The purpose of this study is to understand the causes of the Sierra Leonean conflict and to analyse the reconstruction programmes that followed it. Post-war reconstruction programmes must not be limited to the re-joining of families or reintegration of communities. It must also go a long way in providing an improved situation for all those affected by the war. Notably, where post-war reconstruction programmes fail to focus on the original causes of the conflict, it may result in reinforcement of the original social structures and prejudices and in continued marginalisation of certain groups. Using post-conflict Sierra Leone as a case study, the study attempts to examine the notion that ¿post-war reconstruction programmes tend to reinforce earlier social structures and prejudices rather than create opportunities for the previously marginalised¿. The work focuses on the role of the Department for International Development (DfID)-funded Community Reintegration Programme (CRP). Considering the Sierra Leone post-war scenarios, the causes and political resolution of the conflict and the situation in 2001 when the conflict officially came to an end, the thesis reviews the philosophy, planning, policies, practices and activities of donor agencies in general and CRP in particular before assessing impact on the process of rebuilding communities in Sierra Leone.

This study aims to analyze how the problem of corruption manifests itself in thoroughlycorrupt contexts. Through a theoretical framework inspired by rational choice two theorieswill be examined against each other, collective action and principal agent theory. The studyaims to investigate whether part of the explanation is a misunderstanding of how corruptionmanifests itself in deeply corrupt nations. It does this by comparing two nations that bothshare such characteristics, Tanzania and Zambia with a theory-testing approach. The resultshows that while both theories have some merit, the collective action theory might be morefitting.

Corruption has been attracting a great deal of attention recently and various organizations together with free and active media have made great efforts to bring this issue to the forefront of the governance debate. This research uses experimental methods to investigate the effect of supranational governing structures on corruption. A second objective of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of the model for the United Nations missions given that transparency and accountability in the presence of these kinds of supranational governing structures are generally weak. Results of this research show that the presence of supranational governing structures leads to an increased level of corruption. These findings can be generalized for other situations in the public sector or private sector that involve a type of supranational governing structure. For the case of the UN missions, increased transparency and accountability can help reduce the level of corruption under these governing structures.

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Citizens trust in the police is important because it allows the police to maintain law and order, which is of great importance for the function of any society. Previous studies have found a correlation between quality of government and citizens level of trust in police. The aim of this study is to explore the importance of quality of government as an explanatory factor for trust in police and to compare it to other explanatory factors that have been shown to be of importance such as social trust, economic inequality and GDP per capita. It also compares individual factors in countries with low- as well as high levels of quality of government. This cross-country study uses publicly available data from both ESS round 9 and data from the Quality of government institute. The main findings show that social trust has a higher explanatory value than quality of government and the correlations between individual factors differ slightly in countries with high- and low quality of government.

Yes / Approximately 97% of the country is experiencing drought conditions. Due to gross water mismanagement and its damaging impact on the country, Iran faces the worst situation in water resources of any industrialized nation. Tens of thousands of villages have been deserted and most of the major urban centers have passed their limits to absorb new rural migrants. Some officials predict that in less than 25 years, 50 million Iranians would be displaced from their current homes because of the pressing ecological conditions. This is happening at the time that the gap between the grassroots and the state has widened and there is increasing dissatisfaction with governance plagued by corruption, nepotism, economic mismanagement, unaccountability and a foreign policy which has produced various regional and trans-regional adversaries. This paper evaluates the pressing ecological challenges in Iran and by conceptualizing political resilience it critically evaluates whether the Islamic Republic is prepared to face the devastating ecological crisis and its socio-economic consequences.

Yes / This paper develops the notion of ‘Talibanization’ – a concept which stems from the resilience and the determination of the Taliban to remain a dominant player in Afghanistan even after the downfall of their state in 2001. The factors that helped the Taliban to maintain their influence after the disintegration of their state constitute a pattern which could be applied to other conflict-driven areas such as Syria. By critically examining the socio-political conditions in the Syrian district of Jarablus, this paper demonstrates the ways in which the inept post-IS administration is inadvertently helping IS to gain what we call ‘retrospective legitimacy’ a drive which could sustain its influence for many years following its downfall.