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This paper studies a dimension of protest largely overlooked in the literature: protest scope, that is, whether protests seek large, structural, changes for a large share of the population or focus on small-scale improvements for small groups. We argue that this protest dimension is relevant for understanding the political consequences of protests. We show empirically that protests vary substantially in scope and that scope is not collinear with other protest dimensions, such as size, motive, or tactics. We explore drivers of individual preferences for protest scope with a survey experiment in two South African townships. We find that respondents made to feel more efficacious tend to support protests of broader scope. This effect operates via a social psychology channel whereby efficacy leads people to assign blame for their problems to more systemic causes.

What role does horizontal social inequality play for political protest in middle-income countries? We argue that public social service provision is an important driver of state perceptions. When a state fails to deliver services in an equitable manner, trust in institutions erodes and protest becomes more likely. We use a mixed methods design to investigate this argument in South Africa. First, we combine police event records with census data to estimate correlations between service inequality and protests. Second, we draw on an opinion survey with 27,000 respondents to investigate the suggested mechanism linking social inequality to protest through political attitudes. Third, we focus on qualitative protest accounts in two areas identified by a matching approach to assess the plausibility of our quantitative findings. Throughout these analyses, we document a robust association between horizontal social inequality and protest.

How do states build a security apparatus after violent resistance against state rule? This article argues that in early periods of state building two main factors shape the process: the macro-strategic goals of the state and administrative challenges of personnel management. These dynamics are studied in the context of the establishment of police forces in the settler colony of German Southwest Africa, present-day Namibia. The empirical analysis relies on information about the location of police stations and a near full census of police forces, compiled from the German Federal Archives. A mismatch is found between the allocation of police presence and the allocation of police personnel. The first was driven by the strategic value of locations in terms of extractive potential, political importance, and the presence of critical infrastructure, whereas the allocation of individual officers was likely affected by adverse selection, which led to the assignment of low-quality recruits to strategically important locations.

What explains states' sub-national territorial reach? While large parts of the state-building literature have focused on national capabilities, little is known about the determinants of the unevenness of state presence at the sub-national level. This article seeks to fill this gap by looking at early attempts at state building: it investigates the processes of state penetration in the former colony of German East Africa. Contrary to previous studies - which largely emphasized antecedent or structural factors - the current study argues that geographical patterns of state penetration have been driven by the state's strategic imperative to solidify control over territory and establish political stability. The article tests these propositions using an original, geo-referenced grid-cell dataset for the years 1890 to 1909 based on extensive historical records in German colonial yearbooks and maps.

What are the causes and consequences of colonial rule? This introduction to the special issue "Comparative Politics of Colonialism and Its Legacies" surveys recent literature in political science, sociology, and economics that addresses colonial state building and colonial legacies. Past research has made important contributions to our understanding of colonialism's long-term effects on political, social, and economic development. Existing work emphasizes the role of critical junctures and institutions in understanding the transmission of those effects to present-day outcomes and embraces the idea of design-based inference for empirical analysis. The four articles of this special issue add to existing research but also represent new research trends: increased attention to (1) the internal dynamics of colonial intervention; (2) noninstitutional transmission mechanisms; (3) the role of context conditions at times of colonial intervention; and (4) a finer-grained disaggregation of outcomes, explanatory factors, and units of analysis.

The African continent has made great strides in reducing the number of violent conflicts since the end of the Cold War. Simultaneously, however, the nature of security threats has substantially changed. This requires new regional and international responses to strengthening the security of African citizens. Insecurity is increasingly driven by the reoccurrence of conflicts in some countries rather than by the emergence of "new" ones. Decentralised forms of violence like terrorism, urban riots, and small insurgencies in state peripheries have been on the rise. Conflicts with strong regional and international involvement have increased. These changes have been driven by (a), most notably, substantial but highly unequal economic growth in many African countries, (b) (incomplete) democratisation which is often coupled with weak state capacity and bad governance, and (c) various demographic factors, such as strong population growth, rapid urbanisation, and an increasing share of economically and socially deprived youth. Taken together, these factors have created grievances and opportunities for violence that have changed the nature of security threats in Africa. African and international responses to these security challenges have been hampered by a predominant focus on dealing with ongoing violent conflicts rather than on their prevention and, even more so, post-conflict peacebuilding. Also, conflict management has mainly relied on military means at the expense of broader economic and political approaches that would address the underlying socio-economic and political drivers. The changed security conditions require an adapted response by both African and international actors. The international community could enhance its contribution by promoting comprehensive peacebuilding strategies, clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of different actors, and strengthening the development-security nexus. Such a reorientation would make African approaches and international

Im Oktober 2017 haben die USA ein zwei Jahrzehnte lang bestehendes Handelsembargo gegen den ("Nord-")Sudan weitgehend aufgehoben. Diese Entscheidung öffnet das Land weiter für internationale Landinvestitionen. Kaum ein anderer Staat verfügt über größere landwirtschaftlich nutzbare Flächen als der Sudan, jedoch droht eine Zunahme internationaler Landkäufe, bestehende Konflikte zu verschärfen. Schätzungen zufolge hat die sudanesische Regierung seit dem Jahr 2011 Konzessionen mit einer Gesamtfläche von mehr als acht Millionen Hektar an nationale und internationale Investoren erteilt – das entspricht ungefähr der Größe Österreichs. Der Sudan erwartet von den Investitionen substanzielle Beiträge zum Wirtschaftswachstum des Landes, positive Beschäftigungseffekte und eine verbesserte Ernährungssicherheit für weite Teile der Bevölkerung. Ein großer Anteil der freigegebenen Landflächen wurde zuvor von Kleinbauern oder pastoralen Gruppen genutzt, denen die Enteignungen die wirtschaftliche Lebensgrundlage entzieht. Die Folge sind teils gewaltsame Gegenreaktionen. In den Konfliktregionen des Landes besteht das Risiko, dass sich die Verlierer der Landinvestitionen gewaltsamen Gruppierungen anschließen. In kaum einem anderen Land ist das wahrgenommene Korruptionsniveau in der öffentlichen Verwaltung stärker ausgeprägt als im Sudan. Nichtregierungsorganisationen (NGOs) betonen, dass viele Landkonzessionen auf unrechtmäßigen Praktiken sudanesischer Eliten basieren. Diese fehlende Rechtstaatlichkeit bildet eine zentrale Ursache für das hohe Konfliktpotenzial von Landinvestitionen. Internationale Landinvestitionen können dazu beitragen, die Lebensbedingungen im Sudan zu verbessern. Die damit verbundenen sozioökonomischen und ­politischen Risiken lassen sich nur durch eine umfassende Reform der Landgesetzgebung und -verwaltung verhindern, die sicherstellt, dass auch die betroffene ländliche Bevölkerung von den Gewinnen aus den Investitionen profitiert.

Mehr als 3 Million Menschen sind seit dem Jahr 2014 vor der Gewaltherrschaft des sogenannten „Islamischen Staates“ innerhalb des Irak geflohen. Trotz der fast vollständigen Rückeroberung besetzter Gebiete bleibt über die Hälfte der Binnenvertriebenen auf der Flucht. Was verhindert ihre Rückkehr? Aktuelle Umfragedaten zeigen, dass eine dauerhafte Rückkehr mehr erfordert als nur die Stabilisierung der Sicherheitssituation. Sicherheit ist eine Grundvoraussetzung, aber keine hinreichende Bedingung für die Rückkehr von Vertriebenen. Umfrageergebnisse aus dem Irak zeigen, dass viele Familien den sozialen und ökonomischen Rahmenbedingungen in ihrer Heimatregion eine ähnlich hohe Bedeutung beimessen: Nur wenn sie davon überzeugt sind, dass hier zumindest eine humanitäre Grundversorgung sichergestellt werden kann, steigt die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer dauerhaften Rückkehr. Viele Familien fürchten soziale Konflikte in ihren Heimatgemeinden. Lokale Spannungen werden vielerorts dadurch verschärft, dass sich die ethnisch-konfessionelle Zusammensetzung der Bevölkerung zwischenzeitlich verändert hat. Eine dauerhafte Rückkehr ist nur dann wahrscheinlich, wenn neben der physischen Sicherheit auch ein Mindestmaß an lokalem sozialem Frieden (wieder) hergestellt werden kann. Die irakische Verwaltung ist mit der Abwicklung der Rückkehrprozesse überfordert. Auch wenn es gelingt, die politischen und sozio-ökonomischen Voraussetzungen für eine Rückkehr zu schaffen, besteht das Risiko, dass die Wiedereingliederung von hunderttausenden Vertriebenen durch fehlende amtliche Identitätsdokumente und Besitzurkunden für Land und Gebäude behindert wird. Die Rückkehr von Binnenvertriebenen ist ein zentrales Element, wenn es um die langfristige Stabilisierung des Irak geht. Die Regierung und ihre internationalen Partner - darunter auch Deutschland - können die Rückkehr unterstützen, wenn sie neben Sicherheit und Wiederaufbau zentrale Bedarfe nicht aus den Augen verlieren: die Förderung der sozialen Koh

Does extraction increase the likelihood of antistate violence in the early phases of state-building processes? Although research has focused on the impacts of war on state building, the potential "war-making effects" of extraction have largely been neglected. The article provides the first quantitative analysis of these effects in the context of colonial state building. It focuses on the "Maji Maji" rebellion (1905-1907), the most substantial incidence of anticolonial violence in Eastern Africa. Analyses based on a new historical data set confirm the correlation between extraction and resistance. More importantly, they reveal that distinct strategies of extraction produced distinct outcomes. Although the intensification of extraction in state-held areas created grievances among the population, it did not drive the rebellion. Rather, the results indicate that the expansion of extractive authority threatened the interests of local elites and provoked effective resistance. This finding provides insights into the mechanisms driving the "extraction-coercion cycle" of state building.

Where and how have precolonial institutions of conflict resolution remained intact? Although it is often argued that "traditional" institutions can play a key role in managing communal conflicts, little is known about the conditions of their "survival." This article argues that historical, political, and cultural topographies are essential to understanding patterns of the persistence and demise of precolonial institutions. Traditional modes of conflict resolution remain strong where they have been internalized over centuries: in the cultural and political centers of precolonial states. I use original geocoded survey data and historical spatial information on precolonial Burundi to analyze this hypothesis. The estimations yield robust correlations between the geographic patterns of the precolonial kingdom and current modes of resource-related conflict resolution.