About Eric Mvukiyehe

I’m an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science (tenured track) and a Faculty Affiliate at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). My academic and policy research interests focus on the political economy of conflict, development and peacebuilding in fragile states, with ongoing projects on the links between employment opportunities and social stability, the micro-foundations of peacekeeping and peacebuilding interventions in post-conflict processes, the strengthening of state capacity through reforming the civil service and traditional institutions, child development, and women’s empowerment, among other topics.

Prior to joining the Duke Faculty, Eric was an Economist at the World Bank’s Research Department where I helped establish the Evidence for Peace (E4P) Program whose goal was to generate rigorous knowledge through policy experimentation and provide evidence-based guide to policy action. I also consulted for the United Nations’ Office of Internal Oversight Services, Inspection and Evaluation Division (OIOS-IED) where I led evaluations of peacekeeping missions in Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia using local population surveys.

Aside from the four primary research areas, my work also focuses on investigating the effects of a variety of development interventions, including employment programs or WASH on health (public, child and mental) outcomes. I am currently the PI on a 4-year, NIH-funded project entitled, “Effects of parents’ participation in public work programs on children’s health and education in select low- and middle-income countries,”which leverages six of previous public works RCTs in the Comoros, DRC, Egypt and Tunisia to investigate long-run impacts of public works investments on child outcomes broadly defined to include child labor, health and education, among others. I also have ongoing research projects that investigate: (i) the potential for online labor markets and jobs matching interventions to provide new opportunities to the poor and vulnerable individuals; (ii) the political economy of state legitimacy and tax morale in fragile settings; (iii) the micro-foundations of civilian protection and preferences in conflict and post-conflict processes; and (iv) potential complementarities and substitution between the state and local or traditional institutions.

My research has been published in the Review of Economics and Statistics (RESTAT); theJournal of Development Economics (JDE)the British Journal of Political Science (BJPOLS)Journal of Conflict Resolution (JCR); the Journal of Peace Research (JPR); the Comparative Political Studies (CPS); the >World Politics (WP); the Quarterly Journal of Political Science (QJPS); the World Development (WD); Journal Of Development Studies (JDS); World Bank Economic Review (WBER); the World Bank Research Observer (WBRO); PLOS-Medecine; the BMJ Global Health; and the Tropical Medicine and International Health (TMIH), among other outlets.

I hold a Ph.D. in Political Science from  Columbia University (2014), with focus on international security/relations, political economy, and comparative politics.