Does development assistance reduce violence? Evidence from Afghanistan

Tiffany Chou ()
Additional contact information
Tiffany Chou: U.S. Department of the Treasury

Economics of Peace and Security Journal, 2012, vol. 7, issue 2, 5-13

Abstract: Current military doctrine emphasizes the importance of development spending in reducing insurgent violence. Using data from three distinct development programs, the Afghan National Solidarity Program, USAID’s Local Governance and Community Development Program, and the U.S. military's Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP), combined with military records of insurgent-initiated events, this article explores whether development aid in Afghanistan is violence-reducing. I find that overall spending has no clear effect on rebel attacks. Moreover, the type of development program most effective at reducing violence in Iraq—small CERP projects—does not appear to do so in Afghanistan. Possible reasons include troop strength, conditionality of aid, effectiveness of aid in producing benign outcomes, and measurement issues.

Keywords: Development assistance; violence; Afghanistan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 H56 O2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.epsjournal.org.uk/index.php/EPSJ/article/view/138 (application/pdf)
Open access 24 months after original publication.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:epc:journl:v:7:y:2012:i:2:p:5-13

Access Statistics for this article

Economics of Peace and Security Journal is currently edited by Michael Brown and J Paul Dunne

More articles in Economics of Peace and Security Journal from EPS Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael Brown, Managing Editor, EPSJ ().