Latest Resources
Middle East and North Africa Report
Arab States, Conflict, Electoral Systems, Human Rights, Justice, Report, Academic/Think TankThe Syrian regime is losing ground to armed rebels, while the exiled opposition is in chaos Information coming from Syria points to the accelerating erosion of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. While the possible repercussions of the massacre perpetrated in Houla on May 25th remain unclear, the regime hasmore and more reason to be nervous. The “poison operation” conducted against top security figures on...
Users’ Guide on Measuring Fragility
Conflict, GAP, Local Governance and Decentralization, Users' Guide, Academic/Think Tank, UNDP ProducedState fragility has become a buzzword in international development policy, leading to a dramatic explosion in the production of indices to rank countries according to levels of fragility. Despite this proliferation, no systematic analysis of such indices has yet been produced. The Users’ Guide on Measuring Fragility aims to meet this need by providing a rigorous, comprehensible and...
Human Security Gateway - Do Governance Indicators Predict Anything? The Case of "Fragile States" and Civil War
Article / Working Paper, Conflict, Academic/Think TankThere is almost no research on the question of whether these expert-based governance indicators actually forecast a country’s performance in the next five or ten years. If aid allocation and style decisions are going to be conditioned to a significant degree on these indicators, we would like to know if perceptions-based measures of somewhat unclear concepts actually are picking up anything...
A methodology for democratic conflict prevention and early warning in Latin America
Article / Working Paper, Conflict, Democracy, Latin America and the Carribean, Academic/Think TankThis paper presents a seven-step methodology designed to analyse violent conflict, assess democratic governance and understand the relationships between the two. It has been developed principally as a tool of analysis to study the nature and quality of democracy in relation to current and future conflicts in a specific world region: Latin America. The methodology identifies...
Gauging the Potential for Social Unrest
Article / Working Paper, Conflict, Academic/Think TankIt stands to reason that social unrest does not erupt out of the blue. Although there are a great many reasons why social dismay might descend into social disorder, only few yardsticks or indices can plausibly be used to gauge the potential for social unrest (PSU). If policy makers want to undertake public action to prevent social dismay escalating into social disruption, they obviously need to...
Strengthening African Governance: index of african governance results and rankings
Africa, Conflict, Electoral Systems, Governance and Gender, Human Rights, Justice, Report, Academic/Think TankThe Index of African Governance is compiled and updated annually by a team of researchers at Harvard University and across Africa, under the leadership of Robert I. Rotberg and Rachel M. Gisselquist. The 2007 and 2008 editions of the Index were published as the Ibrahim Index of African Governance. In the first edition, published in 2007, Rotberg and Gisselquist set out the Index’...
The Politics of Poverty: Elites, Citizens and States
Civil Society, Conflict, Governance and Gender, Local Governance and Decentralization, Public Administration, Academic/Think Tank, Inter-Governmental Organization, Civil Society, DonorA new DFID synthesis report,The Politics of Poverty: Elites, Citizen and States, shows how research from four major DFID-funded research programmes closing this year is changing academic and policy thinking on governance. Governance is sometimes seen as an intangible concept. But, at root it is a simple one. Governance describes the way countries and societies manage their affairs...
Reducing Risks of Reporting Corruption: Lessons from an Online Reporting System in Kenya
Africa, Civil Society, Conflict, Corruption, E-Governance, Human Rights, Media, Public Administration, Report, Academic/Think TankThis Practice Insight (2010:4) from the U4 Anti Corruption Resource Centre notes that Kenya’s Anti-Corruption Commission has adapted an online tool to improve the quality and quantity of reports it receives about corruption, providing anonymous communication with the informants. While clearly an important channel for leads on grand corruption cases especially, the implementation...
Stability Assessment Framework
Conflict, Academic/Think TankThe Stability Assessment Framework (SAF) offers an analytical tool for stability analysis and strategic planning that helps develop the instituional capacities needed for an integrated policy response in a particular country. Policymakers, decision-makers, and practitioners working in various organizations can benefit from introducing the SAF in their own organisation's project cycle. The...