Jörg Faust Books

Demonstrates that social investment funds are prominent instruments in developing countries that aim at providing financial resources for social infrastructure projects to poor municipalities. In contrast to traditional, more centralised distribution mechanisms of such funds, shows that the Bolivian Fondo de Inversión Productiva y Social was among the first that employed a self-selection mechanism: municipalities had to apply for funds through a decentralised allocation scheme embedded in the country's overall fiscal decentralisation process. Tests several hypotheses regarding potential factors at the local level that might have shaped the distribution pattern among municipalities. Finds positive non-linear relations with diminishing returns between a municipality's level of poverty and alternative fiscal transfers that could be used for co-financing FPS projects, on the one hand, and the resources it received from the social fund, on the other. Moreover, demonstrates that local neighbourhood effects of FPS funding depended on a municipality's institutionalised cooperation with its neighbours and its proximity to provincial capitals, which hosted the regional offices of the FPS. Finally, argues that there is no evidence that major traditional parties have over-proportionally profited from the FPS, but municipalities governed by Evo Morales' anti-system party were significantly disadvantaged

Abstract: "Decentralization reforms have been among the most important aspects of state modernization in developing countries. From a normative perspective, such reforms are expected to promote economic development and democratization. Unfortunately, however, the course of real decentralization processes has often been incoherent and defective. In this context, this study analyses the challenges for successful decentralization in fragmented polities focusing on Latin America and the special case of Ecuador. Based on a political economy perspective on decentralization, we attempt to show, how political fragmentation has affected decentralization. From there, we develop criteria on how development assistance can at least partly counter the negative effects of political fragmentation. Finally, we analyse to which extend donor agencies have been pursuing such strategies in Ecuador. This study is the result of a research project, which has been carried out at the German Development Institute (DIE

Abstract: "The security strategy adopted by the European Council in late 2003 underlines the importance of conflict prevention and civil, but also - wherever necessary - military intervention in weak or failing states. The new European Security Strategy (ESS) recommends that foreign and security policy should more closely dovetail with development policy. In view of the fact, that development cooperation (DC) has specific operational experiences, particularly in relation to weak states, development policy needs to assume a proactive stance towards the ESS. In order to become an important player in European security policy, development policy needs to confront the task of aggregating its large operational experiences into strategic concepts on how development policy can contribute explicitly in erasing the socioeconomic foundations of the existing transnational threats to European security. Furthermore, development policy's aim of providing significant contributions to Europe's new security p

What drives European donors to support or dismiss budget support as ain aid instrument? Our empirical analysis shows that government ideology, economic circumstances and bureaucratic structures have played a key role in explaining the different preferences of European donors.

There has been a heated debate around Europe’s identity in the field of democracy promotion. Yet, we know little about the preferences of European citizens in this area of foreign policy. This study is the first rigorous analysis on Europeans’ support for democracy promotion in general and democracy

Das Buch schildert die Bemühungen Chiles und Mexikos um einen Ausbau ihrer außenpolitischen und außenwirtschaftlichen Beziehungen zu den Staaten des pazifischen Asiens von 1989 - 1999. Dabei wird mittels eines theoretisch geleiteten Mehrebenenmodells versucht zu erklären, welche Faktoren für Erfolg bzw. Misserfolg dieser Diversifizierungsbestrebungen ausschlaggebend waren.