Search

Do survey participants in conflict zones respond differently if they have been interviewed before? Academic and policy interest in postwar political opinion has increased tremendously. One unexpected consequence of this surge of survey research is a growing probability that individuals will be interviewed multiple times. However, if participating in one survey causes respondents to change their attitudes or behavior, their subsequent survey responses may be biased in comparison to the rest of the sample population. Our article aims to investigate such 'survey participation effects' in conflict contexts. We draw on original survey data collected in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In our representative sample, 18% of respondents report that they have been interviewed before. Multivariate analyses demonstrate that their stated attitudes on social relations, political institutions, gender norms, and wartime victimization differ substantively from the responses of first-time interviewees. Moreover, our analyses indicate that experienced respondents have specific response styles – in particular, a tendency to support extreme response options. While substantive bias in multivariate analyses seems to be rather rare, our findings indicate that researchers should be aware of the footprints of data collection efforts in areas frequently targeted by household and opinion surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a large body of research has highlighted the conflict-inducing effects of climate change, we still know very little about the mechanisms linking environmental conditions to violent conflict. This article investigates the plausibility of a prominent channel according to which scarcity of natural resources can foster violent conflict through deteriorating intergroup relations. In addition to assessing the direct effects of adverse environmental conditions on intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic trust, we suggest a conditional argument on the role of horizontal inequality of hazard exposure. Environmental hazards are 'unequal' if they systematically affect ethnic groups differently. While inequality may reinforce intra-ethnic ties and out-group suspicion, equal hazard exposure may create a sense of unity among diverse victims in their collective struggle to cope with harsh environmental conditions. We test these arguments in the context of the severe drought periods that affected most East African countries in the years 2004 and 2005. The empirical analysis combines gridded information on drought severity with geo-located survey data across six countries in the region (Afrobarometer survey 2005/2006). Our main analyses find that exposure to drought hazards correlates positively with self-reported trust within and across ethnic groups. The latter association, however, depends on the degree of intergroup equality of hazard exposure and wanes as inequality increases. Taken together, these findings indicate that if droughts increase the risk of violent conflict, they seem to do so through mechanisms other than intergroup polarization and despite their positive association with ethnic trust. This is most likely the case in contexts where there is pronounced horizontal inequality of drought hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can aid create political trust in conflict-affected states? International aid organizations often argue that supporting states in providing basic services can contribute to strengthening state–society relations. Previous studies in international development have indicated that the provision of basic services can indeed improve people's attitudes towards state institutions. We take this research a step further: in addition to analysing the impact of aid on political trust, we assess how violence influences this effect. We argue that aid can create opportunities for constructive state–society interactions. As violence increases, however, development-related interactions are crowded out by security-related ones. Violence also fosters corrupt aid governance, which undermines the positive effects of aid on public perceptions. We analyse this hypothesis with a mixed-methods research design that combines original opinion survey data with qualitative interview material systematically collected in 252 villages of northeast Afghanistan. Based on a combination of (a) quantitative analyses, (b) a comparison of most-similar villages, (c) a systematic comparison of qualitative survey response patterns across levels of insecurity, and (d) an in-depth analysis of interview material on aid and trust in highly insecure areas, we show that violence negatively impacts the relative relevance as well as the quality of aid-related state–society interactions. These findings indicate that international aid agencies should refocus from mainly output-oriented project appraisal, design, and monitoring to a stronger process orientation that maximizes state–society interaction and prevents elite capture in areas exposed to high levels of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large body of research indicates that environmental conditions can influence the risk of social unrest. However, we know little about how these effects may change in the long run. Are they likely to remain constant or do they change over time – for example as a consequence of human adaptation? To investigate this question, we rely on a disaggregated analysis of England over a period of more than 300 years. Combining data on geo-referenced food riots with reconstructed climate data, we first assess the impact of annual temperatures on social unrest over the period 1500–1817. We then use our long-term time-series dataset to assess the temporal heterogeneity of year-to-year associations between temperatures and social conflict. Our models show a substantive negative correlation between temperatures and food riots in the aggregate. This association, however, seems to be highly inconsistent over time and largely confined to the 18th century. In addition, we find evidence of decadal processes of adaptation: past exposure to adverse weather conditions dampens the effect of current exposure. Taken together, these findings underline the importance of considering temporal heterogeneities when assessing the climate–conflict nexus and caution against any simple extrapolations of observable present-day effects of environmental conditions into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many authoritarian regimes selectively provide critical segments of the population with privileged access to goods and services, expecting political support in return. This article is interested in the effects of this regime strategy: Is violent opposition less likely to occur in subnational regions bound to the ruling elite through such patron–client networks? For its empirical analysis, the article makes use of crowdsourcing data on the number and geospatial distribution of fatalities in the Syrian civil war from March 2011 to November 2012. In terms of selective goods provision, the focus is on the electricity sector. Satellite images of the earth at night are used to proxy spatial variations in the public distribution of electricity in times of power shortages. These data are complemented with information from the last Syrian population census of 2004. Estimations from fixed effect logit models lend support to the hypothesis that the risk of violence has been lower in subdistricts that have been favored by the ruling regime in terms of preferential access to material goods. This hypothesis is further corroborated with qualitative evidence from Syrian localities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]