Daniel Esser

I have conducted field research on urban politics, local governance reform, and policies’ impact in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and most recently Pakistan, and have received grants from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the MIT-Mellon Inter-University Committee on International Migration. I have also been a pre-doctoral Research Fellow in the Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) at MIT and a Fellow of the Carlo Schmid Program (which receives funding from the DAAD, the Robert Bosch Foundation, and the German National Academic Foundation, a.k.a. Studienstiftung).

In addition to research on urban politics, I am interested in and have published on global health-related challenges, especially the politics of agenda-setting and donor funding priorities. Supported by an American University International Travel Award for Faculty, I am going to spend one month later this year on collecting primary data on intra-organizational agenda-setting within one of the leading aid agencies.

Peer-reviewed articles

Does Global Health Funding Respond to Recipients’ Needs? Comparing Public and Private Donors’ Allocations in 2005-2007 (with K. Keating Bench), World Development 39(8), pp. 1271-1280 (2011).

More Money, Less Cure: Why Global Health Assistance Needs Restructuring, Ethics & International Affairs 23(2), pp. 225–234 (2009).

Postwar Political Restructuring in Freetown and Kabul: Theoretical Limits and the Test Case for Multiscalar Governance, Critical Planning 16, Summer, pp. 80–97 (2009).

From Stakeholder Management to Stakeholder Accountability: Applying Habermasian Discourse Ethics to Accountability Research (with A. Rasche), Journal of Business Ethics 65(3), pp. 251–267 (2006).

The City as Arena, Hub and Prey: Patterns of Violence in Kabul and Karachi, Environment & Urbanization 16(2), pp. 31–38 (2004).

Plurality as Challenge and Opportunity: Suggestions for an Effective Process of Scientific Elite Formation (in German; with C.E. Rieck and M. Tegethoff), Gesellschaft Wirtschaft Politik 53(3), pp. 11–17 (2004).

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Co-edited book

Restructuring for Corporate Success: A Socially Sensitive Approach (with A. Broughton, T. Marpe, P. Ozoux and N. Rogovsky; eds.), Geneva: International Labour Office, 142 pages (2006).

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Book chapters

Kabul: Urban Politics Since Zaher Shah, in: E. Yarshater (ed.), Encyclopædia Iranica (Volume XV, Fascicle 3), New York, NY: Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation, pp. 306–310 (2009).

From Stakeholder Management to Stakeholder Accountability: Applying Habermasian Discourse Ethics to Accountability Research (with A. Rasche), in: S. Carter, S. Clegg, M. Kornberger, S. Laske and M. Messner (eds.), Business Ethics As Practice: Representation, Reflexivity and Performance, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 107–127 (2007).

Target Kabul: human insecurity in the Afghan capital, in: humansecurity-cities.org (eds.), Human Security for an Urban Century: Local Challenges, Global Perspectives, Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, pp. 14–15 (2007).

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Selected research reports and policy papers

Do No Harm: International Support for Statebuilding (with J. Putzel and L. Moens), Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (January 2010).

Who governs Kabul? Explaining urban politics in a post-war capital city, Cities and Fragile States Analytical Paper 43 (series 2), London: LSE Crisis States Research Programme (February 2009).

How local is urban governance in fragile states? Theory and Practice of Capital City Politics in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, PhD thesis, London: London School of Economics and Political Science (May 2008).

Democratic Governance for Human Development: Conceptual Outline of UNDP’s approach to Democratic Governance, New York, NY: United Nations Development Programme (May 2008).

Determinants of IDP Voice: Four Cases from Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, Rosemarie Rogers Working Paper 31, Cambridge, MA: Center for International Studies (August 2005).

Shaping Urban Futures: Challenges to Governing and Managing Afghan Cities (with J. Beall), AREU Issues Paper, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (March 2005).

International Labour Standards and Management: Frequently Asked Questions, MCC Working Paper 4, Geneva: International Labour Office (May 2002).

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I am regularly presenting my research at international conferences, workshops, and lectures. Below are some recent examples:

• Systemic Failure: MDG Accountability and Organizational Learning in the United Nations, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, New York, NY, 24–28 February 2012.
• Security Scales: Situating Endemic Violence in Kabul, Afghanistan, paper presented at “Violent Cities: Challenges of Democracy, Development and Governance in the Urban Global South,” Watson Institute, Brown University, Providence, RI, 28-29 April 2011.
• From National Hub to International Hubris: The Overdetermination of Kabul and the New Politics of Scale in Afghanistan, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Seattle, WA, 12–16 April 2011.
• Inequality Eclipsed: The Normalization of Neoliberalism in Thirty Years of Development Discourse, talk at George Mason University’s International Economic Policy Seminar, Arlington, VA, 7 April 2011.
• Winning Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan: Great Idea or Not?, lecture at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, American University, Washington, DC, 7 April 2011.
• Aid Effectiveness, invited lecture to 55 newly recruited field staff of USAID’s Office of Democracy and Governance, Washington, DC, 30 November 2010.
• Why Work in International Development Despite the Industry’s Abysmal Track Record?, talk given (in German) as part of a panel on “Taking Initiative for a Better World,” Carlo Schmid Network Annual Meeting, Berlin, 5 November 2010.
• The Transformative Power of Chinese Investment in Urban Africa: Toward Case Selection (with Du Liang and Leslie Roe), paper presented at the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 2–5 September 2010.
• How Poverty Trumps Inequality: A Tracer Study of Development Discourse (with Ben Williams), paper presented at the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 2–5 September 2010.
• Afghanistan: International Failure Is Local, talk given as part of a panel on “Critical Geographies of the Afghanistan Occupation,” Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Washington, DC, 14–18 April 2010.
• Teaching Interdisciplinarity to Multidisciplinary Student Cohorts: From Disarmament to Empowerment, paper presented as part of the ‘Teaching Research Methods’ track, 2010 APSA Teaching and Learning Conference, Philadelphia, PA, 5–7 February 2010.
• Metropolitan Growth and Security in Asia-Pacific: Correcting the Dislocation of Public Policy, paper presented at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Toronto, ON, 4 September 2009.
• Funding Foci, Cost Effectiveness, and Recipients’ Priorities for Global Health, co-authored paper presented at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Toronto, ON, 4 September 2009.
• International Health and Development, invited lecture at Columbia University’s School of Social Work, New York City, 24 March 2009.
• Black Box and White Noise: Teaching Methods for Research on International Conflict, paper presented as part of the ‘Teaching Research Methods’ track, 2009 APSA Teaching and Learning Conference, Baltimore, MD, 6–8 February 2009.
• Inter-Organizational Cooperation and Global Health, invited lecture at New York University, Executive Master’s Program in Global Public Health, New York City, 15 September 2008.
• Urbanization in the dock: poverty, conflict, and urban governance in Asia-Pacific, paper presented at the UNU-WIDER Project Workshop “Beyond the Tipping Point: Development in an Urban World,” London, 20 October 2007.
• Letting Kabul be? Overdetermination and the Challenge of Governance, paper presented at the Crisis States Research Programme Annual Workshop, Cape Town, 21 August 2007.
• Inclusive Governance in Conflict Cities: Achieving Safety and Security through Local Cooperation (with J. Beall and J. Sumich), panel discussion on the occasion of the World Urban Forum III, Vancouver, 22 June 2006.
• Analysing politics of public policies for Freetown: Does the case of an African post-war city warrant conceptual revision?, paper presented at the Centre d’étude d’Afrique noire, Bordeaux, 3 March 2006.
• Governance in Sierra Leone (with D. Keen), pre-visit briefing of the UK House of Commons’ International Development Committee, London, 2 February 2006.