• "Tracing Poverty and Inequality in International Development Discourses: An Algorithmic and Visual Analysis of Agencies’ Annual Reports and Occasional White Papers, 1978-2010" (with B. Williams), accepted for publication and forthcoming in Journal of Social Policy, 2014.
• "The Political Economy of Post-Invasion Kabul, Afghanistan: Urban Restructuring Beyond the North-South Divide," accepted for publication and forthcoming in Urban Studies, 2013.
• "Ageing as a Global Public Health Challenge: From Complexity Reduction to Aid Effectiveness" (with P. Ward), accepted for publication and forthcoming in Global Public Health, 2013.
• "Social Media and Global Development Rituals: A Content Analysis of Blogs and Tweets on the 2010 MDG Summit" (with T. Denskus), Third World Quarterly 34(3), pp. 409-424, 2013.
• "‘When We Launched the Government’s Agenda…’: Aid Agencies and Local Politics in Urban Africa," The Journal of Modern African Studies 50(3), pp. 397-420, 2012.
• "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.
• "Postwar Political Restructuring in Freetown and Kabul: Theoretical Limits and the Test Case for Multiscalar Governance," Critical Planning 16, pp. 80-97, 2009.
• "More Money, Less Cure: Why Global Health Assistance Needs Radical Restructuring," Ethics & International Affairs 23(2), pp. 225-234, 2009.
• "Kabul: Urban Politics from Mohammad Zaher Shah to Hamid Karzai," in: E. Yarshater (ed.), Encyclopædia Iranica (Volume XV, Fascicle 3), New York, NY: Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation, pp. 306-310, 2009.
• "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, 2009.
• "Managing for Compliance and Integrity in Practice" (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.
• "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.

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

• Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Academic Resident (2013)
• SSRC Program on Drugs, Security and Development (DSD), Research Fellow (2012-13)
• MIT Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS), Research Fellow (2003-2004)
• LSE Development Studies Institute, Best Performance Prize (2003)
• LSE Graduate School, Graduate Merit Award (2002)
• Carlo Schmid Program (Robert Bosch Foundation, DAAD, German National Academic Foundation), Fellow in the International Labour Office, Job Creation and Enterprise Development Department (2001-02)

Professional Presentations

• Aiding Urban Poverty Reduction in the Global South, 2000-2010: What Explains Inter-Agency Variation in the Geographic Distribution of Funds? (with Aafreen T. Kidwai; Esser and Kidwai contributed equally), paper accepted for the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, LA (meeting canceled last-minute due to hurricane Isaac), 30 August-2 September 2012.
• Do Social Media Reproduce or Challenge Global Development Rituals? A Content Analysis of Blogs and Tweets on the 2010 MDG Summit (with Tobias Denskus; Denskus and Esser contributed equally), paper accepted the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, LA (panel held virtually due to hurricane Isaac; video is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyEHgWyqDAM), 30 August-2 September 2012.
• "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.
• "Chinese Capital in African Cities: Underground, Overground?," paper presented at "The Ground Beneath Our Feet: Building, Living, and Thinking Underground," American University, Washington, DC, 11 November 2011.
• "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.
•  "Aid Effectiveness," occasional lecture to newly recruited field staff of USAID’s Office of Democracy and Governance, Washington, DC, November 2010-current.
• "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.

Grants and Sponsored Research

• Social Science Research Council, DSD Fellowship (2012-2013)
• AU School of International Service, Conference Travel Award (2012)
• AU International Travel Award for Faculty (2012)
• AU School of International Service, Dean's Summer Research Award (2012)
• AU School of International Service, Summer Research Grant (2011)
• AU School of International Service, Summer Research Grant (2010)
• German National Academic Foundation, Doctoral Grant for top 1% of German doctoral students (2004-2006)
• Mellon-MIT Program on NGOs and Forced Migration, Research Grant (2004)
• Economic and Social Research Council, +3 Award for Doctoral Studies (2003-2007)
• German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Doctoral Stipend for the UK (2003-04)
• European Recovery Program, Pre-doctoral Grant (2003-04)
• Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust, Grant for research students (2003; declined)
• German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Grant for UK graduate school fees (2002-03)

Congressional Testimony

• "Governance in Sierra Leone," (with D. Keen) pre-visit briefing of the UK House of Commons’ International Development Committee, London, 2 February 2006.

Professional Certifications

• Certificate: Mediation and Participatory Processes (Program on Negotiation), Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA (May 2004)
• Certificate: Aspects of Public International Law (Euromediterranean Courses of International Law), Bancaja International Centre for Peace and Development, Castellón de la Plana, Spain (September 2002)
• Certificate: External Relations of the European Union (EU International Summer School), Université Libre de Bruxelles with Michigan State University, Brussels, Belgium (July 2001)