2006-2007

2005-2006

2004-2005

2003-2004

2002-2003

2001-2002

Public Events (2005 - 2006)

World Urban Forum 3
The Crisis States Research Centre sent a delegation to the 3rd World Urban Forum in Vancouver in June 2006, to speak on the policy implications of inclusive governance in conflict areas.  Highlights of the presentations given by Prof Jo Beall, Daniel Esser and Dr Jason Sumich can be found on the WUF3 website  here. A brief report on the event is also available here.

The Centre held a public debate on Tuesday 13th June entitled The Darfur Crisis: what is to be done?. Laurie Nathan of the Crisis States Research Centre spoke about the peace negotiations and the process of African Union mediation in Abuja, of which he has personal experience.  Mark Bowden of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs offered an explanation of the scale of the humanitarian disaster, whilst Hafiz Mohamed, Darfur Coordinator for Justice Africa, discussed his own experience of the situation and the demands of ordinary citizens from all sides of the conflict.   David Keen, Reader in Complex Emergencies at the LSE, reflected on the origins of the crisis and prospects for the future.  
Further information on Justice Africa  and on UN OCHA.

On Tuesday 2nd May 2006 the Centre, in conjunction with DESTIN, organised a public lecture given by Dr Aguinaldo Jaime, Deputy Prime Minister of Angola.  Dr Jaime spoke on "Financial Systems and Economic Development: the case of Angola" and explained the challenges that Angola has had to overcome in its transition period, including the difficulties faced in reducing the country's high level of inflation.

Public Events (2004-2005)

Children and Violence, Thursday 26th May

A workshop organised by Crisis States Research Centre, Stanhope Centre for Communication and Policy Research, and the Annenberg School of Communication (University of Pennsylvania). See also the Crisis States discussion paper: 'Media Policy, Peace and State Reconstruction' (Tim Allen & Nicole Stremlau) and the report from the event 'Why Templates for Media Development do not work in Crisis States'

Public Events (2003-2004)

21st May 2004: Alistair Berkley Memorial Seminar

A seminar on 'Media, the Law and Peacebuilding: from from Bosnia and Kosovo to Iraq' was held in conjunction with the Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research. 
 

This workshop organised jointly by the Crisis States Development Research Centre and the Anthropology Department at Goldsmiths College explored the notion of state violence and sought to understand whether state violence is a useful analytical category and what anthropology could offer to an understanding of state violence.

Public Events (2002-2003)

CSP/ZEF Symposium: State reconstruction and international engagement in Afghanistan

Papers from this event are available here. 

Public Events (2001-2002)

12 October 2001 – Public Debate: Terrorism and the Developing World.
Discussants:
John Harriss, Director, Development Studies Institute; David Keen, DESTIN, expert on complex emergencies; Deniz Kandiyotti, Development Studies Centre, SOAS; Haleh Afshar, York University, expert on women and Islam; Zahir Tanin, Senior Producer, BBC Persian service; Matthew Fielden, DESTIN, expert on Afghanistan

25 January 2002 – Public Debate
What to Do About the Gathering World Financial Crises?
Discussants:
Robert Wade, Professor of Political Economy and Development, DESTIN; Gabriel Palma, Faculty of Economics and Politics, University of Cambridge; Laurence Harris, Director, Centre for Financial and Management Studies, University of London

15 March 2002 – Public film showing and panel discussion
"Returning Home: the revival of a Bosnian village" Discussants:
Dr Sumantra Bose, Government Department, LSE, Expert on Bosnia; Professor Peter Loizos, Anthropology Department, LSE, Production consultant and lead cameraman for film; Dr Noel Malcolm, Historian, Expert on Bosnia.

25 June 2002 - Public Seminar
The Curse of Financial Instability: Argentina and Enron as the Vision of the Future
Manfred Bienefeld
Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, Ottawa

Discussant: Gabriel Palma, Faculty of Economics and Politics, University of Cambridge
Chair: James Putzel, Director, CSRC

May to July 2002 - Joint ODI/DESTIN Seminar Series
Putting Politics Back into Development: Are we getting there?
For further details, see the ODI Website

Workshops - information on workshops held during Phase One of the Centre's work

2004

2003

2002

Crisis States Workshop 2004

The Crisis States Research Centre held its annual workshop in December at the India International Centre in New Delhi, hosted by the Developing Countries Research Centre of the University of Delhi. Researchers from the LSE joined with partners from India, Colombia and South Africa to discuss over twenty of the many research papers produced over the past year.
 

The Crisis States research is developing crucial insights into the processes of state collapse and reconstruction, and this was reflected in the workshop’s agenda.  Several of the papers – such as Manoj Srivastava and Neera Chandhoke on India, or Teddy Brett and Tim Allen on Uganda – examined the relationship between national economic policy and politics, and regional and local patterns of conflict. In some cases, it was the lack of effective central state presence and authority that was of particular importance, as Antonio Giustozzi demonstrated in Afghanistan, or as scholars from the Asian Development Research Institute in Patna explained in the case of Bihar.

An important part of the Centre’s work looks at how crisis and even collapse can lead to positive institutional change, as Dennis Rodgers showed in the unintended consequences of the Argentinean crisis. However, some prescriptions offered by the international community can be counterproductive, as can be seen in the headlong rush to introduce formal democratic institutions and competitive elections. David Keen showed how problematic this can be with ex-combatants in Sierra Leone and Guatemala; and Francisco Gutiérrez of IEPRI (Universidad Nacional de Colombia) and the Centre’s director, James Putzel, argued that in some cases ‘semi-democracy’ may be a more likely outcome. This was related to the rise of “anti-politics” where new and old politicians win political power by opposing political organisations and consciously work to weaken legislative and judicial institutions of the state, developing new forms of patronage that undermine or pre-empt political parties. This was explored during the workshop with papers by Francisco Gutiérrez on Fujimori in Peru, Jonathan DiJohn on Chavez in Venezuela, and Giovanni Carbone on Museveni in Uganda.

One of the more important contributions the Centre is making to debates about state building and the management of conflict in post-war states is work looking at the links between formal and informal rule. Striking comparisons emerged in the course of the workshop between Jo Beall’s work on Durban in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa; and the research undertaken by partners in Shillong (in Northeast India), which explores the tensions emerging from the institutionalisation of traditional authority.

The three-day workshop was followed by a two-day conference on new patterns of political mobilisation across India’s states, which brought together researchers from across India. Many of the papers presented during this week of debate will soon be published as Crisis States working papers, and these can be found on the Crisis States website.

4th & 5th June, 2004 (by invitation only)

Outline of Workshop

This workshop seeks to explore the notion of state violence. In doing so, it seeks to understand whether state violence is a useful analytical category and what anthropology can offer to an understanding of state violence.

Two main themes will be addressed. These are:
 

1. How do we understand state violence in relation to global economic and political transformations? This first theme will explore the effect of institutional, political and economic change on the forms of state violence. In doing so it will examine whether state violence should be understood in terms of state fragmentation or state building, or both. Critical approaches will be invited which look at crime, terrorism, policing, state building and state coercion.

2. How do we understand the moral economy of state violence? This second theme will explore, on the one hand, how states justify or attempt to legitimise their violence. On the other hand, it will ask how the experience of state violence is shaped by local moral and cultural practices and norms. Critical approaches will be invited which look at the role of identity, history and ritual in the production of the moral dimension of state violence.

This session seeks to understand the contested experiences and forms of violence of the modern state. We encourage sensitivity to issues of the spaces, boundaries and bodies of state violence as well as of institutional form and political mobilisation in order to undermine rigid dichotomies of public and private, state and society, crime and law.

A two day workshop of invited participants will be held at Goldsmiths College on 4^th/5^th June 2004.

International Workshop 2003

Every year the Crisis States Programme holds an international workshop. This provides an opportunity for our collaborating researchers from about the world to get together to share our respective findings, to draw out common conclusions, and to discuss the future work of the Programme.

The 2003 Workshop took place on July 14th to 16th 2003, at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Panels were organised on the following thematic areas:
 

• Politics, institutions and conflict in crisis states

• Global actors and crisis states

• Liberalisation, crisis and national politics

• Tradition, transition and local crisis

• Liberalisation: livelihoods and workers organisation

• Liberalisation: social impact and manufacturing

• Liberalisation: social impact on retail

• Responding to crisis: democracy and violence

• Crisis and Governance: politics of decentralisation

• Reconstructing states in the wake of war

The international workshop was followed by a two-day conference (July 17th to 18th), co-sponsored by the Journal of South African Studies, focusing on South Africa, entitled State and Society in South Africa: Fault lines of Crisis and Sites of Stabilisation. Panels were organised around the following themes:

State and society in South Africa - interrogating the crisis

State consolidation and political fault lines

Challenging and accommodating the state

Social change and the crisis of delivery

Popular responses to crisis and consolidation

The Politics of the Colombian Conflict: Towards a Redefinition?

Workshop organised by IEPRI (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá) and the Crisis States Research Centre

With Additional support from Colciencias, British Council in Colombia, Semana and El Espectador

10th to 14th May 2004

James Putzel, director of CSRC, spoke on insights emerging from the programme's wider studies of war and post-war reconstruction, while Jonathan DiJohn and Jean-Paul Faguet, both from CSRC, spoke about research on the relationship between natural resources and war, and the possibilities offered by democratic decentralisation reforms to manage conflict. Professor Neera Chandhoke, working with CSRC in India, spoke about on-going research on patterns of ethnic conflict in Kashmir and Punjab, while CSRC research fellow Laurie Nathan, from South Africa, discussed lessons from peace negotiations in Africa.

The British ambassador to Colombia Thomas Duggin addressed the packed public forum, held at Bogotá's National Museum, and expressed his hope for an eventual negotiated settlement. Professor Francisco Gutíerrez and his team at the Institute of Political Studies and International Relations at the National University in Bogotá, spoke in detail about their work on the micro-foundations of war.

Dr Putzel said: 'Researchers here have challenged some of the more simplistic notions that see this sort of violence as either a clash of civilisations or somehow driven primarily by greedy individuals... Research in Colombia shows that, despite the horrors of guerrilla action and the criminal behaviour of the combatants, people engage in violence as a reaction to hardship and social exclusion.'

The event was supported by the British Council, Colciencias and the CSRC funded by the UK's Department for International Development.

International Workshop 2002

Every year the Crisis States Programme holds an international workshop. This provides an opportunity for our collaborating researchers from about the world to get together to share our respective findings, to draw out common conclusions, and to discuss the future work of the Programme.

On the 24 & 25 April, 2002, 45 members of the Crisis States Programme Development Research Centre met in Bogota, Colombia at a workshop jointly organised by the Universidad de los Andes and the LSE.

Members of the Crisis States Programme from Colombia, South Africa, India and the UK discussed work undertaken during the inception period and first year of the project.