (CERP)

Berman et al. (2013)

Iraq

Violence

decreasing, but

only in

interaction with

troop strength

Commanders Emergency

Response Program (CERP)

Sexton (2016)

Afghanistan

Violence-

reducing in

regions under

control;

Violence-

increasing in

contested regions

Commanders Emergency

Response Program (CERP)

Chou (2012)

Afghanistan

No effect

Commanders Emergency

Response Program (CERP)

Child (2014)

Afghanistan

No effect

Commanders Emergency

Response Program (CERP)

Adams (2015)

Afghanistan

Violence

increasing for

projects >

$50.000

Violence

decreasing for

projects <

$50.000

Humanitarian Aid

Food aid

(Nunn and Qian 2014)

Non-OECD

countries

Violence

increasing

Humanitarian aid (all)

Wood and Molfino (2016)

Sub-

Saharan

African

countries

Violence

increasing

Humanitarian aid (all)

Wood and Sullivan (2015)

Sub-

Saharan

African

countries

Violence

increasing

Humanitarian aid (all)

Narang (2015)

All civil war

countries

1969 – 2008

Violence

increasing

Humanitarian aid (all)

Narang (2014)

Post civil

war

countries

1989 - 1999

Violence

increasing

Aid!as!a!tool!for!counterinsurgency:!The!impacts!of!the!Commanders!Emergency!Response!

Program!(CERP)!

CERP is the only aid type which is primarily intended to reduce violence. Development

outcomes are a secondary objective. By far the most influential studies on CERP are Berman et

al. ( (2011, 2013). It is appropriate to say that these studies relaunched the discussion about the

impacts of aid on violence, not least by triggering three replication studies. Berman et al. (2011)

measure violence as the number of attacks against US and Iraqi government per district half-year.

Data come from a declassified version of “significant activity” (SIGACT) reports collected by

the US army. The studies employ a first-difference design where changes in violence are

regressed on changes in aid spending, controlling for previous levels of violence and troop

strength. Berman et al. (2011) find that smaller CERP projects (under $50k) reduce insurgent

violence. Berman et al. (2013) improve over their preceding study by adding a control for troop

presence, recognizing that their previous finding might have captured the effect of troop presence

rather than the effect of CERP. The measurement for troop presence is based on newspaper

reporting. The revised study finds again that smaller CERP projects (under $50k) reduce

insurgent violence, but only in interaction with larger numbers of troops (e.g. it is the interaction

term which reaches significance).

The authors explain the violence-reducing effect by an information-centric model of

counterinsurgency. The model assumes that local communities possess critical information on the

activities of insurgents. The prospect of rewards in the form of development aid acts as an

incentive for local communities to share this information with the government and its

international allies. As a result, the government’s counterinsurgency efforts become more

effective and security eventually increases.

The Berman et al. studies has been replicated three times in Afghanistan, where CERP was also

widely used by the U.S. military. Two studies (Chou 2012 and Child 2014) could not find an

effect of CERP spending on insurgent violence.

Adams (2015) also replicates the Berman et al. study in Afghanistan. He uses declassified

military data from SIGACT for measuring the depended variable which includes around 107,350

insurgent-initiated events and covers 32 months between 2011and 2013.The data is parsed to the

district level, and adjusted to a per capita basis. Effects are estimated with OLS, using lags

ranging from one to three months. The study finds that small CERP projects (<USD50,000) are

associated with a statistically significant reduction in violence but larger CERP projects actually

led to an increase in violence. Both effects hold for the three months lags only. It is possible that

Adams (2015) found an effect whereas Chou (2012) and Child (2014) did not because of slightly

different data sources and model specifications. Chou (2012) and Child (2014) use one-month

lags, and Child (2014) also used a different source for measuring violence (the Worldwide

Incidents Tracking System).

Adams (2015) also reports the results from a qualitative survey with nine Civil Affairs Officers

who were familiar with CERP in Afghanistan. The results suggest that the respondents did not

think that CERP was an effective tool for reducing violence, nor did they think that CERP funds

were given conditional, and in exchange for information, which is, as mentioned before, an

important element on the causal theory proposed by Berman et al. (2011).

Sexton (2016) provides another study on the effects of CERP in Afghanistan. He uses variation in

week-per-week CERP spending per district week in all Afghan districts (instead of levels of

CERP spending, as the pervious studies did). This measure is chosen because it is assumed that

this variation is quasi random (caused by the unpredictable bureaucracy), whereas CERP

spending per se is endogenous to violence. The study finds that CERP has a violence-reducing

effect in regions which are under the control of the government and its allies, but a violence-

increasing effect in regions which are contested or under insurgent control. Control is proxied be

the presence of absence of a FOB (a battalion level forward operating base). The author argues

that the violence-increasing effect is caused by the attempts of insurgents to sabotage aid

programs which might win over the population to the government. These attempts at sabotage

can only be carried out in districts which are not yet secured by the government. This is why

more aid creates more violence in non-secured districts, but can dampen violence in secured

districts. Sexton (2016) also rejects the information-centric model. He argues that if increased

CERP spending would buy actionable information, then increased spending should be associated

with increased COIN activity. However, he finds no evidence for this.

With six studies dedicated to CERP, it is among the best-researched aid type in our sample. The

overall evidence for a violence-reducing effect is not strong. One study finds a violence

decreasing effect (Berman et al. 2011). Two studies find no effect (Chou 2012 and Child 2014).

Three studies find qualified effects: Berman at al. (2013) find that CERP dampens violence but

only in conjunction with increased troop levels. Adams (2015) finds that CERP increases

violence when projects are >$50.000 and dampens violence when projects are < $50.000 and

Sexton (2016) finds that CERP increases violence in territories which are not under the control of

the counter-insurgents, but dampens violence where counterinsurgents have control.

One observations stands out: If CERP has a violence-dampening effect, it is most likely only in

regions which are relatively secure. In insecure regions beyond the control of the government or

the military, CERP is likely to increase violence.

The!Impacts!of!Community!Driven!Development!(CDD)!

Unlike CERP, CDD programs are not designed as a counterinsurgency tool. CDD programs are

classical development tools primarily aimed at poverty-reduction. Two studies in our sample are

devoted to testing the effects of specific CDD programs (Beath et al. 2012; Cost et al.). One study

(Böhnke & Zürcher 2013) investigates the impact of multi-sectoral, community level

development aid in rural areas of North East Afghanistan. Two studies, while primarily focusing

on the impact of CERP, also each include two CDD programs in their investigation (Berman et

al., 2013; Chou 2012).

Of these seven community driven development programs, only one had an unqualified violence

dampening effect. Another one had a violence-dampening effect only in relatively secure regions,

but not in insecure regions. Three had no effect, and two increased violence.

Beath et al. (2012) investigate the impact of the National Solidarity Program (NSP) in

Afghanistan. NSP is a nation-wide, community-driven development program in Afghanistan

which gave block grants to Afghan communities in order to implement projects selected by the

communities themselves. The average size of the block grants was around US $30,000. The

study’s identification strategy employs the fact that the World Bank, as the main donor,

administered a randomized experiment in order to measure the impacts of NSP. In each of the 10

districts, 50 villages were selected to be included in the study, 25 of which were then selected as

treatment villages using a matched-pair randomization procedure.

Results suggest that NSP improved villagers’ perceptions of security and reduced the number of

security incidents recorded by ISAF in the long run (15 to 30 months after projects were

selected). However, these positive effects were only observed in eight of ten districts. In two

eastern districts, where initial levels of violence were higher, no effect was found. The study also

estimated the effect of NSP on a number of other outcomes and finds that NSP is associated with

perceived welfare gains, improved attitudes toward government officials, NGOs and ISAF

soldiers. Again, these positive effects were not found for the two eastern districts.

According to the authors, one explanation for this is that the government’s attempts to improve

material wellbeing are likely to have a strong effect on attitudes toward the government in

regions where the population is primarily concerned with economic conditions rather than

security. When public goods are provided in these regions, community members are less likely to

join the insurgency. In regions with high levels of violence, however, security is likely to be the

primary concern, so that marginal improvements in economic outcomes will be insufficient to

change people’s attitudes toward the government. The authors argue that their results suggest that

development programs are more effective in preventing the spread of violence, rather than in

reducing the level of violence in already insecure regions.

Crost et al. (2016) investigate the effects of KALAHI-CIDSS, a CDD program implemented by

the Philippine government and funded through World Bank. Between 2003 and 2008, more than

4,000 villages in 184 municipalities received aid through KALAHI-CIDSS. Typical of CDD

programs, the objectives of KALAHI-CIDSS were to mobilize communities by giving grants

which could be used for small, local infrastructure or capacity building projects. Participating

communities received approximately US $6,000 per grant. Their dependent variable is causalities

of civil war, measured at the municipal level per month. The data come from original reports of

the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) between 2002 and 2006. These data are similar to the

US military’s “Significant Activities” (SIGACTS) database. The data allows distinguishing

between government- and insurgent-initiated incidents, as well as between causalities suffered by

government forces, insurgents and civilians. Since eligibility of the program was restricted to the

poor household in the forth quartile only, the study exploits this “cut-off” by using a regression

discontinuity design that compares municipalities just below the cut-off (treatment) with

municipalities just above the treatment. The results indicate that the program led to increased

causalities over the entire three-year period. The effect is, however, small in actual casualties and

translates to less than 3 killed within a municipality of an average population size of around

30.000. The study does not intend to test one specific causal mechanism. However, the authors

suggest that the most likely causal mechanism linking the CDD program to increased violence is

sabotage. Since rebels benefit from anti-government sentiments, they may have an incentive to

sabotage programs, which may repair negative attitudes of local communities towards the

government. Hence they may seek to derail the possible positive effects of CDD programs.

Böhnke & Zürcher (2013) investigate the impact of multi-sectoral, community level development

aid in rural areas of North East Afghanistan on perceived fear of violent actors. Data come from

two surveys among 2000 respondents in North East Afghanistan, conducted in 2007 and 2009.

Their measurement for aid is based on respondents’ perceptions of how much aid their

communities received in various sectors. This is a strictly perception-based measure, but the

authors demonstrate that it is correlated with an objective measurement of aid (defined as the

number of projects in a given community). The results suggest that more (perceived) community

aid is associated with higher perceived fear of violent actors. The authors suggest that

communities which received relatively large amounts of aid felt threatened because they fear that

cooperation with international actors has made them a target for Taliban reprisal attacks.

Berman et al. (2013) find some evidence for a violence-reducing effect of a CDD program, the

USAID-funded Community Stabilization Program (CSP).4 It should be noted, however, that their

study is predominately interested in CERP, and testing for the effect of CDD programs is done en

passant. Chou (2012) also included two CDD programs (NSP, and USAID Local Community

Development in Afghanistan) in her evaluation of CERP in Afghanistan, but found no effect.

In sum, we find little evidence for a violence-dampening effect of CDD programs in conflict

zones. As with CERP project, CDD projects appear to have a violence-reducing effect only when

the environment is reasonably secure. Under more adverse conditions, however, CDD can

increase violence. This effect may be driven by attempts of insurgents to sabotage the

cooperative relations between local communities and the government, or because rebels violently

loot aid.

The!Impacts!of!Conditional!Cash!Transfer!(CCT)!Programs!

CCT programs are another staple of traditional development programming. CCT programs intend

to reduce poverty by providing grants to poor households, based on some number of conditions.

Two studies estimate the effect of CCT programs on violence and reach opposite conclusions.

Crost et al. (2016) estimate the effect of a nationwide CCT program which financed transfers to

approximately one million households in all regions of the Philippines. The study estimates the

effects of the program on the annual number of conflict incidents per village and on the level of

4 This finding is in contrast to a report on the same program by the office of the inspector general

which states that “we do not have a reasonable basis for asserting that CSP activities in the

community infrastructure and essential services component were contributing to the overall

improvements in security in Iraq” (Office of Inspector General 2008: 4). Moreover, the audit also

pointed out that “CSP projects are highly vulnerable to fraud and exploitation which may have in

fact occurred, with potential adverse consequences to Coalition personnel (Office of Inspector

General 2008: 4).

insurgent influence in the village. Both measures are based on data from the Philippine military.

The study exploits the fact that the program was designed by the World Bank as an experiment

where 130 villages were randomly divided into a treatment group and a control group.

Observations were aggregated to a one-year pretreatment period and a one-year post treatment

period. Results suggest that the CCTs reduced the number of incidents in treatment villages

within one year after treatment. Also, treated villages experienced a decrease in insurgent

influence compared to control villages.

The authors propose two possible explanations for the observed violence suppressing effect: The

first is the opportunity cost model, which implies that the program reduced conflict by making it

more costly for insurgents to recruit combatants in treated villages. The second is the

information-centric model, which implies that the program increased popular support for the

government which led to more cooperation and information sharing between the government and

the villages.

Weintraub (2016) tells a different story. This study investigates the effects of the nation-wide

CCT program, Familias en Acción in Colombia, rolled out in 2002, using a sample of 57 treated

and 65 untreated municipalities. Data are drawn from the Human Rights Observatory Database

compiled by the Presidency of Colombia. This dataset has municipal-level data on violent events,

including the type of armed action perpetrated by various violent, non-state actors. The effect of

the program is estimated with a difference-in-differences strategy. The study exploits the fact that

an earlier evaluation study of the program constructed a data set where treated municipalities

were matched with untreated (Attanasio, Meghir and Vera-Hernandez 2004). The results suggest

that the program led to more killings and indiscriminate violent incidents by the FARC. The

effect appeared to be especially accentuated in the poorest municipalities and in municipalities

where coca was cultivated.

The observed effect is attributed to the insurgent’s attempts to sabotage the increased cooperation

between the beneficiaries of the program and the government. Insurgents, facing the threat of

losing control, will penalize “collaborators” with violence. Further specifying the mechanism, the

study argues that poor communities who depend most on aid are more likely to become

collaborators, and therefore more likely to become a target of insurgent violence.

How can we explain that these two studies reach different conclusions? It is plausible that the

violence increasing effect of the CTT in Colombia is attributable to the same logic that we

observed for CERP and CDD: Development aid triggered a violent backlash by rebels who feared

that they would loose poplar backing when communities received aid from the government, and

the military forces in Colombia were not capable of preventing that backlash. In the Philippines,

by contrast, security forces could shield the communities from rebel reprisals. The difference in

outcome would thus be explained by a different security environment and different military

capabilities of the rebels.

The!Impact!of!Employment!Programs!

Employment programs, often in the form of cash-for-work, are another widely used development

tool. Three studies in our sample investigate the effect of one such program, the National Rural

Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in India. NREGA is an employment development

program introduced by the Indian government in 2006 that guarantees at least 100 days of wage-

employment to every rural household. It is a vast public employment scheme reaching up to 47.9

million rural households annually, generating 210 million person-days of employment for the

rural poor to date. While the key objective of NREGA is poverty reduction, the Indian

government hopes that it will also contribute to reducing violence in the regions most affected by

Maoist insurgencies (Hoelscher et al. 2012).

Dasgupta et al. (2016) investigate whether districts which adopted NREGA experienced lower

levels of violence compared to districts which did not adopt NREGA. Results indicate that

NREGA caused a roughly 50 percent reduction in violent incidents and deaths. The study also

shows that the effect is largest in districts which experienced little rainfall, suggesting the

NREGA serves as a substitute for foregone agricultural wages. The authors take this as support

for the opportunity cost model: The wage labor which the program provided to the rural poor

made recruitment for Maoist insurgents more costly. One innovative contribution of this study is

to highlight the role played by state capacity in shaping these effects. The performance of the

program is highly contingent upon local administrative capabilities. The results suggest that

NREGA's violence-reducing effects concentrated in states and districts which implemented the

program effectively and therefore provided greater levels of employment provision under the

program.

Hoelscher et al. (2012) also find a violence-reducing effect of NREGA. Using a cross-sectional

model for the entire period from 2004–2010, the study finds that the percentage of households

per district participating in NREGA is associated with less battle deaths, less violent incidents,

and fewer districts which record violent incidents. The authors attribute the observed effect to the

fact that the employment program for the rural poor increased the opportunity costs for the

rebellion.

By contrast, Khanna and Zimmermann (2014), using a difference-in-difference-design, find that

the program led to an increase in Maoist-related violence in the short run. This increase in

violence appears to be driven by police-initiated attacks rather than by Maoist-initiated attacks.

The authors argue that such empirical patterns are consistent with the information-centric model

which predicts that civilians are more willing to share information with the police when they are

a recipient of a development program, thereby allowing government troops to crack down more

efficiently on the insurgents.

At first glance, the results of Khanna and Zimmermann (2014) appear to contradict Hoelscher

(2012) and Dasgupta et al. (2016)5. However, the spike of violence that Khanna and

Zimmermann (2014) observe is short-time only. Eight months after the implementation of the

program violence decreases. This is consistent with the logic of the information-sharing model: If

the program indeed led to better cooperation between communities and security forces, then we

would expect a short time increase of counter-insurgency measures, followed by an reduction in

overall violence. According to the authors, the overall findings of the study quite plausibly

indicate “the possibility that the police was more successful in catching Maoists right after

5 One possible explanation, put forward by Dasgupta et al. (2016), is that these studies use

different data sources. While Khanna and Zimmermann (2014) used data based on English news

clips which may over-report violence in urban regions, Dasgupta et al. (2016) constructed the

data based on local language news clips which may provide better and more balanced coverage

of rural areas.

NREGA implementation, and that this may lead to a fall in overall Maoist-related activities s in

the longer run (Khanna and Zimmermann 2014:33).

In sum, there appears to be evidence that employment programs may indeed dampen violence,

either by increasing opportunity costs for rebels, or by increasing cooperation between

communities and security forces, which makes COIN more effective. Some caution is in order,

however, since the evidence stems from only one program, which raises doubts about external

validity. With this in mind, it is interesting to speculate about why employment programs appear

to be more effective in dampening violence than CERP, CDD, CTT or humanitarian aid. I offer

two possible answers. Firstly, it is possible that the Maoist insurgency in India is primarily

driven by economic deprivation, which would explain why creating economic opportunities can

reduce insurgent activities. By contrast, insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan are to a very large

extent driven by ideology and religion, which make economic opportunities much less effective.

Secondly, it is possible that NREGA was implemented in regions where the government was

relatively strong to begin with. NREAG requires that government officials collect community

level data and are present in order to administer the work program. This is only possible in

regions which are largely under government control. The level of control is therefor much higher

than in regions where CERP programs or humanitarian emergency programs are implemented. It

is possible that the benign effect of NREGA is conditioned on pre-existing government control.

The!Impact!of!Humanitarian!Aid!

The evidence on humanitarian aid is unequivocal: All five studies in our sample find that

humanitarian aid increases violence.

Nunn and Qian (2014) study the effect of US food aid on conflict in recipient countries. Their

sample consists of a panel of 125 non-OECD countries between 1971 and 2006. Study variables

are onset and duration of conflict. In order to counter endogeneity problems, the authors use an

instrument for food aid based on exogenous time variation in US wheat production, which is

primarily driven by changes in US weather conditions. Surplus wheat is bought by the

government at fixed prices and then shipped to developing countries as food aid. Thus, US wheat

production is positively correlated with US food aid shipments in the following year. The authors

construct the interaction of last year's US wheat production and the frequency that a country

receives any US food aid and use this as an instrument for the amount of food aid received by a

country in a given year. The study finds US food aid increased the duration of civil conflicts, but

had no effect on interstate conflicts or the onset of civil conflicts. The effect is most pronounced

in countries with a recent history of civil conflict. The study is not designed to uncover the causal

mechanisms, but the authors refer to the large do-no-harm literature which suggests that stolen

aid is frequently used to finance the war.

Narang (2014) investigates the effect of humanitarian bilateral and multilateral aid disbursement

on the duration of peace, using a panel dataset of civil conflicts between 1989 and 1999. A

duration models is employed to estimate the effect of aid on the risk of peace failing in a

particular year. He finds that post-conflict states treated with higher levels of humanitarian

assistance exhibit shorter spells of peace; however, this effect only occurs after conflicts that

ended with a decisive victory. For conflicts which ended in negotiated settlement or stalemates

no effect is found. The author argues that humanitarian aid is usually disproportionally given to

the losers of the war, and that the aid can help the losing side to reconstitute its war effort. In

other words, aid can support or even create a revisionist party with the incentive to change the

postwar settlement on the battlefield. It should be mentioned that this is a theoretical argument.

The study does not offer supporting evidence for the alleged causal mechanisms. Such a test

would have to show that recipients of humanitarian aid diverted aid for their war efforts, by

stealing or taxing the aid.

Narnag (2015) investigates whether humanitarian aid pro-longs civil wars, using a cross-national

panel data on humanitarian aid disbursed between 1969 and 2008. Effects are estimated with Cox

proportional hazards models. The study finds that increased levels of humanitarian assistance

lengthen civil wars, particularly those involving rebels on the outskirts of a state. The author

notes that these findings are compatible with a range of causal mechanisms: Misappropriated aid

could finance the insurgency; humanitarian aid could create protected spaces (such as refugee

camps) that shield combatants from costly attacks; fungible aid could free up resources for

violence; or local power-brokers could prolong the war in order to continue “taxing” the

incoming aid. On a more general level, the author suggests that aid may exacerbate information

failures: By making war less costly, humanitarian assistance can “inadvertently prolong fighting

by slowing down the accrual of information that allows opponents to converge on more

congruent estimates of relative strength which would lead to negotiated settlements” (Narang

2015: 184).

Wood and Sullivan (2015) investigate whether humanitarian aid can encourage rebel violence

against civilians. The authors suggest two possible causal mechanisms: First, aid may encourage

predation, which may result in abuses against the local population. Second, aid may be perceived

by rebels as a challenge to their authority, because aid may increase cooperation between the

local population and the government. Rebels may use violence to sabotage that cooperation.

The depended variable is the number of attacks on civilian targets by insurgents. Spatially

disaggregated conflict event data come from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program's (UCDP)

Georeferenced Event data set, which is based on media reports. The independent variable is

project-level bi- and multilateral humanitarian aid commitments, lagged by one year. Data come

from the UCDP/AidData georeferenced data set. The unit of analysis is grid / year, whereas the

grid is based on the PRIO-Grid system. A cell is roughly 55 # 55 km at the equator. The data

represents 22 sub-Saharan African states between 1989 and 2008. Effects are estimated by cross-

sectional regression models. Supporting evidence comes from a matched sample allowing for a

difference-in-difference model. Results support the argument that humanitarian aid is associated

with increased rebel violence. The study does not test for whether the effect is caused by

predation or sabotage.

Finally, Wood and Molfino (2016) explore whether humanitarian aid increased violence between

the government and rebels. The alleged causal mechanism is that injecting humanitarian aid into

a locality increases the incentives for rebels to challenge the government for control over

territory in which aid accumulates, thus leading to an increased risk of violence. The unit of

analysis is first order administrative unit (i.e., districts, communes) / year. The independent

variable is humanitarian aid commitments per unit, and the dependent variable are battles

between rebels and the government. Data sources are identical with Wood and Sullivan (2015).

Effects are estimated with Poisson regression, and supplemented with propensity score matching,

allowing for difference-in-difference estimates. Results provide support for the assumption that

humanitarian aid increases the subsequent frequency of conflict between rebel and government

forces.

Causal!Mechanisms!!

The previous sections took stock of the evidence base for the impact of aid on violence. As we

have seen, the results are not encouraging. More often than not, aid is statistically associated with

an increase in violence. But statistical correlations can only take one so far. This section now

offers on overview of the causal mechanisms at work. Specifying these mechanisms make

theories more complete and persuasive and can help to design adequate policy responses, as

different mechanisms suggest different policy interventions. In what follows, I identify all causal

mechanisms which the reviewed studies propose. I then briefly discuss the observable

implications for the causal mechanism and assess to what extent the discussed studies tested for

the presence or absence of these observable implications. I find that most studies fail to provide

strong evidence for the presence of their alleged mechanism (or rather, the presence of the

observable implications) and suggest ways of how future research could conduct much stronger

tests for the presence of specific causal mechanisms.

Mechanisms!that!reduce!violence!

The!“hearts!and!minds”!mechanisms!

Hearts and minds is perhaps the most famous concept used to describe possible links between aid

and violence. Campaigns to win over the hearts and minds of the local population have been used

by French and British colonial administrators, by the US army in Vietnam , and most recently in

Iraq and Afghanistan by coalition forces. The assumption is that aid can help win civilians’

"hearts and minds" by providing public goods. If the goods and services are valuable to them,

communities will develop more positive attitudes towards the government and will be less likely

to support the insurgency, which eventually will dampen violence. There is some initial evidence

for this mechanism in our sample. Beath et al. (2012) show that a large CDD program was

associated with more positive attitudes towards the government and less reported security

incidents. Similarly, Böhnke & Zürcher (2013) show that aid led to more acceptance and more

legitimacy for the subnational government and for development actors. These findings tie in with

a large literature that shows that the ability to provide basic public services to the population can

increase legitimacy for the egovernment (See McLoughin 2015 for an overview).

However, it should be noted that even if aid leads to more positive attitudes, more legitimacy,

and more acceptance, this does not necessarily translate into less violence. Behavioral changes

that could reduce violence include that communities no longer support insurgents by providing

fighters, shelter, food or information; that communities increase internal policing, making it more

difficult for insurgents to recruit fighters, or that communities increase collaboration with the

government by providing information. Such behavioral changes may follow from attitudinal

changes, but don’t have to. In other words, the “hearts and minds” mechanism explains the initial

attitudinal changes, but not the subsequent behavioral changes which are necessary if violence is

to be reduced. As such, it is an underspecified causal model which can explain the first element

in a causal chain, but not the necessary subsequent ones.

The!Information-centric!model!

The information-centric model is a more complete causal mechanisms. Thus far, Berman et al.

(2011, 2013) have provided its most complete specification. The model assumes that local

communities possess critical information on the activities of insurgents. The prospect of rewards

in the form of development aid acts as an incentive for local communities to share this

information with the government and its international allies. As a result, the government’s

counterinsurgency efforts become more effective and security eventually increases. Berman et al.

(2011, 2013) and Crost et al. (2016) attribute violence reduction to this mechanism. Weintraub

(2016) and Khanna and Zimmermann (2014) also assume that aid encouraged information

sharing, but speculate that this information led to more violence, because security forces

increased their counterinsurgency activities (Khanna and Zimmermann 2014) or because

insurgents used violence to punish those who shared information (Weintraub 2016).

None of these studies provide support for the presence of information sharing beyond the claim

that it is compatible with the data. One straightforward way of testing the presence of the

mechanism would be to conduct interviews with military commanders, asking them whether the

handing out of development projects bought them reliable information on which they could act.

Adams (2015) does this and finds no support for information sharing. Also, Sexton (2016) finds

that CERP spending did not result in increased COIN activities, as would have been the case if

CERP spending had led to “tips” on which the military could act.

Besides the lack of empirical support for the presence of the mechanism, there is also theoretical

concern. The model requires that aid is given conditionally: “The violence-reducing property of

service provision requires conditional provision: the community benefits from services only if the

government controls the territory. If the community benefited from services regardless of who

won, provision would not motivate information sharing” (Berman et al., 2013, p. 523). This

assumption is problematic because it is unlikely that such an ex-ante conditionality was widely

practiced, since this would mean that commanders would withhold all funds until control is

established. This defies both the urge of bureaucracies to spend allocated funds quickly and the

intended use of CERP, which is using aid precisely as a means to establish control.6 Many

qualitative accounts of CERP spending suggest that funds were given without much planning or

oversight, not to mention conditionality. As a matter of fact, military reconstruction aid in the

context of COIN has become for many development experts a prime example of wasteful

spending with poor oversight (Wilder and Fishstein, 2012; Williamson, 2011; Special Inspector,

2011; Stein, 2011; Suhrke, 2006; Committee on Foreign Relations, 2011; Wilton Park, 2010).

Finally, the “information-sharing model” might also oversimplify the dynamics between foreign

counterinsurgents and local communities. According to many testimonials, this dynamic is

characterized by an information asymmetry, where local communities use their informational

advantage in a much more strategic way than the model presumes . Local actors often release

6 Berman et al. (2011, footnote 11) refer to a survey among officers and officials with CERP

implementation authority in Afghanistan, conducted in October and November of 2010 in which

61 percent of the 210 respondents indicated that they would “halt implementation of a CERP

project if the local population increased its support for anti-government elements.” It is unclear,

however, how many respondents actually did halt a project. Another study, based on 44 semi-

structured interviews with Canadian civilian and military officials involved in aid projects (not

necessarily CERP projects) in fragile states, found not one instance of an aid project that was

actually withdrawn (Bourgoin et al., 2013).

biased or incomplete information in order to influence international actors in a way that favors

local interests. It is hard to see how under such circumstance development aid would consistently

buy reliable information. In the future, further qualitative work may reveal if and when a

violence-reducing effect is indeed caused by increased information sharing or whether additional

or alternative causal paths are at work.

Opportunity!cost!model!

The violence-suppressing effect of aid is often explained by an opportunity cost model. Economic

opportunities, it is argued, can provide employment for young men, which makes the recruitment

of fighters more expensive (Grossmann, 1991, 1999; Collier, 2000; Collier and Hoeffler, 2004).

The opportunity cost model is most closely associated with employment programs, often in the

form of cash-for-work. Crost et al. (2016), Dasgupta et al. (2016) and Hoelscher et al. (2012)

both attribute the observed violence-reducing effect of a large employment scheme to increased

opportunity costs. Additionally, Dasgupta et al. (2016) demonstrate that the violence-reducing

effect of the program tended to be stronger in regions with unusually little monsoon rain than in

regions with normal monsoon. This suggests that the employment scheme offered compensatory

income for farmers suffering from bad harvests caused by a lack of rain. Without the employment

scheme, farmers might have turned to insurgent activities which offers some additional income.

The opportunity cost model does not necessarily work only through employment schemes,

however. Every labor-intensive and rent-generating aid program can, theoretically, increase

opportunity costs for insurgency. For example, Crost et al. (2014) report a violence-reducing

effect of a CCT program in the Philippines. These cash transfers, they argue, boosted the local

economy and created higher incomes from peaceful activities, which in turn made joining the

rebellion less attractive.

The opportunity cost mechanism is a theoretically attractive preposition because of its simplicity.

Yet, it is evident that the model depends on one crucial precondition: The violence-dampening

effect will only take place if insurgents are first and foremost motivated by private economic

gains. We should not expect to see an effect on insurgencies which are predominately motivated

by ideology.

Mechanisms!that!increase!violence!

Sabotage!

The logic of the sabotage mechanism posits that aid will lead to better relations and more

cooperation between the population and the government. More popular support for the

government could then lead to information-sharing, and it could help the government to establish

or deepen control over contested regions. Insurgents, keen to sabotage the cooperative relations

between the local population and the government, then use violence against “collaborators” to

deter further collaboration. Eight out of nine studies that report a positive correlation between aid

and violence attribute this to the sabotage model For example, Crost et al. (2014) show that a

CDD program caused an increase in casualties a result of insurgent-initiated attacks, which is

consistent with the assumption that a successful community-driven development can increase

support for the government which then leads to sabotage by the insurgency. Weintraub (2016)

proposes a two-pronged model that combines the information-centric and sabotage models:

Development aid buys information and, in reaction, insurgents target the population to sabotage

the information sharing which threatens the insurgents’ control of territory. Sexton (2016) shows

that CERP funds in districts which are contested between rebels and government increase

violence, and argues that this is caused by insurgents attempts to sabotage cooperation between

governments and local communities. Wood Wood and Sullivan (2015) demonstrate that injecting

humanitarian aid in conflict zones leads to increased insurgent violence against civilians, which is

compatible with the sabotage model. While this is compatible with the sabotage mechanism, the

authors also note that it is equally compatible with the predation mechanisms, which assumes that

aid flows increase violence between warring parties as insurgents try to control territories where

aid is distributed. Indeed, sabotage and predation are not mutually exclusive. Both are important

objectives for insurgents. There is ample evidence from Afghanistan that the Taliban seek to

control and tax all aid in regions which they control, while at the same time deterring the local

population from collaborating with the Afghan government and those aid organization which are

deemed hostile. If sabotage would take place without predation, then we would see an uptick in

violence against development projects and against civilians, but not necessarily an uptick in

violence between the warring parties. Fine-grained event data might allow for such tests.

Predation!!

The theoretical foundations of the predation model dates back to the works of Hirshleifer (1991,

Grossman (1991) and Skaperda (1992), who all argued that aid exacerbates violence because it is

an additional resource which fuels conflict. Predation is also at the core the “do-no-harm”

literature which sees aid a lootable resource which can incite or prolong violent conflicts

(Anderson, 1999; Uvin, 1998). The logic of the predation model found much support in

qualitative single case studies. Scholars showed, for example, that stolen aid fueled rebel violence

(Bradbury and Kleinmann, 2010; Goodhand, 2002; De Waal, 1997;) or that fungible aid relived

local actors from the burden of delivering basic goods to their constituencies, freeing up

resources that were be invested in violence (Polman, 2010). There is considerable qualitative

evidence that predation of aid flows may have led to increased violence in Afghanistan (Wilder

and Fishstein, 2012; Wilton Park, 2010; Karell, 2015).

Wood and Molfino (2016), Wood and Sullivan (2015), Narang (2014, 2015) and Nunn and Qian

(2014) all attribute spikes in violence after aid injections to the predation mechanisms.

Furthermore the data of Sexton (2016) and Böhnke & Zürcher (2013) are both compatible with

the predation mechanism. As mentioned above, predation may be difficult to distinguish from

sabotage, as both can go hand in hand. If only predation, but not sabotage would take place, we

would expect to see an uptick of violence between warring parties, but not necessarily against

local civilian population or development actors.

Alternative!causal!mechanisms!!

The reviewed studies offer a useful spectrum of five causal mechanisms. But there may be

alternative mechanisms which are not covered by the sample. One such mechanism which is

conspicuously absent form the sample is that aid might dampen violence by addressing

grievances. The literature on civil wars has long ago identified group-level grievances, especially

the real or perceived lack of current and future political and economic opportunities, as one

source of violence (for example, Gurr, 2000). When one particular group, typically an ethnic

minority, holds economic and social grievances, well-targeted aid might enable redistributive

policies that can lessen inequalities, create solidarity links between population groups and

remedy grievances (Azam, 2001; Azam and Mesnard, 2003; Justino, 2007). Arcand at al. (2010)

provide some evidence for this mechanism by pointing out that aid provided for the grievance-

driven Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines created concrete improvements in access

to government services, a greater sense of inclusion in local decision-making, and a greater sense

of empowerment. None of the studies in the sample consider that aid might reduce grievances,

and the data on which the studies are based do not suggest that the observed violence dampening

effect ay be caused by reduced grievances. Nevertheless, future research might provide evidence

for grievance reducing effects of aid linked to violence reduction.

Another unmentioned causal mechanism which might explain how aid can lead to reduction in

violence, at least in the short run, is buying-off strongmen. There is abundant evidence that aid

and particularly local contracting has very often enriched local strong men in Iraq and

Afghanistan (for example, SIGAR, 2009, 2011). It is worthwhile speculating about the effect of

this on violence. Local strongmen control the means of violence. They are also well placed to tap

into aid flows, for example by rigging contracts, extorting rents from contractors, or selling

protection to contractors, all of which is paid for by the aid program. One of the best-documented

examples is the transportation sector in Afghanistan. The US government spends hundreds of

millions a year to private contractors on trucking services in Afghanistan. These contractors pay

large amounts to local warlords across Afghanistan in exchange for “protection” in the form of

supply convoys to support U.S. troops (Warlord, Inc., 2010). This protection racket has become a

major source of funding for violent entrepreneurs, and they have a vested interest in keeping the

funds coming. Local warlords have the capacity to police their constituency and they can offer

their militias for protection. They will offer these services as long as they can extort rents. Too

high levels of violence would harm their business, hence violent entrepreneurs have an interested

in keeping violence at bay. But prolonged loyalty requires prolonged bribing. If bribes are

deemed to be too small, violence will return.

None of the studies in our sample explicitly investigate whether the observed effects of aid could

be explained by a buying-off-the strongmen model, but, for example, the data of Berman et al.

(2011, 2013) and Sexton (2016) are compatible with such a causal model. If the violence-

dampening effect is indeed caused by bribing strongmen, then we would see a reoccurrence of

violence once the rents from aid projects stop flowing. None of the reviewed studies currently

offers a test for how long violence is sustained, partly because temporal data on violence may not

be fine-grained enough. Future research should, however, investigate whether is likely that aid

has been misappropriated by local strong men, and whether violence returns once rents stop

flowing. Both would suggest that the aid-dampening effect is caused by buying-off strongmen.

Table 2 summarizes the discussed mechanisms.

Table 2: Causal Mechanisms

Violence-reducing Mechanisms

Assumed in:

Hearts-and-Minds leads to less violence

Aid provides public goods to local communities. Local communities value

these goods, which makes it less likely that the local population supports or

joins the insurgency.

Beath et al. (2012)

Böhnke & Zürcher (2013)

Information sharing leads to less violence

Local communities often have private information on the insurgency. The

promise of aid can incentivise local communities to share this intelligence

with the government which will make counterinsurgency more effective and

eventually reduce violence.

Crost et al. (2016)

Berman et al. (2013)

Berman et al. (2011)

Child (2014)

Chou (2012)

Opportunity cost leads to less violence

Aid provides public goods (esp. more employment opportunities), which

increases the opportunity costs for the insurgency. Violence is reduced as a

result.

Crost et al. (2016)

Dasgupta et al. (2016)

Hoelscher, et al. (2012)

Buying off strongmen leads to less violence

Local strongmen siphon off rents from aid programs and suppress violence as

long as rents are deemed adequate.

No example in the sample;

however, the observations of

Berman et al. (2011, 2013),

Dasgupta et al. (2016) are

compatible with this

mechanism.

Addressed grievances leads to less violence

Aid successfully addresses economic and political grievances, which were

drivers of violence. By addressing these grievances, violence will be reduced.

Not in the sample

Violence-increasing Mechanisms

Sabotage leads to more violence

Aid leads to more cooperation and more intelligence sharing between the

local population and government; insurgents respond by deterring the local

population from cooperating by applying selective or indiscriminate violence,

and by sabotaging the aid programs.

Weintraub (2016)

Crost et al. (2014)

Sexton (2016)

Khanna&Zimmermann (2014)

Crost et al. (2014)

Wood and Molfino (2016)

Wood and Sullivan (2015)

Böhnke & Zürcher (2013)

Predation leads to more violence

Aid is a lootable resource. More resources can enable insurgents to continue

fighting, or it can fuel competition between armed groups.

Wood and Molfino (2016)

Wood and Sullivan (2015)

Narang (2014, 2015)

Nunn and Qian (2014)

Also, compatible with Sexton

(2016) and Böhnke & Zürcher

(2013)

Discussion!and!Conclusion!

The available evidence does not suggest that aid in conflict zones is an effective instrument to

dampen violence. Using a “one case-one-vote-count”, we find that of the 24 cases which the

sample covers, only seven had a violence-reducing effect. Three had a heterogeneous treatment

effect, six had no effect at all, and nine had a violence-increasing effect.

This picture does not change when we use a “one-intervention-one vote” count. Recall that some

of the 24 cases cover the same intervention. We can thus collapse these 24 cases into 13

observations: CERP in Afghanistan; CERP in Iraq; six different CDD programs, two different

CTT programs, one employment scheme; food aid; humanitarian aid. Out of these 13

interventions, only two unconditionally dampened violence; two had no effect, two decreased

violence, conditional on the security of the location, two had a heterogeneous effect, and five

increased violence. Again, the evidence of a violence-dampening effect is not strong. No effects,

heterogeneous effects and violence-increasing effects are far more frequent.

Importantly, looking only at those interventions which dampened violence, we see that this effect

appears to be conditional on other factors. Beath at al. (2012) provide evidence that a CDD

program in Afghanistan increased security, but only in regions which were relatively secure to

begin with. Berman et al. (2013) show that CERP in Iraq helped to dampen violence, but only in

interaction with increased troop strength. Without additional forces, no effect was found.

Likewise, Sexton (2016) shows that CERP in Afghanistan could dampen violence but only when

implemented in regions already controlled by the military. In contested regions, the same project

would increase violence. Adams (2015) finds that only small CERP projects in Afghanistan

dampened violence, while expansive ones increased violence. He does not have controls for how

secure a regions was, but it is possible that the size of the projects actually picks up the security

level of the region where the project was implemented. We know that a disproportionate share of

CERP funding in Afghanistan went to highly insecure regions, and that the most funded sector in

those regions was expensive road construction (Johnson et al. 2012). Since the more expensive

projects where disproportionately implemented in highly insecure regions, the association

between project size and increased violence may actually pick up the effect of a highly insecure

environment.

In sum, the evidence strongly suggests that aid in conflict zones will only have violence-

dampening effect when the aid is injected in regions which are already relatively stable. Aid

injected in insecure regions is likely to increase violence. This observation is reinforced when

we look at the impacts of various types of aid. Humanitarian aid, which the is most “front-line”

type of aid and is allocated disproportionally to regions which are most hit by violence and

insecurity, is consistently associated with in increase in violence. Likewise, CERP projects are

also “front-line” projects, and we have seen that CERP increased violence in insecure regions.

The only aid type in our sample that is mainly associated with a violence-dampening effect is a

large public employment scheme in India. Since we have evidence on only one such program,

the external validity of the evidence is limited. But it is nevertheless interesting to speculate about

the cause for the violence decreasing effect of this program. It is possible that the success of this

employment scheme is conditional on a pre-existing relatively stable security situation. The

implementation of such a large employment scheme requires the presence of capable state

administration – a condition which is rarely met in regions under control by the insurgents. Also,

recall that the violence dampening effect of the program is increased by strong state capacity. All

of this suggests that the positive effect of this employment scheme is conditional on a relatively

stable security situation and the presence of a responsive state administration – conditions which

are usually not present in “front-line” regions.

In sum, there is strong evidence that a violence-dampening effect of aid is conditional on a

relatively benign security environment. Why would this be the case? The studies offer two

different theoretical answers. Berman et al. (2013). argue that aid is more valuable to the

community when the aid project is protected from “extortion, capture or destruction (p.513).

Hence, when troops are present to protect the aid project, its value to the community is increased

to a level when the community begins to trade information for aid. This in turn makes COIN

more effective, and violence is eventually reduced. A second answer is offered by Sexton (2016),

Wood and Sullivan (2015) and Wood and Molfino (2016). These studies argue that rebel groups

resist the implementation of aid projects because aid could potentially undermine their position.

This is because aid has the potential to win hearts and minds of the local population for the

government and increase cooperation between the government and the local population and

thereby helps the government to re-establish or deepen its control over a territory. Rebels will

therefore punish the local population for cooperating with the government and with aid

organizations, as long as they have the military capacity to do so. Injecting aid in regions which

are controlled by rebels will therefore likely lead to more, not less violence. Sexton (2016) finds

support for this assumption in a quasi-experimental design.7

The finding that the impact of aid is in important ways modified by the local security

environment challenges the widespread belief of many aid practitioners that the impact depends

first and foremost on the aid type, and that some types of aid are better suited for conflict settings

than others. In particular, participatory community driven development has often been heralded

as especially well-suited for conflict and fragile contexts (World Bank 2013, World Development

Report 2011). Such an expectation may be misplaced. No aid type in the sample is consistently

associated with a violence-dampening effect. Rather, all reviewed aid types can also lead to

more violence, if they are injected in insecure environments. This is because the causal path that

7 More evidence for the modifying effect of the local security environment comes from recent

survey data from Afghanistan. When asked whether respondents could “think of an instance, in

your community or in a neighboring community, when groups such as the Taliban used violence

in order to obstruct a development project?” 6.4 % said they could think of such an instance. In

districts that were mostly under government control, the number dropped to 4%. In contested

districts, the number reached 10% and in a district that was fully under the control of armed

groups, the number reached 15%. The survey was conducted as a booster sample of “The Asia

Foundation / Survey of the Afghan People 2017,” on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of

Economic Cooperation and Development. See http://asiafoundation.org/where-we-

work/afghanistan/survey/data/.

links aid to violence runs through either predation or sabotage, and no type of aid is immune to

predation or sabotage.

With regard to predation, it is evident that some types of aid such as food, medication, fuel,

building materials and the like are easy to steal. Other types of aid may be more difficult to steal,

but they can always be “taxed”. There is much evidence that the Taliban tax aid organizations

and their local contractors in return for safety guarantees and permission to work. Furthermore,

the Taliban routinely extract “taxes” from villages that they control. In sum, a share of all aid

resources injected in a war economy will always flow to those who control the war economy,

which explains why no aid type is immune to predation.

Just like there is no type of aid which is immune to predation, there is also no type of aid which is

immune to sabotage. Every type of aid that is regarded by insurgents as a potentially effective

tool for improving relations between the local population and the government may be sabotaged.

Sabotage is a strategic response by insurgents. It is triggered by the promise of aid to increase

cooperation between the local population and the government. As we have seen, the studies in

our sample report that insurgents sabotaged all reviewed aid types, such as food aid (Naunn and

Qian 2014), humanitarian aid (Wood and Sullivan 2015), CCTs (Weintraub 2016), CDDs (Crost

et al. 2014) and CERP (Sexton 2016). This suggests that no aid type is immune to sabotage.

A systematic review is also a useful tool for identifying knowledge gaps. Four such gaps stand

out and should be addressed by future research. Firstly, the evidence base is surprisingly small.

19 studies may not be an unusual small sample for a systematic review, but given the billions of

aid dollars spent on stabilization and the recent push by development organizations for more

rigorous evaluations, one might have expected more studies. Especially surprising is that

development organizations have not yet made serious efforts at evaluating the impact of their

programs on stability. Only one study in our sample was initiated and conducted by a

development organization, whereas four studies were financed by the US military. More studies

would not only broaden the evidence base, but also address justified concerns about limited

external validity of many studies.

Secondly, the list of reviewed aid types is by no means exhaustive. The sample is not surprisingly

biased toward “front-line” aid, such as humanitarian aid, CDD and CERP. Future research should

investigate the effects of other aid sectors which are often prioritized in the early yeas of post-

conflict regions, such as interventions in health, energy and electrification, water and sanitation,

and transport networks. However, this review strongly suggests that the effects of aid are

moderated by the environment in which aid is implemented, hence we have so far little reason to

believe that other aid sectors would have a consistently “good” effect. But only more evidence

can tell.

Thirdly, we found that our understanding of causality is still limited. While the reviewed studies

propose a useful range of possible causal mechanisms, they do not usually provide strong tests

that actually prove the presence of the alleged mechanisms. At best, they show that the used data

is compatible with the theoreticized mechanism. Evidently, it is possible and desirable to deduce

for all causal mechanism a set of observable implications, which then would allow to conduct

better tests. In my discussion of the causal mechanisms I have suggested some observable

implications for each causal mechanism. For example, support for the information-centric model

could be found by asking COIN actors to what extent the delivery of aid has bought them

information on which they could successfully act. An observable implication of the opportunity

cost mechanisms should be a substantial increase in employment opportunities in a given

geographical space, which can be identified with surveys or even qualitative observations.

Support for the “buying-off strongmen” model could come from the observation that aid has been

taxed by local strong men, and whether violence returns once aid rents stop flowing. An

observable impaction from the sabotage model would be that aid triggers insurgent-initiated

violence against aid workers and their “collaborators”, but not necessarily violence between

government forces and insurgents These and other tests will be feasible once we have more fine-

grained data on violence, especially on whether violence was initiated by rebels or government,

for how long violence was sustained, and who the primary target was. There are many data

collection initiatives underway which will substantially improve the available data and will

enable such tests in the near future. These new more granular data should be accompanied by a

shift to multi-method approaches, where econometric approaches are combined with micro-level

qualitative approaches which are well suited to capture the local conflict dynamics.

Fourthly, the most important question that future research needs to tackle in a systematic way is

not so much whether aid can buy stability or not, but rather which environment is more or less

conducive to a violent-reducing effect of aid. As long as we lack a clear understanding of how

various environments shape aid effects, much aid will continue to be misspent or may even cause

harm. Only two studies in our sample make an attempt to measure the security environment at the

sub-national level. Berman et al. (2013) use a measure of troop strength based on news reports,

and Sexton (2016) uses the presence of a forward battalion as a proxy for control. While these

studies should be commended for trying to measure the security environment at the subnational

level, the reliability and validity of these measures may raise some concern. The sheer presence

of foreign troops may not necessarily proxy that control has been wrestled away from insurgents.

To what extent government or rebels are in control of a territory is presumably best assessed

based on local intelligence. The most pressing task for future research on the impact of aid in

conflict is to find a valid and reliable measurement for the local security environment and include

it as a control or modifier in the identification strategies. This will help to identify the conditions

under which aid may actually help.

Finally, the results of this review also have policy implications. As we have seen, aid in conflict

zones is more likely to increase violence than to dampen violence. A violence-dampening effect

is conditional on a relatively secure local environment, where violence-increasing strategic

responses to aid injections such as predation or sabotage are less likely. Allocating the bulk of the

aid to the most insecure regions, as it was practiced in Iraq and Afghanistan, is most likely a

strategic mistake which exacerbates insecurity. Aid in conflict zones should be allocated to

relatively secure, government-controlled districts. While aid is not an instrument for bringing

back insecure districts from violence, it may help to protect relatively stable district from slipping

into war. Doing so would require a policy change. It would also require that development actors

develop clear criteria for when a region is secure enough in order to allocate aid. Only a thorough

analysis of the local, district level political economy provides such information. Aid

organizations should invest in this type of local knowledge, and use it for their allocation

decisions.

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United in Violent Relations: Water Resources, Environmental Pollution, and Conflict in South-South Nigeria Since

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Humanitarian Nationalism During Autocratic Disaster Governance: The Politicization of the Earthquake Response in Türkiye

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Jan 2025
STUD COMP INT DEV

What happens when humanitarian crises are managed by autocratic governments in politicized contexts? This article gives a critical reflection on the 2023 earthquake emergency response in Türkiye. Our study is based on fieldwork interviews and participant observations during the earthquake response. The earthquake shook the country a few months before a contested presidential election. Combining explanations from regime survival theories and disaster policies, we show how elected autocracies strategically contain and co-opt international disaster response mechanisms to reinforce their authority and legitimacy. Yet, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can maintain access to such a nationalized response through their financial superiority. We conceptualize the outcome of this nationalized earthquake response as an autocratic aid allocation funnel: a discriminatory aid distribution mechanism favoring the government’s core voter base while marginalizing minorities who lack voting rights. This demonstrates how electoral autocracies use emergencies to strengthen their power. International organizations face a dilemma: whether to provide much-needed aid while potentially becoming complicit in a regime’s unequal and politically motivated disaster response. The case shows how autocratic governments manipulate crises for political gain and exacerbate the vulnerabilities of minorities.

Humanitarian Nationalism During Autocratic Disaster Governance: The Politicization Of The Earthquake Response In Türkiye

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STUD COMP INT DEV

What happens when autocratic governments manage humanitarian crises in politicized contexts? This article critically reflects on the 2023 earthquake emergency response in Türkiye. Our study is based on fieldwork interviews and participant observations during the earthquake response. The earthquake shook the country a few months before a contested presidential election. Combining explanations from regime survival theories and disaster policies, we show how elected autocracies strategically contain and co-opt international disaster response mechanisms to reinforce their authority and legitimacy. Yet, international NGOs can maintain access to such a nationalized response through their financial superiority. We conceptualize the outcome of this nationalized earthquake response as an autocratic aid allocation funnel: a discriminatory aid distribution mechanism favoring the government's core voter base while marginalizing minorities who lack voting rights. This demonstrates how electoral autocracies exploit emergencies to consolidate power, using crises as opportunities to enhance their authority while exacerbating inequalities. International organizations face a dilemma: whether to provide much-needed aid while potentially becoming complicit in a regime's unequal and politically motivated disaster response. The case highlights how autocratic governments manipulate crises for political gain, further marginalizing vulnerable minority populations.

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Matthew K Ribar

Anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests a link between humanitarian food aid and violent conflict, but recent empirical research produced mixed results. This research note reconciles disparate findings by showing that previous measures of humanitarian food aid (1) fail to account for differences in within-country transportation costs and (2) conflate humanitarian and nonhumanitarian food aid. I introduce a new dataset of USAID humanitarian food assistance across 103 countries between 1991 and 2019 which resolves these problems. I exclude shipping costs by using tonnage of food commodities and isolate the humanitarian portions of USAID's food assistance. I find a series of tightly estimated null relationships between humanitarian food aid and the incidence of conflict, conflict termination, and the duration of peace. These results do not change when I use these new data to measure the ease of appropriating humanitarian aid. By introducing new program-level data, this research note provides evidence on a disputed linkage and advances the literature on the unintended consequences of humanitarian assistance.

China’s Foreign Aid to Boost Digital Economy? Evidence from Emerging Markets

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Does Peacekeeping Mitigate the Impact of Aid on Conflict? Peacekeeping, Humanitarian Aid and Violence Against Civilians

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Jan 2025
J CONFLICT RESOLUT

Peacekeeping has been found to be effective in containing conflict and civilian victimization, while the findings for the effect of aid on violence are indeterminate. So far the effects of peacekeeping and aid on violence have mainly been studied separately, this article investigates, at the subnational level, the effect of humanitarian aid on one-sided violence conditional on the deployment of peacekeeping forces. Although humanitarian aid can occasionally exacerbate violence, it is argued that peacekeepers reverse this unintended consequence of the provision of aid. We argue that they do so by means of sharing information and the provision of security bubbles. Empirically, we look at the coincidence of subnational location of humanitarian agencies and peacekeeping troops and find support for the idea that the effect of aid on violence against civilians is conditional on the presence of peacekeepers.

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Dec 2024
DEV POLICY REV

Motivation What explains the fact that the humanitarian response in some crises is well funded, while other humanitarian emergencies are largely neglected? The literature identifies three groups of factors that influence aid allocations: needs in recipient countries, donor countries' interests, and agenda setting driven by media coverage; although there is debate over how relatively important these are. Purpose This study tests existing theory by adding three novel aspects. Approach and Methods First, rather than just measuring the amount of money available, we consider the share of funding that is provided against the stated requirements. Second, we measure humanitarian needs in a more detailed way than has typically been the case. Third, we use datasets that have been underutilized in the academic literature. Findings By using these three novel approaches, we confirm that all three factors—humanitarian needs, strategic interests, agenda setting—play a role. However, the most consistent factor is media coverage. We are also able to distinguish between different dimensions of need: the number of hosted refugees makes a difference, but the number of displaced people does not. We find that countries with the worst human rights situations attract lower funding levels and more democratic countries attract more funding. Policy Implications Donors should consider how the factors identified in this study influence their funding decisions in the aggregate. They should be aware of how media coverage may influence their allocations of humanitarian funding. Journalists should be aware of potential biases in their reporting on humanitarian emergencies. Aid agencies should consider counteracting the factors that are associated with underfunded emergencies.

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Conventional wisdom tells us that other-regarding sentiments are desirable as they yield positive social outcomes. However, the consequences of other-regarding behaviors are broadly ambiguous and may have unintended consequences, especially when they must pass through institutional filters. In this paper, we use the Samaritan’s Dilemma model to understand the perverse unintended consequences of institutionalized commitments to resource transfers expressed through international transfer organizations (ITOs), the collection of government and non-government international organizations involved in transferring foreign assistance. To do so, we maintain the core logic of the classic Samaritan’s Dilemma model but alter its assumptions to account for two features of international transfers. First, transfers are channeled through an ITO bureaucracy, which we call a “Samaritan Bureaucracy.” Second, the recipient effects that extend beyond a single person (the target recipient) to include various heterogeneous individuals. We illustrate these effects by analyzing two different harmful recipient effects—reinforcing a corrupt status quo and exacerbating social conflict.

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Jul 2023

Does foreign aid reduce violence during ongoing wars? In the policy community, there has been growing optimism about the prospect for aid to improve conflict-affected and fragile areas. We investigate whether foreign aid decreases, or even increases, violence during ongoing armed conflict. We advance a theoretical argument that concentrated foreign assistance allocated during ongoing armed conflicts increases military fatalities but decreases civilian fatalities. Using geographically coded data on all sub-Saharan African countries in conflict between 1989 and 2008, within a matching frontier design and supplemented by instrumental variable analysis, we find strong substantive and statistical support for our expectations about military conflict intensity though less support for the expectations about civilian fatalities. The paper provides novel insights about the effects of concentrated aid on military versus civilian conflict intensity, characterizes the effects at a sub-national level, and expands the spatial-temporal period of the analysis. We also probe the plausibility of the causal mechanism using interview evidence drawn from ex-commanders of the Lord’s Resistance Army and generals of the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces in northern Uganda. The paper offers both academic and policy insights, including that foreign aid allocated during ongoing wars may be more problematic than it is helpful.

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Hatti Sellers

“Monetary Ammunition” in a Counterinsurgency

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Parameters

Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa

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Jan 2000
Int J Afr Hist Stud

Nonviolent Resistance and Peaceful Turnover of Power

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Aug 2017
Peace Econ Peace Sci Publ Pol

F. Bethke

Previous research has shown that nonviolent resistance (NVR) campaigns are beneficial for democratization. However, research to date has not considered whether nonviolent revolutions succeed long term in bringing about democratic consolidation. In this paper, I address this gap by analyzing the effect of NVR on democratic consolidation, using data on Huntington’s consolidation criteria of two peaceful turnovers of power. The results suggest that initiating a democratic transition through NVR is not necessarily beneficial for achieving the first peaceful turnover of power. However, given that a democratic regime achieved a successful first turnover of power, NVR substantially increases the probability of completing democratic consolidation through a second peaceful turnover of power.

Anti-Poverty Programs Can Reduce Violence: India's Rural Employment Guarantee and Maoist Conflict

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Jan 2014

Theory and extensive evidence connect poverty and underdevelopment to civil conflict, yet evidence on the impact of development programs on violence is surprisingly mixed. To break this impasse, we exploit a within-country policy experiment to examine the conditions under which anti-poverty programs reduce violence. The roll-out of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme caused a large long-run reduction in Maoist conflict violence, as measured with an original data set based on local language press sources. These pacifying effects were not uniform, however, but overwhelmingly concentrated in districts with sufficient pre-existing local state capacity to implement the program effectively. The results demonstrate the potential for anti-poverty programs to mitigate violent civil conflict by improving livelihoods, but also highlight the crucial role of state capacity in shaping these effects.

Aid as a Tool against Insurgency: Evidence from Contested and Controlled Territory in Afghanistan

Article

Nov 2016

RENARD SEXTON

Findings in political science, economics, and security studies suggest that during civil war aid can be used to help establish control of contested areas and reduce insurgent violence by winning the “hearts and minds” of the population. These accounts typically ignore the strategic implications of aid distribution by progovernment forces, namely that rebel groups should resist the implementation of aid projects that would undermine their position. Using a new dataset of fine-grained and geolocated violence incidents in Afghanistan and random variation in the administration of some U.S. counterinsurgency aid, I show that insurgents strategically respond to counterinsurgency aid in contested districts by resisting through violent means. The results indicate that civilian aid only reduces insurgent violence when distributed in districts already controlled by progovernment forces; when allocated to contested districts civilian aid in fact causes a significant increase in insurgent violence. The results also indicate that the effect of counterinsurgency aid on violence varies by project type, and can be overwhelmed by macrolevel strategic changes in the conflict.

The paradox of power

Article

Jan 1991

J. Hirshleifer

Aiding Victims, Abetting Violence: The Influence of Humanitarian Aid on Violence Patterns During Civil Conflict

Article

Aug 2016

Annual allocations of bilateral and multilateral humanitarian assistance to conflict-affected states total billions of dollars each year. Humanitarian assistance plays a vital role in sustaining vulnerable populations. However, inflows of such aid may also exacerbate violence by both threatening insurgents and creating incentives for these groups to extend or deepen control over the areas in which aid is concentrated. Insurgent efforts to ameliorate threats and co-opt resources ultimately raise the risk of conflict between insurgent and counterinsurgent forces. We use recently constructed geo-located data on both aid commitments and conflict events in a sample of twenty sub-Saharan African countries during the post–Cold War era to evaluate the impact of aid on violence. Even after accounting for the non-random assignment of aid within conflict zones, we find that humanitarian aid increases the frequency of subsequent violent engagements between rebel and government forces in the areas in which aid is concentrated. Importantly, however, we find no evidence that other forms of foreign development aid exacerbate or prolong violence in the areas in which they are allocated.

Do All Good Things Go Together? Development Assistance and Insurgent Violence in Civil War

Article

Aug 2016

Michael Weintraub

International organizations and national governments deliver billions of dollars in development assistance each year to citizens in ongoing insurgencies. Existing work shows that development assistance shapes insurgent violence, yet underspecified mechanisms and a failure to test all competing explanations have hampered knowledge cumulation. This article proposes a new theory of insurgent territorial loss to argue that development assistance should increase overall violence by insurgents, and indiscriminate violence in particular. Anti-poverty subsidies incentivize information sharing with the government, increasing incumbent territorial control and forcing insurgents to rely on increased and more indiscriminate violence to recapture territory. A difference-in-differences identification strategy combined with matching tests all existing mechanisms against one another in the context of a conditional cash transfer program in Colombia. The empirics provide support for the territorial loss mechanism, while competing explanations do not find support. Development assistance frequently produces welfare gains yet may also lead to increased insurgent violence.

The economic functions of violence in civil wars

Book

Jan 2005

David Keen

The persistence and brutality of contemporary civil wars have left many analysts puzzled. Traditional interpretations describe civil wars as simple confrontations between two sides, as explosions of mindless violence, or as disrupting apparently benevolent development processes within countries. These approaches do not fully take into account the rational economic calculations that drive many civil conflicts in the late twentieth century. This paper argues that, to understand violence in civil wars, we need to understand the economic dimensions underpinning it. Economic activities arising from war fall into seven categories: pillage; extorting protection money; controlling or monopolising trade; exploiting labour; gaining access to land, water and mineral resources; stealing aid supplies; and advantages for the military. If these short-term benefits suggest that there is more to civil wars than simply winning, so too does the prevalence and persistence of behaviour that is, in military terms, counter-productive. This can take two forms: cooperating with the ‘enemy’; and mounting attacks that increase, rather than reduce, political and military opposition. This paper describes two forms of economic violence: ‘top-down’, which is incited by political leaders and entrepreneurs; and ‘bottom-up’, where violence is actively embraced by ‘ordinary’ people, either civilians or low-ranking soldiers. Seven conditions can encourage top-down economic violence: a weak state; rebel movements that lack strong external finance or support; an undemocratic or ‘exclusive’ regime under threat; economic crisis; ethnic divisions that cut across class lines; the existence of valuable commodities; and prolonged conflict. Three conditions are particularly conducive to bottom-up violence: deep social and economic exclusion; the absence of a strong revolutionary organisation; and impunity for violent acts. To achieve more lasting solutions to civil conflicts, it needs to be acknowledged that violence can present economic opportunities. This paper concludes that outside intervention must take into account the political and economic interests of the violent. Intervention must provide realistic economic alternatives to violence, and must handle democratic transitions and the introduction of free markets with sensitivity. This is likely to mean strengthening and improving the institutions of the state, such as schools, social-security systems and establishing a more accountable police force and Army.

Honing the proper edge: CERP and the two-sided potential of military-led development in Afghanistan

Article

Oct 2015

Greg Adams

Using a newer and expanded dataset as well as a survey of practitioner perceptions, this article adds to a recent body of literature on reconstruction and violence in Afghanistan. Data are taken from military-led development projects by way of the United States military’s Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) and, to measure violence, from U.S. military Significant Activity reports. The results suggest that, at great cost, large-budget CERP efforts (those in excess of USD50,000 per project) are associated with an increase in violence and thus counter-productive to military stability goals. In contrast, small projects (below USD50,000), which comprise a smaller proportion of total CERP allocations, are associated in statistically significant ways with reductions in violence. To explore why CERP projects may have these effects, the article also examines administrative modalities for CERP spending. The results suggest that timely, flexible expenditure of CERP funds are most effective at reducing violence. [JEL codes: D74, O53]

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

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