The impacts of armed conflict on corruption: a study of long term sub-national change in Nepal

Jarvis, Thomas Charles (2019). The impacts of armed conflict on corruption: a study of long term sub-national change in Nepal. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

Accounts of corruption in conflict-affected areas are often dominated by a focus on the fragility of public sector institutions. In the last decade, this focus has been challenged by an emergent literature which instead frames corruption as an informal means of order-making during conflict, and by the study of the ethnicisation of corruption through conflict. In this thesis, I contribute to this emergent literature by analysing the local dynamics of conflict-induced change in corruption in Nepal, eleven years after the end of the 1996-2006 Maoist conflict. I do so through a constructivist grounded theory approach, one which has not previously been applied in the study of this relationship. Through this new case and approach, I expand the emergent body of theory on this relationship in three ways: First, I demonstrate long term change in corruption at the sub-national level under conditions of stability, and in a context not polarised by ethnic divisions. Second, I demonstrate the multiple concurrent dynamics of conflict-induced change in corruption in the long term, across the four theories of this relationship present in the literature. Finally, I explain the changing nature of this relationship over time, spanning the conflict, transition and expectations for future change.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):