Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/287838 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Citation: 
[Journal:] South African Journal of Economics [ISSN:] 1813-6982 [Volume:] 90 [Issue:] 4 [Publisher:] Wiley [Place:] Hoboken, NJ [Year:] 2022 [Pages:] 427-455
Publisher: 
Wiley, Hoboken, NJ
Abstract: 
Postconflict reconstruction programmes often aim to improve state–society relations but fail to spell out the underlying process. We specify a mechanism that links aid programmes through (1) short‐term and (2) medium‐term improvements in basic services and (3) subjective progress to (4) perceptions of the state and spell four conditions (quality, sustainability, magnitude and attribution to the state) that must be met for this process to occur. We use this framework to evaluate a large‐scale reconstruction programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). We find that the programme improved basic services in the short term and midterm and positively affected beneficiaries' subjective well‐being. However, we do not find evidence that aid benefits have translated into political trust towards state institutions—on the contrary, project villages display slightly more negative attitudes than control villages. We suggest that this is due to lack of attribution of the improvements to the state that which was included in the selection phase but largely absent in the implementation. This implies that improved services can erode state legitimacy when citizens interpret the provision by nonstate actors as a signal of the state's inability or unwillingness to provide these services.
Subjects: 
DR Congo
impact evaluation
political perceptions
postconflict
reconstruction
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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