Strife
Assisting Uncertainty: How Humanitarian Aid can Inadvertently Prolong Civil War
Neil Narang
International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Humanitarian aid has rapidly emerged as a core component of modern peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction. However, some practitioners and policymakers claim that humanitarian assistance may actually prolong conflict. The current debate about the effect of humanitarian aid on conflict underspecifies causal mechanisms and takes place largely through case studies. I use a bargaining framework to argue that aid can inadvertently increase each combatant's uncertainty about the other side's relative strength, thereby prolonging civil war. I test my argument using panel data on cross-national humanitarian aid expenditures. From 1989 to 2008, increased levels of humanitarian assistance lengthen civil wars, particularly those involving rebels on the outskirts of a state. This result suggests that policymakers need to carefully consider whether the specific benefits provided by humanitarian aid outweigh the risk of prolonging civil conflicts, and to look for methods of disbursement that reduce that risk.
----------------------
Workers of the World, Unite! Franchise Extensions and the Threat of Revolution in Europe, 1820–1938
Toke Aidt & Peter Jensen
European Economic Review, November 2014, Pages 52–75
Abstract:
We test the hypothesis that the extension of the voting franchise in Europe was related to the threat of revolution. We contend that international diffusion of regime contention and information about revolutionary events happening in neighboring countries generate the necessary variation in the perceived threat of revolution. Using two samples of European countries covering the period from 1820 to 1938, we find robust evidence which is consistent with the ‘threat of revolution hypothesis’. We also find some evidence that war triggered suffrage reform.
----------------------
Predicting Winners in Civil Wars
Stephen Haber et al.
Stanford Working Paper, August 2014
Abstract:
We develop a method to estimate which side will win a civil war. The key insight we deliver is that, for typical sovereign debt contracts, the probability of debt repayment will equal the probability of victory in a civil war. We test our predictor for standard outcomes in civil wars, including when the incumbent government loses (the Chinese Nationalists), when a new government is installed by a foreign power and decides to repudiate debt (the restoration of Ferdinand VII of Spain), and when there is a secession (the U.S. Confederacy). For China, markets were predicting a Communist victory three years before it happened. For the U.S., markets never gave the South much more than a 40 percent chance of maintaining the Confederacy. For Spain, markets considered the restoration of Ferdinand VII as likely (probabilities above 50%) as soon as France declared its intention to send military forces to the area.
----------------------
Why Europe Avoided Hegemony: A Historical Perspective on the Balance of Power
Jørgen Møller
International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent work demonstrates that the European state system — which, since the Middle Ages, saw the recurrent formation of balances of power — constitutes a historical exception rather than the rule among anarchic international systems. In this study, I set out to explain why Europe avoided hegemony. I argue that the character of state–society relations at the time of intensified geopolitical competition leads to different systemwide outcomes with respect to balancing and hegemony. Where multiple privileged groups already exist, rulers must negotiate with a range of societal actors to extract revenue and resources for warfare. This further entrenches institutional constraints on rulers and the privileges enjoyed by societal groups, which in turn make it difficult for rulers to convert conquest into further expansion. In the absence of preexisting multiple privileged groups, however, geopolitical competition instead further weakens the ability of societal actors to check their rulers. This dynamic creates a return-to-scale logic that facilitates systemwide conquest. My argument accounts for the diverging trajectories of, on the one hand, medieval and early modern Europe and, on the other hand, ancient China — where the state of Qin eliminated its rivals and established universal domination.
----------------------
On Malaria and the Duration of Civil War
Benjamin Bagozzi
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
Geographic factors such as rugged terrain and distance from capital cities are widely believed to prolong civil wars by enabling rebel groups to resist total defeat. This article argues that prevalence of malaria can similarly serve to asymmetrically enhance rebels’ defensive capabilities and thus prolong civil war. Malaria prevalence does so in three complementary ways. First, while malaria can inflict costs on both government and rebel troops, these costs are magnified for larger and denser human groups; thereby ensuring that the costs of malaria will often be higher among government troop deployments. Second, because government soldiers are rotated in and out of conflict zones whereas insurgents typically are not, the former are likely to have a higher nonimmune exposure rate than the latter, which further ensures that government forces will be more susceptible to contracting and spreading malaria. Third, malaria can also indirectly prolong civil war by helping to maintain a socio-geographic environment that is conducive to insurgency. These three complementary factors advantage rebel forces’ abilities to resist defeat by government forces and prolong civil conflicts. I empirically test these arguments by examining the duration of civil wars and find strong support for a prolonging effect of malaria on civil conflict.
----------------------
Elizabeth Stoycheff & Erik Nisbet
Political Communication, Fall 2014, Pages 628-646
Abstract:
Recent world events have highlighted the democratic potential of information and communication technologies. This article draws upon the democracy literature to develop a multilevel conceptual framework that links country-level Internet penetration and individual-level Internet use to citizen attitudes about governance in 34 developing countries. In doing so, it deconstructs “Internet penetration” into three dimensions — hardware (e.g., computers), users, and broadband — to provide greater theoretical specificity about how Internet diffusion leads citizens to adopt democratic attitudes. Results from multilevel analyses indicate that individual Internet use and the diffusion of Internet hardware shape citizens’ perceptions of the supply of democracy in their countries, and individual Internet use and diffusion of broadband lead citizens to adopt stronger democratic preferences. Theoretical and normative implications are discussed.
----------------------
Alternative framing: The effect of the Internet on political support in authoritarian China
Min Tang & Narisong Huhe
International Political Science Review, November 2014, Pages 559-576
Abstract:
This study seeks to identify and test a mechanism through which the Internet influences public support in an authoritarian environment in which alternative information is strictly censored by the state. Through online discussions, web users often interpret sanctioned news information in directions different from or even opposite to the intention of the authoritarian state. This alternative framing on the Internet can strongly affect the political views of web users. Through an experimental study conducted in China, we find that subjects exposed to alternative online framing generally hold lower levels of policy support and evaluate government performance more negatively. This finding implies that even though the access to information on sensitive topics is effectively controlled by the government, the diffusion capabilities of the Internet can still undermine the support basis of the seemingly stable authoritarian regime.
----------------------
Internally Displaced Populations and Suicide Terrorism
Seung-Whan Choi & James Piazza
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study asserts that countries with large internally displaced populations (IDPs) are more likely to experience a higher rate of suicide terrorism. After demonstrating this, the study tests four intervening factors hypothesized to drive the relationship between IDPs and suicide attacks: IDPs are expected (1) to increase the pool of potential suicide recruits, thereby lowering the labor costs for suicide terrorist groups; (2) to increase local ethnic conflicts that foster a favorable environment for suicide terrorism; (3) to worsen the human rights conditions in countries, prompting aggrieved people to support suicide terrorist tactics; and (4) to raise the counterterrorism and policing costs of the state, enabling terrorists to plan and execute suicide attacks. Results from negative binomial regression and Tobit models show evidence for the IDPs-suicide terrorism connection. When recursive models are employed to evaluate the effects of four intervening variables, the results most consistently support human rights violations as a significant and substantive mediator between IDPs and suicide attacks.
----------------------
Climate Shocks, State Capacity and Peasant Uprisings in North China during 25–1911 CE
Qiang Chen
Economica, forthcoming
Abstract:
China provides an interesting case study of civil conflict because of her long history and rich records. Using a unique dynastic panel dataset for north China during 25–1911 ce, this study finds that severe famines and dynastic age were positively correlated with peasant uprisings, whereas government disaster relief as a proxy for state capacity played a significant mitigating role. Negative climate shocks (e.g. severe drought, locust plagues) affected peasant uprisings primarily through the channel of severe famines. The effects of population density, temperature and other climate shocks (e.g. flood, levee breaches, snow disasters) were either not robust or insignificant.
----------------------
Dursun Peksen
Foreign Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
What domestic policies do targeted regimes pursue to survive economic sanctions? Despite an abundance of research on the use and effectiveness of sanctions, scant research has been conducted on the domestic sources of the target's defiance to foreign pressure. This study explores the extent to which sanctions prompt the target regime to manipulate the domestic economic conditions through arbitrary confiscation and redistribution of private property and wealth. It is argued that economic coercion as a direct threat to political survival and coercive capacity of the target government creates incentives for politically insecure elites to engage in the policy of predation to counter the negative economic effects of the coercion on themselves and their constituency. Using time-series cross-national data from 1960 to 2005, the results indicate that as sanctions exact significant economic damage on the economy, the target government is more likely to pursue predatory policies. Further, the suggested impact of sanctions on property rights abuses does not appear to be conditioned by political regime type of the target and the involvement of the United States or multiple countries in the imposition of sanctions. Focusing on the government use of predatory policies to evade foreign pressure, this study expands the current understanding of sanction ineffectiveness in pressuring the government to acquiesce to external demands. It also shows that one major inadvertent consequence of sanctions is the deterioration of the economic security and private property rights of citizens in target countries.
----------------------
Anti-Poverty Programs Can Reduce Violence: India's Rural Employment Guarantee and Maoist Conflict
Aditya Dasgupta, Kishore Gawande & Devesh Kapur
Harvard Working Paper, September 2014
Abstract:
We estimate the effects of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), one of the world’s largest anti-poverty programs, on the Maoist conflict in India. Difference in differences analyses, based on the phased roll-out of NREGS across districts between 2006 and 2008 and a new panel dataset on Maoist conflict violence based on local language press sources, show that NREGS adoption caused a roughly 80% reduction in violent incidents and deaths. This effect was not driven by pre-adoption trends and emerged after three quarter-years of program adoption. We provide evidence for an opportunity cost channel by showing that NREGS’ violence reducing effects impacted all targets of violence and were larger in districts experiencing negative rainfall shocks. The results provide new evidence that large-scale anti-poverty programs represent an important policy tool for mitigating violent civil conflict.
----------------------
Cues to Coup Plotters: Elections as Coup Triggers in Dictatorships
Tore Wig & Espen Geelmuyden Rød
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
A large proportion of coup attempts in autocracies occur in the aftermath of elections, yet little systematic research exists on the topic. Drawing on recent literature on elections in autocracies, we present an argument to explain postelection coups. While we recognize that electoral institutions have the potential to stabilize autocracies, we illustrate that the election event can spark instability when incumbents reveal electoral weakness. Electoral outcomes — in the form of vote shares and opposition reactions — are signals containing information about the strength of the opposition, and indirectly about the likelihood of a successful full-scale revolution that would compromise the privileged positions of regime elites. In these situations, coups are likely to be initiated to avoid a revolution, either by serving as concessions to the opposition or by facilitating increased repression. We perform a large-N study that supports our argument, significantly nuancing the claim that elections stabilize autocracies.
----------------------
Transnational Ethnic Kin and Civil War Outcomes
Mehmet Gurses
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
The literature on the transnational dimension of civil wars points to transnational ethnic kin as an important catalyst that initiates and sustains civil wars. Ethnic ties that transcend national boundaries, these studies argue, intensify the conflict by providing sanctuaries as well as human and material resources to the rebels. In this study, I argue that the same transborder ethnic ties make it more difficult for the government to achieve a decisive victory and contribute to outcomes more favorable to rebels. These networks can help create a more balanced relationship between an ethnic group and a previously antagonistic state by increasing the political, economic, and military costs of repression for the government. An analysis of ethnic civil wars starting and ending between 1950 and 2006 demonstrates that civil wars fought by ethnically mobilized rebel groups are more likely to be negotiated and settled in favor of rebels who have ethnic kin in a neighboring country.
----------------------
Corruption and Ideology in Autocracies
James Hollyer & Leonard Wantchekon
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Corruption is usually depicted in one of two ways: as stemming from a lack of government accountability, or from a lack of capacity. Neither depiction predicts that the structure of institutions meant to control corruption should vary across autocratic regimes. If corruption results from moral hazard between politicians and citizens, then all unaccountable governments should eschew anticorruption bodies. If rent-seeking stems from moral hazard between politicians and bureaucrats, all governments should create anticorruption bodies. We offer an explanation for why unaccountable governments vary in their willingness to create anticorruption institutions. Autocrats create such bodies to deter ideologically disaffected members of the populace from entering the bureaucracy. Anticorruption institutions act as a commitment by the elite to restrict the monetary benefits from bureaucratic office, thus ensuring that only zealous supporters of the elite will pursue bureaucratic posts. We illustrate these arguments with case studies of South Korea and Rwanda.
----------------------
Tyrants and Terrorism: Why Some Autocrats are Terrorized While Others are Not
Courtenay Conrad, Justin Conrad & Joseph Young
International Studies Quarterly, September 2014, Pages 539–549
Abstract:
Conventional wisdom suggests that reports of terrorism should be sparse in dictatorships, both because such violence is unlikely to result in policy change and because it is difficult to get reliable information on attacks. Yet, there is variance in the number of terrorist attacks reported in autocracies. Why? We argue that differences in the audience costs produced by dictatorships explain why some nondemocracies experience more terrorism than others. Terrorists are more likely to expect a response in dictatorships that generate high domestic audience costs. Using data from multiple terrorism databases, we find empirical evidence that dictatorships generating higher audience costs — military dictatorships, single-party dictatorships, and dynastic monarchies — experience as much terrorism as democracies, while autocracies generating lower audience costs — personalist dictatorships and non-dynastic monarchies — face fewer attacks than their democratic counterparts.