Does state building improve state-citizens relations in conflict-affected countries?
In a new article, Carlo Koos together with Alexander De Juan, Miquel Pellicer and Eva Wegner show that foreign aid-funded state building projects can improve people鈥檚 access to basic services but fail to improve citizens鈥� attitudes towards the state.
Main content
State legitimacy in conflict-affected countries is typically low.听Many aid interventions aim to (re)build state institutions and foment sustainable state鈥搒ociety relations by improving听people鈥檚 access to听basic services听such as health care, education,听water,听and infrastructure.
Koos and colleagues have collected data from more than 1,500 households in eastern Democratic of Congo听(DRC)听and assessed听the impact of a major听German-funded听aid听program(ca. 50 million Euro) on people鈥檚 access to basic services, life satisfaction, and attitudes towards the state.听In a quasi-experimental analysis,听the authors find that this听program听has significantly improved people鈥檚 access to basic services in the short and midterm, and contributed to life satisfaction, but failed to improve people鈥檚 satisfaction with the state.
The authors note that improvements in access to services听are听an important听achievement in a challenging security and logistical environment like eastern DRC.听They also find suggestive evidence why the program did not affect people鈥檚 attitudes towards the state. First, people reported lacking information about why, where, and how projects where selected and implemented. Second, elite capture inhibited people attributing the program to the state.
As a consequence, the authors emphasize that, first, the听鈥榤odes of delivery鈥� 鈥� e.g., information why a听specific service has been implemented in a particular location and not somewhere else 鈥撎齛nd, second, 鈥榩rocedural accountability鈥� 鈥� i.e., information about the decision-making process 鈥� matters for citizens to credit the state as responding to some of their needs.
.
听
听
听
