No Bang for Buck: Exploring the Heterogeneous Relationships Between Official Development Assistance and Intrastate Conflict Casualties
What determines whether Official Development Assistance (ODA) can reduce casualties in intrastate conflicts? In the newly published master’s thesis, HCSS Data Scientist Emma Bokel examines 156 countries between 1989 and 2022 using Dynamic Panel GMM and a Causal Forest model to assess both average effects and underlying heterogeneity. The study finds that ODA does not reliably reduce conflict deaths on average, with a persistent “conflict trap” driven by prior-year fatalities. Instead, effectiveness depends on four key conditions: political stability, aid fragmentation, delivery channel, and purpose-specific aid dynamics, leading to policy recommendations emphasising context-sensitive allocation, multilateral delivery in fragile settings, and prevention over de-escalation.
New publication | No Bang for Buck: Exploring the Heterogeneous Relationships Between Official Development Assistance and Intrastate Conflict Casualties
What determines whether Official Development Assistance (ODA) can reduce casualties in intrastate conflicts? In the newly published master’s thesis, HCSS Data Scientist Emma Bokel examines 156 countries between 1989 and 2022 using Dynamic Panel GMM and a Causal Forest model to assess both average effects and underlying heterogeneity. The study finds that ODA does not reliably reduce conflict deaths on average, with a persistent “conflict trap” driven by prior-year fatalities. Instead, effectiveness depends on four key conditions: political stability, aid fragmentation, delivery channel, and purpose-specific aid dynamics, leading to policy recommendations emphasising context-sensitive allocation, multilateral delivery in fragile settings, and prevention over de-escalation.
Tim Sweijs | 7 inzichten uit Oekraïne, Eurosatory en Fighter Lion
Vorige week bezocht HCSS onderzoeksdirecteur Tim Sweijs de defensiebeurs Eurosatory in Parijs, een van de grootste internationale evenementen op het gebied van defensie en veiligheid, waar fabrikanten hun nieuwste technologieën presenteerden. Aansluitend reisde hij door naar Duitsland voor de grootschalige militaire oefening Fighter Lion, waar hij gesprekken voerde met Nederlandse landmacht militairen op verschillende niveaus. Daarnaast publiceerde hij een nieuwe HCSS-studie "Lessons That Transfer: Observations from the Russo-Ukrainian War for European Land Forces", waarin wordt onderzocht welke ontwikkelingen Europese landstrijdkrachten serieus moeten nemen in de komende drie tot vijf jaar.
