"This volume originated in a UNU-WIDER collaborative research project, "Aid and Institution-Building in Fragile States: Findings from Comparative Cases," led by the editor and prepared withing the UNU-WIDER Research and Communication on Foreign Aid (ReCom) program."--p.7.

Aid and Institution-Building in Fragile States: What Do We Know? What Can Comparative Analysis Add? / Rachel M. Gisselquist. -- International Aid to Southern Europe in the Early Postwar Period: The Cases of Greece and Italy / Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos. -- U.S. Aid and Uneven Development in East Asia / Kevin Gray. -- Aid and Governance in Vulnerable States: Bangladesh and Pakistan since 1971 / Mushtaq H. Khan. -- Foreign Aid, Resource Rents, and State Fragility in Mozambique and Angola / Helena Perez Nino and Philippe Le Billon. -- Consociational Settlements and Reconstruction: Bosnia in Comparative Perspective (1995-Present) / Sherrill Stroschein. -- Kosovo and Timor-Leste: Neotrusteeship, Neighbors, and the United Nations / Lise Morje Howard. -- Transition Regimes and Security Sector Reforms in Sierra Leone and Liberia / Ato Kwamena Onoma. -- State Failure, State-Building, and Prospects for a "Functional
Failed State" in Somalia / Ken Menkhaus. -- Intervention and State-Building: Comparative Lessons from
Japan, Iraq, and Afghanistan / Jonathan Monten.

Why and how some states transition successfully from fragile to more robust--and some do not--are both topical and age-old questions. This volume of The ANNALS addresses these questions with particular attention to the role of foreign aid, offering new traction on theory development on state-building through the use of comparative analysis. Contributions cover selected major cases of aid-supported state-building from the end of the Second World War to the present. Collectively, they highlight the potential for external assistance both to stimulate change and to alter incentives toward institution-building in fragile states. They also show the limits of external assistance by emphasizing the decisive influence of domestic institutional legacies and political dynamics. An introductory article frames the issues addressed in the volume and draws out key findings relevant to current public debates, including the limits to aid, the influence of historical state strength, institutional change through colonial and postcolonial interventions, and political economy incentives to maintain state weakness.