Max Gallien is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) located at the University of Sussex, a Fellow at the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD), and a Senior Fellow at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (GITOC). He is a political scientist specialising in the politics of informal and illegal economies, the political economy of development, and the modern politics of the Middle East and North Africa. Florian Weigand is the Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Armed Groups at the Overseas Development Institute and a Research Associate at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He works on armed conflict, illicit economies, and international interventions, and explores the politics and societal dynamics of conflict zones, borderlands, and other complex environments. He is the author of Conflict and Transnational Crime: Borders, Bullets & Business in Southeast Asia and Waiting for Dignity: Legitimacy and Authority in Afghanistan.