Events

30 June 2026

Webinar: The politics of passage – New research on checkpoints and revenue in conflict

Flyer of the webinar on roadblocks and the politics of passage

Across conflict-affected settings, checkpoints are much more than barriers to movement. They are sites where authority is asserted, revenues are collected, and power is negotiated. This webinar launches the Development and Change special issue, The Politics of Passage: Checkpoints and Authority amidst Conflict, drawing on the Roadblocks and Revenues research series, a partnership between the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD), the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), and the Centre on Armed Groups (CAG).

From Myanmar to Colombia, spanning East India, Afghanistan, Iran and Venezuela, contributors will present new research on how checkpoints shape governance and everyday life in conflict contexts. The presentation will be followed by a discussion of the implications for policy and future research.

 

Meet the speakers:

The series’ co-editors:

The series’ contributors and focus countries:

Event Details
Date
30 June 2026
Time
-
Register

Vanessa van den Boogaard

Vanessa van den Boogaard is a Research Fellow at ICTD and a Senior Research Associate at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. She completed her PhD thesis on informal revenue generation and statebuilding in Sierra Leone, and has ongoing research on the topic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, and Somalia. Vanessa co-leads ICTD's research programme on informality and tax.

Max Gallien

Max Gallien is a Research Fellow at ICTD. His research specialises in the politics of informal and illegal economies, the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa and development politics. He completed his PhD at the London School of Economics. Max co-leads the informality and taxation programme with Vanessa, as well as the ICTD’s capacity building programme.

Peer Schouten

Peer Schouten is a senior researcher at DIIS and an associate researcher at the International Peace Information Service in Antwerp. His research focuses on order in conflict, with a focus on the role of roadblocks and transit taxes in conflict and state formation; mineral extraction and conflict economies; and the politics of logistics and infrastructure. He has extensive research experience in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan.

Shalaka Thakur

Shalaka Thakur is a PhD candidate at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, where she works on the role of power in conflict zones. She has been conducting extensive field research in north-east India over the last decade, looking at armed group governance, local political economy and borderland politics.

Florian Weigand

Florian Weigand is the Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Armed Groups at ODI and a Research Associate at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His work focuses on armed groups, illicit economies and international interventions and explores the politics and societal dynamics of conflict zones, borderlands, and other complex environments. He has conducted extensive research in South Asia and Southeast Asia and is the author of Waiting for Dignity: Legitimacy and Authority in Afghanistan (Columbia University Press, 2022) and Conflict and Transnational Crime: Borders, Bullets & Business in Southeast Asia (Edward Elgar, 2020) and the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Smuggling (Routledge, 2021).

Sarajuddin Isar

Dr. Sarajuddin Isar is a political economy scholar specialising in conflict and development studies, with particular expertise in state and rebel taxation, foreign aid, and state-building. He was a Radboud Excellence Fellow at the Centre for International Conflict Analysis and Management (CICAM) at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands and holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Prior to joining academia, Dr. Isar worked with several international organisations in both the United Kingdom and Afghanistan and served as Chief of Staff at the Central Bank of Afghanistan. He is a published author and has contributed to numerous peer-reviewed journals, media outlets, and policy think tanks worldwide.

John Buchanan

John Buchanan is the Director of Communications at the Institute for Strategy & Policy - Myanmar. John's publications include Militias in Myanmar for the Asia Foundation, and he has recently completed a PhD at the University of Washington examining the role played by local strongmen in Burma's Shan State.

Jorge Mantilla

Jorge is a political scientist, who holds Ph.D. in Criminology Law and Justice. He has worked as a practitioner and analyst with public agencies and international organizations on topics related to armed conflict, public safety, and drug policy. His current interests are criminal governance, proxy wars, and organized violence.

Gerard McCarthy

Gerard McCarthy is Assistant Professor of Social Policy and Development at International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague (part of Erasmus University of Rotterdam). He specialises in the politics of inequality and development in Southeast Asia, especially Myanmar where he has researched democracy, welfare and authoritarian legacies since 2013.

Kyle Nyana

Kyle Nyana is a Burmese doctoral candidate with 15 years of research leadership in Myanmar. Since 2021, he has studied rebel governance and collectivism in rural areas administered by resistance forces. His work appears in volumes from the Yusof Ishak Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore) and the Institut de recherche sur l'Asie du Sud-Est contemporaine (Bangkok).

Peyman Zinati

Peyman Zinati is a PhD candidate at the University of Exeter.
Research theme: ,
Programme:
Keywords: armed conflict, fragile and conflict-affected countries, Roadblock taxation