Explaining Post-Conflict Reconstruction

Over the past forty years, donors have poured close to a trillion dollars into rebuilding countries emerging from war and into preventing a return to civil conflict. Still, many of these nations have not recovered, and renewed fighting has claimed 1.9 million lives. This book asks where that money went and why some post-war leaders turn aid into lasting recovery while others do not.

Desha Girod sets out a global argument, the first of its kind, that a post-conflict leader is more likely to direct aid toward reconstruction when the leader badly needs income and therefore relies on aid that is tied to rebuilding goals. Such leaders are most under financial pressure when they have no access to revenue from natural resource rents or to aid from donors with strategic interests in the country. Drawing on data about civil wars that ended between 1970 and 2009, along with case evidence from nations that rebuilt and nations that did not, Girod tests the argument from several angles and finds support for it.

The book's conclusions bear on both scholarly theory and policy, since they explain why only certain leaders possess the political will to meet donor objectives after war. They also illuminate state-building and the political economy of countries emerging from conflict. Its most striking point is that donors are most likely to see their reconstruction goals met in the places where they have the least strategic stake.