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Most nuclear dyads are characterized by some degree of nuclear and conventional asymmetry. This paper argues that these asymmetries create an environment in which deliberate nuclear first use (DNFU) can be rational. This possibility has been discarded in the formal literature on nuclear escalation because of the common reliance on the assumption of mutually assured destruction (MAD). This paper develops a formal model that traces how and under what circumstances two types of DNFU are rational. First, nuclear imbalances and advancements in counterforce technologies create a damage limitation incentive for a strong actor. Second, conventional asymmetry creates an incentive for the coercive use of nuclear weapons by the weaker player. Moreover, this paper illustrates that these asymmetric conditions are a relevant characteristic in important and very different nuclear dyads: DPRK–US, Pakistan–India, and Russia–US. Thus, the model demonstrates the potential core drivers of DNFU in today's nuclear landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have found restrictions on minority faith-based communities to be related to the onset of violent religious hostilities. Absent from this work, though, is a consideration of the fact that minority religious discrimination can take different forms, and, consequently, may encourage violence in different ways. This paper seeks to fill this void by examining different forms of minority religious restrictions and their relationship to religious violence. Specifically, we analyze the comparative strength of three basic types of religious discrimination—restrictions on minority religious practices, restrictions on minority religious institutions, and restrictions on conversion and proselytizing —on violence carried out by both religious majority groups and religious minority groups. Interestingly, our analysis shows all three forms of restrictions encourage violence from religious majorities, but not from minorities. We supplement the statistical analysis with a case study of faith-based discrimination and violent religious hostilities in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars demonstrate a consistent negative relationship between gender equality and violence, the effect of women's rights on the quality of terrorism and the type of victims targeted remains unexplored. This article introduces a new model of terrorists' strategic targeting by examining the trade-off between the ease of a civilian-oriented attack and the negative public reaction these attacks invoke. Within this framework, gender equality increases the costs of civilian targeting by inducing public opinion costs. As gender equality increases, the costs of attacking civilians increase relatively more than government-oriented attacks. Using data on domestic terrorism between 1970 and 2007 and a subnational examination of a randomly implemented gender quota in India, this study demonstrates that as gender equality increases, the ratio of civilian-oriented to government-oriented attacks decreases. Overall, this study refines our understanding of terrorists' strategic targeting and identifies heterogeneity in the Women, Peace, and Security theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can governments still use trade to reward and punish partner countries? While World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and the pressures of globalization restrict states' capacity to manipulate trade policies, politicization of trade is likely to occur where governments intervene in markets. We examine state ownership of firms as one tool of government control. Taking China and India as examples, we use new data on bilateral trade disaggregated by firm ownership type as well as measures of political relations based on bilateral events and United Nations voting data to estimate the effect of political relations on import flows since the early 1990s. Our results support the hypothesis that imports controlled by state-owned enterprises are more responsive to political relations than imports controlled by private enterprises. This finding suggests that politicized import decisions will increase as countries with partially state-controlled economies gain strength in the global economy. Extending our analysis to exports for comparison, we find a similar pattern for Indian but not for Chinese exports and offer potential explanations for these differential findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interesting stream of the civil conflict literature has identified an important subset of civil conflicts with disastrous consequences, that is, those that emerge as a consequence of shocks to renewable natural resources like land and water. This literature is, however, reliant on qualitative case studies when claiming a causal relationship leading from renewable resource shocks to conflict. In this article, we seek to advance the literature by drawing out the implications of a well-known formal model of the renewable resources–conflict relationship and then conducting rigorous statistical tests of its implications in the case of a serious ongoing civil conflict in India. We find that a one standard deviation decrease in our measure of renewable resources increases killings by nearly 60 percent over the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An index of ethnic segregation conveys the extent of spatial mixing of ethnic groups, whereas an index of ethnic polarization and similar diversity measures show the overall balance between the groups. We present a game-theoretic model of conflict in which local success of one ethnic group encourages attacks by its co-ethnics in neighboring areas. Conditional on conflict breaking out, we find that for highly ethnically polarized societies, increasing ethnic segregation decreases the incidence and intensity of conflict. In contrast, in societies with low ethnic polarization, increasing segregation increases conflict. This is because segregation and polarization jointly determine the spread of conflict, an important channel that has been neglected previously. We find strong empirical support for model predictions in two very different conflicts: Hindu–Muslim riots in the 1980s and 1990s in India and the Bosnian Civil War from 1992 to 1995. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the determinants of household riot victimization, based on a unique survey collected in Maharashtra, India. We adopt a multilevel framework that allows neighborhood and district effects to randomly influence household victimization. We find that economically vulnerable households, households living close to unsafe areas, and shop owners are more prone to suffer from riots. Households report lower levels of victimization if they live further from police stations, exhibit higher levels of trust, are able to rely on outside help in times of need and accumulate savings. The results show, however, a double-edge effect of income: wealthier households are better able to cope with the adverse effects of riots, but also have more to lose from riots and are more exposed to opportunistic violence and looting. We find further that affluent neighborhoods and neighborhoods where caste fragmentation is high report higher levels of victimization. Neighborhoods with stronger social interactions experience lower levels of victimization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]