Taxation has been widely used as a lens to analyse state formation and capacity. These analyses mainly consider those taxes that end up in the state’s coffers, while turning a blind eye to local taxation practices of both state and non-state tax collectors. Especially with regard t countries where the state’s monopoly of tax collection is a far cry from reality, local state and non-state taxation practices could offer a powerful lens for understanding current and changing power relations that has remained largely unexplored. This research project argues for such an empirical re-orientation and wants to build an analytical framework for doing so.
|
| Violent conflict and urban transformation in the Eastern Congolese Periphery |
This project analyses the impact of protracted violent conflict and state weakening on dynamics of urban transformation in the Eastern periphery of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The central aim of this project is to offer an urban perspective on the Congolese crisis, by at the one hand revealing the particular urban outcomes of conflict dynamics, and at the other hand demonstrating how these particular urban dynamics again produce and influence political processes. Analyzing dynamics of urban political and socio-economic transformation, this project focuses particularly on conflict urbanization, hybrid urban governance, transborder urban livelihoods, and urban identities.
|
| Understanding the logic of violence in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh: A micro conflict analysis |
This doctoral project attempts to analyze the micro level evidences to understand the logic of violence in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh. In the CHT context, macro level analyses are widely available. Yet there is a lack of research trying to understand the micro level dynamics behind the process of conflict as well as production and reproduction of violence. The special appeal of this research is to investigate the role of local actors and their interaction in shaping violence, aiming mostly at localized and traditional institutions. The different chains of connectivity and the triggering cycles of conflict factors will be taken into consideration in analyses.
|
| Beyond the shadow of war: A study of 'post-conflict' governance in Nepal |
This research project aims at an improved understanding of governance in ‘post-conflict’ Nepal, a political hotbed for almost ten years. Based upon political ethnography of ‘post-conflict’ governance, it seeks to produce new insights into the interplay between fragile state institutions and informal regulatory networks and into the impact of such dynamics on democratic state-building initiatives in ‘post-conflict’ settings.
|
| Governance in 'rebellious' society: An ethnography of governance complexes in central and northeast India |
This project analyses the impact of long-term conflict on local governance in two cases: the secessionist Naga armed struggle (Northeast India) and the Maoist Naxalite conflict (Central India). The aim is to provide a political ethnography of governance in ‘rebellious society’, by conducting fieldwork in areas where the state and the rebels have been trying to set up governance structures.
|
| Violent actors and governance in urban Bangladesh |
Through a number of case studies, this project wants to analyse the relationship between the activities of violent actors and governance in urban Bangladesh. In particular it is interested how, at first sight non-state related, violent actors interact with state officials and politicians in organising governance activities. It wants to contribute to our understanding of the state in South Asia in its relation with violence specialists operating on its territory. It uses etnographic techniques to research e.g. hartal organisation, student violence and urban land politics.
|
| Understanding informal dynamics of post-conflict peacebuilding, statebuilding and democratization in Burundi |
|
 |
||
 |
Back | |
|
