Conflict, Peace and Development Cluster

Members of this research cluster focus on the interrelationships between conflict, peace and (dis)order, and processes of development. Our research focuses not only on large-scale armed conflict, but also on the interactions between other forms of violence and development.

We have a strong commitment to empirical research in regions affected by conflict and violence, and to the development of new ways of understanding and responding to these phenomena. Research themes include:

• States, public authority and armed conflict
• War to peace transitions
• War economies / illicit economies
• Borders, boundaries and frontier violence
• Humanitarian action and conflict

Our research reflects the department’s disciplinary diversity, drawing on political economy, postcolonialism, geography, politics, sociology, anthropology and economics. We have expertise in Africa, Asia, Middle East, Europe and Latin America. Our research aims for policy relevance and impact and we have worked with a range of organisations and practitioners from the World Bank and UNDP, to governments, community groups and grassroots collectives.

We are committed to creating more equitable research partnerships in development research, recognising how colonial relationships can be reproduced through project design, funding modalities, and institutional structures of higher education.

The cluster’s research informs teaching across the department’s interdisciplinary programmes and courses, including Political Economy of Violence, Conflict and Development, Humanitarianism, Aid and Conflict, War to Peace Transitions, Security and Borders and Development.

• Cramer, Christopher (2021), "War economies and war economics" in Di Cosmo, N., D. Fassin, and C. Pinaud (eds), Rebel Economies, Lanham, MA: Lexington Books
• Di John, J & S O’Meally (2017) "Social service delivery in violent contexts: Results against the odds, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nepal" World Bank, Washington DC
• Goodhand, J (2021) "Beyond the narco-frontier; rethinking an imaginary of the margins" International Journal of Drug Policy volume 89
• Hammond, Laura (2021) "Toward Development Solutions to Internal Displacement: A Political Economy Approach" New York: United Nations Development Programme
• Marriage, Z (2019) "Cultural Resistance and Security from Below: Power and Escape through Capoeira" Routledge
• Meehan, P & Seng Lawn Dan (2022) "Brokered Rule: Militias, Drugs, and Borderland Governance in the Myanmar-China Borderlands" Journal of Contemporary Asia
• Ikpe, E & S Njeri (2021) "Landmine Clearance and Peacebuilding: Evidence from Somaliland" Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 17(4) pages 1–18

Members of the research cluster are actively involved in research knowledge exchange activities through a range of modalities, targeting different audiences. Examples include:

• Life on the Move – The Migration Leadership Team produced this award-winning film
• Entangled lives: Conflict and Illicit Economies in Afghanistan – The Drugs and (dis)order research project developed an animation about an Afghan drug trader on the border with Iran
• Afghanistan: What the conflict means for the global heroin trade – Jonathan Goodhand writes in The Conversation about the implications of the fall of the Afghan government for the drugs trade and local livelihoods.
• Peasc work: Labour markets, work and violence – Christopher Cramer writes about the relationship between violence and labour markets for the UNDP Human Development Report
• Drugs, Peace and Development: Rethinking Policy – FutureLearn course developed by Drugs and (dis)order project
• Cramer, C., Goodhand, J. and Morris, R. (2016) "Evidence Synthesis: What interventions have been effective in preventing or mitigating armed violence in developing and middle-income countries?" London: Department for International Development.

• Militias and counter-insurgency: a study of the Afghan Local Police programme (Aziz Hakimi, 2015)
• Young people’s experiences of, and means of coping with, violence in North and South Kivu, DRC (Claudia Seymour, 2013)
• Building Citizens: Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) Process in Colombia, 2002–2010 (Francy Carranza-Franco, 2016)
• Public Services and Social Cohesion at Risk? The Political Economy of Democratic Decentralisation in Post-War Sierra Leone, 2004–2014 (Idrissa Mamoud Tarawallie, 2017)
• The political economy of taxation and statebuilding in Afghanistan (Isar Sarajudin, 2022)
• Women’s working lives and reconstruction in post war northern Sri Lanka (Jayanthi Lingham, 2018)
• Violence and the (trans)formation of the state in the Yemen Arab Republic 1962-1970 (Joshua Simon Rogers, 2014)
• RThe state, society, and international interventions in Timor-Leste: creating conditions for violence? (ebecca Ellen Engel, 2015)
• War, illicit drugs and statebuilding in Myanmar's northeast borderlands (Patrick Meehan, 2014)