Affiliate Research

While many scholars, policymakers, and development practitioners view decentralization as a way to increase participation, strengthen political representation, and improve social welfare, little is known about the experiences of communities in the context...

This article examines the relationship between reconciliation and international human rights law by analysing the case law and reports of international courts and human rights treaty bodies in light of multidisciplinary theory on reconciliation. It...

Powered by Marxist ideology, Revolutionary Socialist (RS) armed groups launched formidable challenges against incumbent regimes during the historical era of the Cold War. As both transformational and transnational actors, they were optimally positioned to...

In the midst of the fourth UN Peacebuilding Architecture Review, Giuditta Fontana, Argyro Kartsonaki, Natascha S. Neudorfer, and Stefan Wolff look at the UN’s vital role in preventing civil war recurrence

Rising political animosity threatens democracy in the United States and other nations. Previous research indicates that intergroup contact under favourable conditions can reduce animosity. Other research indicates that mutually beneficial cooperation is...

When are far right parties punished for their extreme positions? We argue that the punishments of deviant position-taking are conditional on the degree to which a far right party is normalized or stigmatized in the party system. When the far right is...

Drawing on recent large-scale research across post-war countries, this policy memo highlights how contextual intergroup contact and pre-war ethnic diversity strongly influence reconciliation outcomes. It thus recommends contextualized and multi level...

How can we build trust, especially in polarized societies? We propose that exposure to broad financial markets—where individuals place their assets in the hands of large groups of unfamiliar agents who nonetheless have the incentive and ability to promote...

This report identifies external geopolitical actors, the current state of their involvement, and their respective strategies at different levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It analyses the mechanisms and channels through which these actors exert influence...

Many studies document low rates of financial literacy and suboptimal levels of participation in financial markets. These issues are particularly acute among women. Does this reflect a self-reinforcing trap? If so, can a nudge to participate in financial...

Illiberal politics describes a set of policies that parties in government implement to skew the electoral playing field to their advantage, indefinitely. It is a process-oriented concept that is used to investigate the mechanisms behind trends of...

Over the past decade, India has been central to debates on democracy. Many viewed the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) underperformance in the 2024 election as a sign of democratic resilience. This essay argues instead that it signaled further backsliding...

How do middle powers respond to complex international challenges while balancing external commitments and domestic interests? This article uses Turkey, specifically it policy towards the invasion of Ukraine, as a case study to explore this question...

A growing body of research shows that although populists draw on mass support to weaken executive constraints, they rarely transition to personalist autocracy. This raises the question of how and why only a few populist leaders have been able to leverage...

In the 2019 local and 2023 general elections, Turkey’s opposition parties joined forces in pursuit of a common objective: to oust autocratic incumbents and democratize the political system. While they achieved noteworthy successes in 2019, replicating...

How can remembrance initiatives engage the public in a collective exploration of their past when the dominant historical narratives within that public are deeply contested? How does engaging with commemorative efforts affect those living in post-conflict...

Consistent evidence documents powerful effects of social inequality on health, well-being and academic achievement. Yet research on whether social inequality may also be linked to brain structure and function has, until recently, been rare. Here we...

This report explores the complex role of amnesties in addressing political crimes. It analyses how this category of offences is applied to diverse activities ranging from participating in armed insurgencies to engaging in non-violent dissent in non...

Partisans hold inaccurate perceptions of the other side. What drives these inaccuracies? We address this question with a focus on partisan animosity meta-perceptions (i.e. how much a partisan believes opposing partisans hate them). We argue that...

It has been over 25 years since the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended, yet the country is still considered to be in crisis and political conflict. The political system established through the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995 has brought peace but has...

Scientific evidence regularly guides policy decisions, with behavioural science increasingly part of this process. In April 2020, an influential paper proposed 19 policy recommendations (‘claims’) detailing how evidence from behavioural science could...

Clientelism—the exchange of goods and services for political support—is widely understood as a phenomenon targeted at and demanded by poorer constituents. In this short article, we question that assumption by exploring class differences in preferences for...

People often rely on social learning—learning by observing others’ actions and outcomes—to form preferences in advance of their own direct experiences. Although typically adaptive, we investigated whether social learning may also contribute to the...

How does variation in the severity of punishment affect public opinion toward the reintegration of former enemy “collaborators” after war? We study this question in the context of Iraq where the Islamic State, an armed rebel group, captured and governed a...

How does intergroup inequality, specifically minority experiences of persecution, affect contributions to local public goods? Based on an original survey experiment and qualitative research in slums in Delhi, we examine how Hindus and Muslims respond to...

The paper investigates the effect of a (semi-) deposit run during a debt crisis on crime rates. The study focuses on Greece’s protracted debt crisis (2009–2018) and analyzes the response of crime to deposit outflows. It shows that deposit outflows...

How does the gender composition of deliberative committees affect citizens’ evaluations of their decision-making processes? Do citizens perceive decisions made by gender-balanced, legislative bodies as more legitimate than those made by all-male bodies...

How and when can religious times become focal points for communal violence? In the context of Hindu-Muslim riots in India, I argue that incompatible ritual holidays where one religion’s rituals are at odds with another (e.g., sacrificing cows or engaging...

In recent years, an increasing number of nations have developed and institutionalized immigration programs aimed at attracting high-net-worth individuals, promising expedited residency and, in many cases, a streamlined path to citizenship. These...

Armed groups seeking to govern territory require the cooperation of many civilians, who are widely perceived as enemy collaborators after conflict ends. The empirical literature on attitudes toward transitional justice focuses heavily on fighters...

States worldwide use facial recognition technology (FRT) to assist in policing citizens, monitoring public goods, and even running elections. This article asks how FRT in polling stations affects voter turnout. Existing research on technology in elections...

For refugees who have fled civil conflict, do experiences of victimization by one armed group push them to support the opposing armed groups? Or, does victimization cause refugees to revoke their support for all armed groups, whatever side they are on...

The emergence of transitional justice has created considerable contestation over the use of amnesties to address violent crimes in armed conflict or political unrest. For some, amnesties are a mechanism that can contribute to achieving transitional...

Humans can think about possible states of the world without believing in them, an important capacity for high-level cognition. Here, we use fMRI and a novel “shell game” task to test two competing theories about the nature of belief and its neural basis...

The most effective charities are hundreds of times more impactful than typical charities. However, most donors favor charities with personal/emotional appeal over effectiveness. We gave donors the option to split their donations between their personal...

We measure how a network of heroes can legitimize and diffuse extreme political behaviors. We exploit newly declassified intelligence files, novel voting data, and regimental histories to show that home municipalities of French line regiments arbitrarily...

Scholars increasingly recognize the plurality of leaders who exercise de facto authority in governing communities. But what limits different leaders’ power to organize distinct types of collective action beyond the law? We contend that leaders’ influence...

When it comes to successful refugee reception, the local level matters. Research overwhelmingly examines host communities’ attitudes, but endorsement from local politicians is equally important to resolving conflicts and facilitating harmonious...

Morocco, once primarily known as a country of emigration and transit to Europe, has become a destination country for migrants, the majority of whom are from sub-Saharan Africa. Using an original nationally representative survey of 2,700 respondents...