Minerva-funded researchers Jessica Piombo, Naazneen H. Barma, and Naomi Levy's Owl in the Olive Tree post on "The Puzzle of International Intervention in Conflict-Affected States". One of the conundrums of post-conflict interventions is that despite copious amounts of international assistance devoted to the dual enterprise of strengthening states and building peace, many post-conflict countries—such as Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, and South Sudan—remain either poorly governed, stubbornly insecure, or, worst of all, both. Perhaps even more puzzling, however, are countries like Uganda, where peace is lasting but governance remains weak and uneven, or those like Colombia, where the government is relatively strong but a robust peace remains elusive. These outcomes are especially hard to understand because the international community’s mainstream approach to post-conflict intervention for almost three decades has been to build peaceful societies by providing aid to capacitate states.
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