It feels strange that my name (to the degree anyone knows who I am) is still associated with the term “ungoverned” — I hate the term and use it only in scare quotes today, as should be clear to anyone who’s read the final report of the Ungoverned Areas Project (which I led as a Defense Department […]
Read more...Category: Reports & Monographs
This is a growing list of all the reports I’ve written
The Uncertain Transition from Stability to Peace (CSIS report)
By Robert D. Lamb, Kathryn Mixon, and Sarah Minot ■ Most violent conflicts since the turn of this century were in countries that had experienced an earlier violent conflict. How can we tell when a country is likely to remain stuck in a cycle of violence? What factors suggest it might be “ripe” for stabilizing and […]
Read more...Advances and Challenges in Political Transitions: What Will the Future of Conflict Look Like? (CSIS report)
Edited By Robert D. Lamb and Johanna Mendelson Forman ■ The United States has provided support to political transitions worldwide for many years. But it was just 20 years ago that the U.S. government established an office specifically to respond when regimes or conflicts ended and to maintain momentum toward positive change. Today’s conflicts, however, are […]
Read more...Rethinking Legitimacy and Illegitimacy: A New Approach to Assessing Support and Opposition across Disciplines (CSIS report)
By Robert D. Lamb ■ This report introduces a new assessment framework for legitimacy and illegitimacy that governments, businesses, and other organizations can use to better understand the sources and dynamics of support or opposition for any entity, policy, or program. It includes an intellectual history of the concept of legitimacy, summarizes the literature, introduces […]
Read more...South Asia Regional Dynamics and Strategic Concerns: A Framework for U.S. Policy and Strategy in South Asia, 2014–2026 (CSIS report)
By Robert D. Lamb, Sadika Hameed, and Kathryn Mixon ■ Once the United States withdraws most or all of its forces from Afghanistan, what issues are likely to continue to be of concern to U.S. policymakers in South Asia? What regional dynamics are likely to affect their ability to achieve policy priorities there? While the United […]
Read more...All of My Afghanistan and Pakistan Research in One Place
Quoting from my program’s page at CSIS summarizing our four years of research on Afghanistan and Pakistan: Since 2010, the Program on Crisis, Conflict, and Cooperation (C3) has studied security, governance, and politics in Afghanistan and Pakistan to find potential paths to stability and prosperity. One line of research, focusing on service provision and governance, studied […]
Read more...Absorptive Capacity in the Security and Justice Sectors: Assessing Obstacles to Success in the Donor-Recipient Relationship (CSIS report)
By Robert D. Lamb, Kathryn Mixon, and Andrew Halterman ■ In development, stabilization, and peace building, donors increasingly recognize the importance of being sensitive to the local contexts of their efforts. Yet the use of “blueprints” remains widespread. Even when standard approaches are modified for particular aid partners, there often remains a poor fit between […]
Read more...Rethinking Absorptive Capacity: A New Framework, Applied to Afghanistan’s Police Training Program (CSIS report)
By Robert D. Lamb and Kathryn Mixon ■ In development, stabilization, and peace building, donors increasingly recognize the importance of being sensitive to the local contexts of their efforts. Yet the use of “blueprints” remains widespread. Even when standard approaches are modified for particular aid partners, there often remains a poor fit between donor efforts […]
Read more...Private-Sector Development in Fragile, Conflict-Affected, and Violent Countries (CSIS report)
By Robert D. Lamb, Sadika Hameed, and Kathryn Mixon ■ Countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) pose significant challenges for development, including private-sector development. FCV countries are characterized by some combination of weak governance and ineffective national institutions; armed groups, high violence, and intense conflict; limited economic and social growth potential; extreme inequities […]
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