Series:

CSIS Reports

20 total works

Cover of South Asia Regional Dynamics and Strategic Concerns
Once the United States withdraws most or all of its forces from Afghanistan, what issues are likely to continue to be of concern to U.S. policymakers in South Asia? What regional dynamics are likely to affect their ability to achieve policy priorities there? While the United States and its coalition partners have focused primarily on Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past 12 years, the strategic dynamics most likely to be relevant over the next 12 years will probably be clustered around relationships linking Pakistan, India, and China. The authors of this report propose a framework for U.S. policy in South Asia centered around that cluster rather than the more common cluster of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The report includes an analysis of U.S. policy priorities, contingencies, and regional dynamics in South Asia.

Cover of Rethinking Absorptive Capacity
When recipients cannot absorb the aid and attention they are offered, the common response is "capacity building"-as if the source of the problem is the recipient's implementation capacity. In this report, Robert D. Lamb and Kathryn Mixon present the results of their research on the sources of absorptive capacity. They find that this sort of "blaming the victim" mentality, while common, is not always justified. While it is true that many aid recipients do not have adequate capacity for implementation, it is equally true that many aid programs are designed and implemented without an adequate appreciation of local desires, resources, capabilities, and challenges. Absorptive capacity, in other words, is a byproduct of the donor-recipient relationship. The authors present a new framework for measuring absorptive capacity. This framework is intended to supplement existing planning, monitoring, and evaluation processes, offering a new way to test whether an existing approach is compatible with local conditions and a method for improving the fit.

Cover of U.S. Policy Responses to Potential Transitions
Every three weeks, a major political crisis begins somewhere in the world. The United States intervenes in less than a fifth of them. But that is still a new U.S. intervention about every two months. And almost all of them are civilian interventions; less than a third involve the military. CSIS has released a new dataset of "potential transitions" worldwide, covering responses to 758 political crises between 1989 and 2010, including 134 civilian and military interventions. The report describes the dataset and presents the results of the initial analysis. Its recommendations focus on the disconnect between the high demand for civilian power and the support civilian institutions have for responding to such crises, and on the importance of caution and moderation when deciding whether and how to intervene.

Cover of Advances and Challenges in Political Transitions
The United States has provided support to political transitions worldwide for many years. But it was just twenty years ago that the US government established an office specifically to respond when regimes or conflicts ended and to maintain momentum toward positive change. Today's conflicts, however, are more complex, usually involving half a dozen or scores of armed groups-and their alliances and motivations are not always clear. Seldom are peace agreements in place to act as a roadmap to the transition. And transition work now more commonly begins before violence even ends. This report, published on the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Office of Transition Initiatives at the US Agency for International Development, considers what today's complexities imply for how conflicts and transition work might evolve in the future, with chapters on each major region of the world and on topics such as extremism, urbanization, gender, and humanitarian response.

Cover of Costs of Corruption

Costs of Corruption

by Sadika Hameed

Published 1 January 2014
Corruption remains a priority area for both the private sector and development implementers. However, there is no consensus on actionable steps toward addressing it on a global level. This issue is especially important in the context of international trade and development as the private sector plays an increasing role in development outcomes. Moreover, countries with the weakest governance structures tend to be those that most need economic development. This report reviews the literature surrounding corruption; identifies the opportunity costs of corruption; and posits actionable steps for the private sector to effectively address corruption worldwide, as well as ways for private-sector actors to work with governments to achieve this goal.

Cover of The Uncertain Transition from Stability to Peace
Most violent conflicts since the turn of this century were in countries that had experienced an earlier violent conflict. How can we tell when a country is likely to remain stuck in a cycle of violence? What factors suggest it might be "ripe" for stabilizing and peace building? The authors studied four cases: Chad is stuck in a cycle of violence, while El Salvador, Laos, and Mozambique have had different results in their transitions from violence to stability to peace. Conflicts without internal cohesion of combatants or pressure from foreign patrons to stop fighting are probably not ripe for stabilizing. Where there are subnational or regional actors committed to violence, post-conflict peace building is not likely to succeed without enforcement capacity to contain violence or demonstrated commitments to increasing political inclusion and making material improvements in the lives of residents.

Cover of Absorptive Capacity in the Security and Justice Sectors
In development, stabilization, and peace building, donors increasingly recognize the importance of being sensitive to the local contexts of their efforts. Yet the use of "blueprints" remains widespread. Even when standard approaches are modified for particular aid partners, there often remains a poor fit between donor efforts and local conditions. When recipients cannot absorb the aid and attention they are offered, the common response is "capacity building." While it is true that many aid recipients do not have adequate capacity for implementation, this report presents the results of a case study demonstrating that some security and justice programs are designed and implemented without an adequate appreciation of local desires, resources, capabilities, and challenges. Absorptive capacity, in other words, is a byproduct of the donor-recipient relationship. An earlier study by the authors introduced a new framework for measuring absorptive capacity. This volume applies it to security and justice sector programs that did not meet all of their objectives in Lebanon, Cambodia, and Colombia.

Cover of The Future of Cooperation Between the United States and Pakistan
The relationship between the United States and Pakistan has been redefined repeatedly since Pakistan's independence in 1947. It will continue to be strained by mutual distrust, internal threats to Pakistan's stability, Pakistan's relations with its neighbors and militants, and the U.S. role in Afghanistan beyond 2014. But there is a growing recognition that the U.S.-Pakistan relationship is one of mutual necessity-"transactional" rather than "strategic." This pragmatic recognition, along with recent developments (such as the peaceful transfer of power between elected civilian governments, the military's declining prestige, and the political establishment's growing willingness to engage constructively with India) and ongoing pressures (such as Pakistan's youth bulge and energy crisis), give the United States and Pakistan a chance to focus on areas where cooperation is actually possible: civilian aid, trade relations, and support to Pakistan's private sector. The author based these findings on interviews and rountables involving more than 220 officials and experts during a two-month field visit in Pakistan in late 2012.

Cover of Rethinking Civilian Stabilization and Reconstruction
Can the United States prevent or end conflicts and protect its interests without using military force? Do U.S. civilian institutions have the right mix of support, funding, and capabilities to respond to major crises and political transitions? In July 2013, CSIS raised these questions before more than 200 policymakers and experts, with 22 speakers offering perspectives from donors, implementers, and recipients. The demand for civilian power is high. U.S. leaders are under constant pressure to respond to armed conflicts abroad. Better civilian tools could help avoid more risky (and costly) military engagements. The past decade has seen real improvement in civilian stabilization and reconstruction capabilities. Yet many lessons of the past eight decades remain unlearned, and public support to civilian agencies remains low.

Cover of Private-Sector Development in Fragile, Conflict-Affected, and Violent Countries
The CSIS Working Group on Private-Sector Development in Fragile, Conflict-Affected, and Violent States identifies tools available to the international business community and the U.S. government to assist these countries, as well as the gaps in needed resources. Participants examined cases from Afghanistan, Iraq, Burma, and Liberia to glean examples of successes and failures in private-sector development, with the goal of identifying potential roles for host governments and the international private sector. This report presents the results of those discussions.

Cover of Prospects for Indian-Pakistani Cooperation in Afghanistan
This report looks at possible areas of cooperation between Pakistan and India, particularly in Afghanistan. Three observations motivate this research. First, regional security will likely be achieved only if at least some degree of cooperation is attained among the region's primary state actors. Second, Afghanistan cannot advance economically or improve its security and governance without some cooperation from India and Pakistan. Third, although many observers view the idea of Pakistani and Indian cooperation with skepticism, there are likely significant security, governance, and economic advantages for both countries should they find more common ground.

Cover of Political Governance and Strategy in Afghanistan
Afghanistan's de facto system of governance is a politically driven "hybrid" order made up of shifting links among many different formal, informal, and illicit actors, networks, and institutions. Because its central government does not have the capacity to govern through its extremely centralized system and will not have that capacity for at least a generation, it will need to share the burden of stabilizing and governing the country with other governance and political actors. Alone, those other actors will not have the capacity to keep Afghanistan together either.To use Afghanistan's hybrid system as a resource for stabilization, the United States should work with its international and Afghan partners to develop a "political governance" strategy. The requirements for such an approach are detailed in this report. The governance component would encourage and enable formal and informal actors to share the burden of governing. To make sure power brokers do not contribute to instability, the politics component would give some a stake in the political and economic system while giving the most malign a set of targeted incentives to behave in ways conducive to stability.

Cover of Subnational Governance, Service Delivery, and Militancy in Pakistan
This report presents the results of a study on whether a link exists between the rise of militants and the quality of subnational governance in Pakistan and, if one exists, what the United States can do about it, if anything. Its basic finding is that Pakistan's governance problems are not caused by militancy, and its problems with militancy are not directly caused by its governance problems, but improving governance will be necessary (though not sufficient) to counter militancy. Pakistan's governance problems are not insurmountable, and recent trends offer reason for hope: the military's prestige has declined, the civilian government is likely to complete its full term, the judiciary is increasingly independent, civil society is increasingly confident even in the face of militant intimidation, and recent reforms-the Local Governance Ordinance of 2001 and the Eighteenth Amendment to the constitution-have put in place a set of institutions and incentives likely to contribute to improvements in the future. The United States has little influence over Pakistan's domestic politics and policies, but can help to reinforce these positive trends by working to empower Pakistan's reformers, moderates, and democrats (who prefer that public policies be developed and implemented through peaceful or democratic means) and to marginalize Pakistan's hardliners and extremists (who encourage the use of violence or proxy armies).

Cover of Religious Movements, Militancy, and Conflict in South Asia
Religious Movements, Militancy, and Conflict in South Asia we draws on recent research on religion and conflict to offer a broad overview of the different roles religion has played in governance, politics, and conflicts in South Asia. The authors argue that it is important that policy officials pay specific attention to the role of religion in conflict settings. It is not safe to assume that religiously themed rhetoric represents the true motives of conflict actors or the true beliefs of local communities. But nor is it safe to assume that religion, and especially religious identity, does not contribute to conflict-or that it could not contribute to peace. Religion needs to be understood in context.

Cover of Measuring Perceptions about the Pashtun People

Cover of Mixed Blessings

Mixed Blessings

by Frederick Barton and Liora Danan

Published 23 October 2007

Cover of Rethinking Legitimacy and Illegitimacy
This report introduces a new assessment framework for legitimacy and illegitimacy that governments, businesses, and other organizations can use to better understand the sources and dynamics of support or opposition for any entity, policy, or program. It includes an intellectual history of the concept of legitimacy, summarizes the literature, introduces a new conceptualization of illegitimacy, and outlines four types of legitimacy assessments, from a rapid to a comprehensive assessment.

Cover of Opportunities in the Development of Pakistan's Private Sector
Pakistan's economic crisis is one of the main sources of its instability, but government and donor efforts to stabilize and grow its economy have so far been inadequate. One of the barriers to investing in Pakistan's private sector has been the perceptions of risk due to insecurity and corruption. This report suggests that opportunities for economic cooperation are hidden among those real risks. It reviews a number of sectors, focusing on small and medium-size enterprises, where foreign investors might find opportunities for joint ventures and investments, including the stock market, financial services, information and communication technologies, agriculture, consumer goods, and private education. Prospects for growth in these sectors derive from Pakistan's large and growing population, consumer spending trends, and other comparative advantages. This report should be treated not as a guide to investing but as a study of where U.S.-Pakistan policy dialogues might focus on connecting investors with entrepreneurs.

Cover of Wikis, Webs, and Networks

Cover of Engaging Youth to Build Safer Communities