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This study examines empirically the impact of civil conflict on cross-border lending. Our sample covers 165 countries over the period 1984-2019 with loan data disaggregated at the economic sectoral level (primary, secondary and tertiary sectors), an analysis that is absent in existing literature. Our results indicate that cross-border lending to the primary sector is not significantly influenced by civil conflict, whereas cross-border lending to secondary and tertiary sectors is negatively impacted by the outbreak of civil conflict, leading to a decreased volume of loans or reversals of existing loans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We know that civil wars have negative and long-term consequences for public trust in state institutions. However, few studies have examined the post-peace challenges of rebuilding trust in state institutions. In this study, we utilise the case of Colombia to explore the impact of civil wars on the institutional trust of the police. We find that perspectives on abuse, punishment, and corruption are significant predictors of trust in the Colombian police. Further, we find that when we test all three phenomena together, perceptions of police abuse and experience with bribery are the key drivers of trust of police in Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does child soldiering attract mediation from democracies? While research shows an association between human rights and foreign intervention by democracies, democratic responsiveness to children's human rights violations remains understudied. This study argues that democracies are concerned about the wellbeing of vulnerable populations, including children. We argue that democracies recognize the violations of children's rights in conflicts where rebels recruit child soldiers and are likely to respond by serving as mediators. Our study examines civil conflicts from 1989-2007. Findings show that while conflicts where rebel child soldiering exists are more likely to receive democratic mediation, government child soldiering has no effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) have developed divergent approaches to interpreting their temporal case admissibility criteria, despite those criteria being nearly identical on paper. This puzzling variation has important implications for the extent to which Americans and Europeans can pursue international legal recourse for human rights abuses committed during past civil conflicts and dictatorial regimes. The IACtHR has clearly established that states can be held responsible for ongoing human rights violations that originated prior to state accession to the Court. However, when victims of similar rights violations have submitted cases to the ECtHR, the Court has frequently declared their cases inadmissible. This article demonstrates that the divergent geopolitical origins of the ECtHR and IACtHR have driven the ECtHR's narrower interpretation of its temporal jurisdiction relative to the IACtHR. Tracing this process sheds light on the conditions under which international courts can hold governments accountable for past human rights abuses in post-conflict societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An emerging field of scholarship in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and computing posits that AI has the potential to significantly alter political and economic landscapes within states by reconfiguring labor markets, economies, and political alliances, leading to possible societal disruptions. Thus, this study examines the potential destabilizing economic and political effects AI technology can have on societies and the resulting implications for domestic conflict based on research within the fields of political science, sociology, economics, and artificial intelligence. In addition, we conduct interviews with 10 international AI experts from think tanks, academia, multinational technology companies, the military, and cyber to assess the possible disruptive effects of AI and how they can affect domestic conflict. Lastly, the study offers steps governments can take to mitigate the potentially destabilizing effects of AI technology to reduce the likelihood of civil conflict and domestic terrorism within states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions influence the use of conflict related sexual violence (CRSV) by armed non-state actors? This study argues efficacy is influenced by conditions that precede deployment and the composition of UN forces. Poor intragroup cohesion within rebel ranks incentivizes CRSV, putting peacekeepers in a precarious position upon deployment. UN police improve law enforcement capabilities, build relationships with local communities, and promote information diffusion mechanisms. As a result, UN police are associated with a decrease in CRSV, even in the most difficult environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postwar countries often experience high levels of crime. A frequent explanation is that these countries exhibit inefficient and illegitimate state security apparatuses that cannot enforce law and order, and that contribute to an environment conducive to crime. Theoretical arguments outlining how an environment conducive to crime comes about as consequences of armed conflict have remained generic and empirical evidence is scant. Building on theoretical insights from the micro dynamics of civil wars, counterinsurgency policing and environmental criminology, this study makes a contribution by theoretically developing and empirically exploring how local conflict dynamics in insurgent strongholds shape police-community relations in a way that undermines the extent to which the police can handle crime in a postwar context. The suggested causal process is explored in the context of West Belfast (Northern Ireland) from 1969–2008. The analysis indicates overall support for it, though with important nuances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The civil conflict literature often relies on state capacity having significant impacts on the risk of, and duration of, civil war and other civil conflicts. Many characteristics of civil conflict are often similar to terrorism, especially domestic terrorism, and are also considered when discussing the predictors of terror. However, what is not considered in either area of the literature is alternative characteristics of state capacity, namely, the degree of fragmentation in the policymaking branches, and its ability to enforce and carry out the laws that are implemented. This paper examines these effects, expanding the interpretation of state capacity to include these aforementioned concepts, and testing them simultaneously with the extant interpretation of capacity. Results show that when including these additional characteristics of capacity, previously accepted predictors are no longer relevant in predicting terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I present evidence that U.S. aid for refugees mitigates civil conflict in their origin country. My main result is that a 10 percent increase in U.S. humanitarian aid for refugees reduces conflict deaths in their origin country by 1.5 percent. Presumably, aid for refugees entices civilians to flee from the location of conflict, thus depriving armed groups of resources and targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do militant groups turn on each other? This behavior is somewhat puzzling, since such groups are often on the same side of a conflict. A growing body of literature seeks to understand political violence by looking at cooperative and competitive relationships among non-state actors. Debates continue about the sources of militant group rivalry. We argue that shared motivations, especially ethnic motivations, along with power differences among groups should help explain inter-group fighting. Our analysis uses new dyadic data on rivalry among the militant groups of Africa and Asia since 1990. Unlike some previous studies, we analyze both terrorist and insurgent organizations. Results suggest that pairs of groups with a shared ethnic identity are more likely than others to have rivalrous relationships. Power asymmetry is also somewhat associated with rivalry, but interaction models indicate that the association is only statistically significant in the presence of shared ethnic motivations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hating America – and attacking Americans – can seem like a mandatory activity for rebels; yet, only a minority of rebel groups actually harm Americans. Under what circumstances do rebel groups target Americans? To answer these questions, we leverage the Big Allied And Dangerous 2 data – Insurgency subsample (BAAD2-I). Our model focuses on two classes of rebel motives: direct and indirect. Direct motives are those in which Americans play a central role in rebel group grievances. They include ideology, deployment of American troops, and American support for rebels' government-based opponents. Indirect motives are those that encourage anti-American attacks because of their powerful symbolic value. This distinction speaks to ongoing policy debates within the United States about the most effective policy instruments to defeat extremism abroad. Contrary to common perceptions, we find that attacks on Americans are unrelated to group ideology. Instead, deployment of American troops and military assistance is positively associated with attacks on Americans, as is economic penetration. Conversely, rebel groups in countries with substantial exports to the US or featuring a long-term presence of American cultural artifacts are less likely to attack Americans. Our findings highlight the value of a 'soft power' orientation in American foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policymakers and scholars generally assume that, unlike in interstate wars, in civil conflicts opposing forces cannot simply 'agree to disagree:' in order to stop fighting, one side must collapse, disarm, or concede. I argue that this assumption largely holds for centre-seeking conflicts, but not for separatist conflicts. Because separatist conflicts involve more geographically contained fighting and more limited stakes, rebels and states can more easily transition into cooperation. To test this argument, I create an original worldwide dataset of long-term truces in civil conflicts (1989–2015). That is, cases in which governments and rebels transition from open fighting to peaceful cooperation for an extended period without either side collapsing, disarming, or conceding. Overall, I find strong support for the main contention: while such truces are exceedingly rare in centre-seeking conflicts, they have happened in more than one-third of separatist conflicts since 1989. Even where rebels are strong or have little public support, separatist aims open space for containment and cooperation. These findings help fill in the empirical gaps between war and peace and document cases of peaceful cooperation without disarmament or political reform. They also highlight key differences between peacebuilding in centre-seeking and in separatist conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fractious splits of rebel groups debilitate the military capacity of these organizations which increases their vulnerability to anti-rebel operations. Despite the risks of disunity and the battlefield advantages of remaining cohesive, our new global sample of rebel groups (1980–2014) reveals that two-fifths of these (but not the remaining) groups have split into distinct, competing factions. Why and when do some rebel groups split, while other groups remain cohesive? Unlike previous research on rebel fragmentation, we argue that the extent of centralization of the rebel groups command-and-control structure together with the group's "age" influences the propensity of rebel group splits. The organizational features of rebel groups with high command-and-control centralization lead to internal blame-game politics when these groups age, which encourages the supreme leader to amass power and curtail the other leaders' decision-making authority. This induces the alienated leaders to split the parent rebel organization to form a new rebel group. In contrast, the organizational structure of moderate and weakly centralized rebel groups promotes mutual interdependence among leaders as well as between these leaders and sub-commanders over time. This reduces the likelihood of splits of these groups. Results from our new rebel-group-year data provide robust statistical support for these predictions. Les scissions anarchiques des groupes rebelles affaiblissent leur capacité militaire et accroissent leur vulnérabilité aux opérations anti-rebelles. En dépit des risques de la perte d'unité et des avantages de rester soudés sur le champ de bataille, notre nouvel échantillon mondial de groupes rebelles (1980-2014) révèle que deux cinquièmes de ces groupes (mais pas le reste) se sont scindés en factions distinctes qui sont en concurrence. Pourquoi et à quel moment certains groupes rebelles se séparent-ils alors que d'autres restent soudés ? Contrairement aux recherche précédentes sur la fragmentation des rebelles, nous soutenons que la mesure dans laquelle la structure de commandement et de contrôle du groupe rebelle est centralisée ainsi que « l'anciennenté » du groupe influencent sa propension à se séparer. Les caractéristiques organisationnelles des groupes rebelles dont le commandement et le contrôle sont très centralisés conduisent à une politique interne de rejet des fautes lorsque ces groupes vieillissent, ce qui encourage le chef suprême à accroître son pouvoir et à réduire l'autorité décisionnelle des autres chefs. Cela incite les chefs ainsi mis de côté à se séparer de l'organisation rebelle dont ils sont issus pour former un nouveau groupe rebelle. À l'inverse, la structure organisationnelle des groupes rebelles peu ou moyennement centralisés favorise l'interdépendance entre les chefs ainsi qu'entre ces chefs et les sous-chefs au fil du temps. Cela réduit la probabilité de scission de ces groupes. Les résultats issus de nos nouvelles données annuelles sur les groupes rebelles par an étayent ces prévisions par de solides statistiques. Las escisiones fraccionadas de los grupos rebeldes debilitan la capacidad militar de estas organizaciones, lo que aumenta su vulnerabilidad a las operaciones contra los rebeldes. A pesar de los riesgos de desunión y de las ventajas en el campo de batalla de permanecer cohesionados, nuestra nueva muestra global de grupos rebeldes (1980-2014) revela que dos quintas partes de estos grupos (pero no los restantes) se han dividido en distintas facciones contrapuestas. ¿Por qué y cuándo algunos grupos rebeldes se separan, mientras que otros grupos permanecen unidos? A diferencia de investigaciones anteriores sobre la fragmentación de los rebeldes, argumentamos que el grado de centralización de la estructura de mando y control del grupo rebelde junto con la "edad" del grupo influye en la tendencia a las escisiones de grupos rebeldes. Las características organizativas de los grupos rebeldes con una alta centralización de mando y control conducen a una política interna de atribución de culpas cuando estos grupos envejecen, lo que motiva al líder supremo a acumular poder y restringir la autoridad de toma de decisiones de los otros líderes. Esto induce a los líderes alienados a dividir la organización matriz de rebeldes para formar un nuevo grupo rebelde. En contraste, la estructura organizacional de los grupos rebeldes moderados y débilmente centralizados promueve la interdependencia mutua entre los líderes, así como entre dichos líderes y subcomandantes a lo largo del tiempo. Esto reduce la probabilidad de escisiones de estos grupos. Los resultados de nuestros nuevos datos anuales sobre grupos rebeldes proporcionan un sólido respaldo estadístico para estas predicciones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do governments repress in order to defend themselves against the threat posed by the geographic proximity of victorious rebel forces? I theorize that the victory of rebel forces in armed conflict, and the subsequent creation of a revolutionary regime, provides a model for mobilization to would-be rebels and that this, in turn, leads government authorities to deploy domestic repression in order to defend themselves. This relationship is conditional upon the international assertiveness of revolutionary regimes, as well as their geographic proximity to the threatened state. Revolutionary regimes that provide assistance to foreign rebels are regarded as more threatening by status-quo states, as are those that are geographically proximate. I undertake a data analysis of state-year patterns of repression and find significant support for my theoretical expectations. My findings have implications for the study of counter-revolution, supporting the notion that state repression is, in part, a function of international threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on international conflict management remains largely siloed, with studies omitting conflict events and focusing on disparate conflict management strategies (e.g., mediation, or peacekeeping); yet we know that strategies regularly interact with conflict events and one another (e.g., within the same conflict). If one imagines conflict events and conflict management strategies as train boxcars, and begins from the observation that boxcars travel in trains (i.e., collections of boxcars linked together in a purposefully constructed, meaningful way), a key question emerges: how do we build trains from conflict management strategy boxcars? How do we move from the impulse to isolate these strategies artificially and study them discretely, to theorizing about and examining the interdependence between them directly. The contributors to this special issue address that broad question. In this introductory article, we first explain the challenge at hand, outline the forms conflict management interdependence can theoretically take, and define the conflict management strategies that feature throughout the issue. We then conduct a multidimensional scaling exercise to ascertain the most promising dimensions along which to theorize conflict management interdependence. This analysis shows that the myriad conflict management strategies organize along two prominent dimensions: whether the strategy pursues a more integrative or distributive outcome, and how costly the strategy is for its user to employ. The analysis, far from being the last word, serves as an opening salvo for further research on conflict management interdependence. Finally, we discuss the various articles in this special issue, highlighting their contributions and tying them together into a few main themes. Les recherches sur la gestion internationale des conflits restent majoritairement en silo, des études omettant des événements de conflit pour se concentrer sur des stratégies disparates de gestion des conflits (p. ex. médiation ou maintien de la paix) ; cependant, nous savons que les stratégies interagissent régulièrement avec les événements de conflit et entre elles (p. ex. dans le même conflit). Si nous imaginons les événements de conflit et les stratégies de gestion des conflits comme étant des wagons, et que nous commençons par observer que les wagons se déplacent en tant que trains (c-à-d, que les wagons sont reliés ensemble d'une manière constructive, qui a un sens, dans un but très précis), une question clé émerge : comment construisons-nous des trains à partir de wagons de stratégie de gestion des conflits ? Et comment passons-nous de la pulsion d'isoler ces stratégies artificiellement et de les étudier de manière distincte à celle de théoriser et d'examiner directement l'interdépendance entre elles ? Les contributeurs à ce numéro spécial abordent ces vastes questions. Dans cet article d'introduction, nous commençons par expliquer le défi qui nous attend, par présenter les formes que l'interdépendance de la gestion des conflits peut théoriquement prendre, et par définir les stratégies de gestion des conflits qui seront abordées tout au long de ce numéro. Nous procédons ensuite à un exercice de mise à l'échelle multidimensionnelle afin de déterminer les dimensions les plus prometteuses pour théoriser l'interdépendance de la gestion des conflits. Cette analyse montre que la myriade de stratégies de gestion des conflits s'organise autour de deux dimensions principales : la stratégie poursuit-elle un objectif plus intégratif ou distributif, et quel est son coût pour celui qui l'emploie. Loin de constituer le dernier mot, cette analyse est la première salve pour des recherches ultérieures sur l'interdépendance de la gestion des conflits. Enfin, nous abordons les divers articles de ce numéro spécial en mettant en évidence leurs contributions et en les associant en quelques thèmes principaux. Las investigaciones sobre el manejo de conflictos internacionales continúan en gran parte aisladas, con estudios que omiten eventos de conflicto y se enfocan en estrategias dispares de manejo de conflictos (p. ej., mediación o mantenimiento de la paz); sin embargo, sabemos que las estrategias interactúan regularmente con eventos de conflicto y entre sí (p. ej., dentro del mismo conflicto). Si uno imagina los eventos de conflicto y las estrategias de manejo de conflictos como vagones de tren, y comienza con la observación de que los vagones viajan en trenes (es decir, conjuntos de vagones enlazados entre sí a propósito y con un determinado sentido), surge una pregunta clave: ¿cómo construimos trenes con los vagones de estrategias para el manejo de conflictos? ¿Cómo pasamos del impulso de aislar artificialmente estas estrategias y estudiarlas por separado, a teorizar y examinar directamente la interdependencia entre ellas? Los colaboradores de esta especial problemática abordan esa amplia cuestión. En este artículo introductorio, primero explicamos el desafío inmediato, delineamos las formas que puede tomar teóricamente la interdependencia en el manejo de conflictos y definimos las estrategias de manejo de conflictos que aparecen en toda la problemática. Luego, llevamos a cabo un ejercicio de escalamiento multidimensional para determinar las dimensiones más prometedoras en las cuales hay que teorizar la interdependencia en el manejo de conflictos. Este análisis muestra que la infinidad de estrategias para el manejo de conflictos se organizan en dos dimensiones destacadas: si la estrategia persigue un resultado más integrador o distributivo, y cuán costoso es emplear la estrategia para el usuario. El análisis, lejos de ser la última palabra, sirve como salva inicial para futuras investigaciones sobre la interdependencia en el manejo de conflictos. Finalmente, analizamos los diversos artículos sobre esta problemática especial, destacando sus contribuciones y vinculándolos con algunos temas principales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil conflicts are conceptualized as asymmetric, population-centric military struggles. The argument is that insurgencies, even though they are no match in military power to their state adversaries in many cases, resort to armed struggle nonetheless as a tool to impair state capacity, the quality of governance, and the ability of the state to honor the "social contract" in order to eventually destroy state authority and render the state irrelevant for the society. Note that this argument implies that state-society relations do react to the military course of the conflict. In this article, we provide empirical evidence for this implication. Introducing a new panel dataset on the long-running civil conflict in Turkey, we first conduct a micro-level analysis and demonstrate the significant impact rebel presence has upon state-society relations across localities and time. We then analyze the results of semi-structured interviews we had conducted with a group of experts from the conflict regions to decipher the possible mechanisms behind the association we observe in the data. The interviews support our motivating theoretical argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the link between interregional inequality and civil conflict in a panel of 125 countries over the period 1993–2013. The results show that the level of interregional inequality has a positive and statistically significant effect on the incidence of civil conflict, which implies that countries with higher regional income disparities are more likely to experience internal violence. This result is not driven by a specific group of influential countries and is robust to the inclusion in the analysis of a substantial set of covariates that may affect both interregional inequality and civil conflict. Likewise, the observed link between regional income disparities and internal violence does not depend either on the estimation strategy or the measures used to quantify the degree of interregional inequality and the incidence of civil conflict within the various countries. These results suggest that policies designed to decrease the magnitude of regional income disparities may contribute to reducing the incidence of civil conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1970s the military juntas in South America engaged in a cross-national campaign of repression, code-named Operation Condor, targeted against leftist militant groups inspired to action by the Cuban Revolution. This case illustrates an understudied motivation for third-party intervention in domestic conflict: counter-revolution. We therefore formulate a theory in which revolutions shock the international system by empowering new revolutionary regimes that, in turn, inspire dissidents abroad to take up arms. Status quo elites in foreign states seek to staunch this diffusion of revolution by engaging in international repressive campaigns, manifested as third party intervention in civil conflict. We test this expectation on a global sample of intervention opportunities for the period 1975–2004, and assess the threat that revolutionary regimes pose to status quo governments in two ways: (1) the geographic proximity of a revolutionary state to pairs of status quo states; and (2) the geographic proximity of internal-armed conflicts featuring rebels that are supported by a revolutionary states. We find evidence that status quo states respond to the proximity of a revolutionary state, but not to the proximity of support for rebels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent efforts aimed at understanding women's contributions to nonstate armed groups have produced large-scale data sets on female combatants (Wood and Thomas 2017) and more limited data on women's roles as supporters and leaders in armed groups (Henshaw 2016; 2017, Loken 2018). The present study aims to build on this literature by providing new data on the scope of women's leadership in insurgent groups. While existing quantitative literature has focused mostly on the experience of female combatants, we argue that the presence of women in leadership roles is crucial to understanding how gender might influence the outcomes of insurgency. We introduce new data on over 200 insurgent groups active since World War II. While our analysis confirms earlier small-sample work demonstrating women's presence in leadership roles, a qualitative analysis reveals that leadership is often gendered–revealing patterns of tokenization and tracking women to low-prestige leadership roles. At the same time, our findings challenge past research on jihadist organizations, showing limited expansion in the authority of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show new evidence that the consequences of historical warfare for state development differ for Sub-Saharan Africa. We identify the locations of more than 1,600 conflicts in Africa, Asia, and Europe from 1400 to 1799. We find that historical warfare predicts common-interest states defined by high fiscal capacity and low civil conflict across much of the Old World. For Sub-Saharan Africa, historical warfare predicts special-interest states defined by high fiscal capacity and high civil conflict. Our results offer new evidence about where and when 'war makes states'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how fictional representations of civil conflict and its consequences enable contemporary African writers to capture the raft of ways in which war remains a troubling agent within the national body. This is especially relevant in the context of postcolonial societies living the traumatic aftermath of decolonization and liberation wars. Focusing on the figure of the ‘child soldier’ as an emblem of the experience of displacement as engendered by Civil war in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half a Yellow Sun (2006) and Chris Abani’s Song for Night (2007), I argue that the figure of a child soldier qua displaced individual brings into relief a polemic and politically explosive commentary on the state of nationalism, statehood and citizenship in postcolonial, post-independence Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the Patriotic Front struggle against the minority rule in Rhodesia to the seven-party mujaheddin alliance in Afghanistan, inter-rebel alliances make the armed opposition more resilient and successful in the face of government repression. Why then do some rebel groups cooperate with each other while others do not? Drawing on the principal-agent theory, I argue that the presence of foreign sponsors is likely to encourage alliance formation in civil wars especially when two rebel outfits share a state sponsor. Shared sponsors may demand cooperation between their agents and credibly threaten to punish them for non-compliance. They may also insist on the establishment of umbrella institutions to improve their monitoring and sanctioning capacity, and to increase the legitimacy of their agents. I test this argument using the UCDP Actor dataset with new data on alliances between rebel groups. I find strong evidence that shared sponsors increase the probability of inter-rebel alliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluate the effectiveness of anti-insurgent violence as a means to suppress insurgency with micro-level data from the Iraq War. Our findings suggest that while violence against insurgents increases the incidence of future insurgent attacks, the intensity of this violence can significantly influence the outcome. Rather than shifting monotonically, the effect is actually curvilinear, first rising, and then contracting. We argue that at low to moderate levels, violence against insurgents creates opportunities for these groups to signal strength and resolve, which enables them to build momentum, heighten civilian cooperation, and diminish political support for counterinsurgency efforts in these forces’ home countries. The result is an escalation in insurgent attacks. However, at higher levels, this effect should plateau and taper off as insurgent attrition rises, and as civilian fears over personal safety displace grievances that might otherwise provoke counter-mobilization. Our empirical tests on data from the Iraq War, 2004-2009, demonstrate robust support for this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translations of summary The power of Dante's Divine Comedy is unmistakable, but surprising in view of its theological structure and assumptions that are no longer current among most modern readers. This paper suggests that its power derives from the deep psychological truthfulness with which Dante deals with the painful personal crisis that underlies the poem and is his starting point. It attempts to clarify what may have constituted that crisis, and why the structure of the Comedy, and in particular its use of two guides, Virgil and Beatrice, who might be thought a somewhat incompatible pairing, point significantly to the nature of the solution Dante arrived at. In particular it suggests that the puzzling fictions to do with Statius in the Purgatorio are a clue to Dante's own difficulties in bridging the classical and Christian traditions, and that his highly original solution to these difficulties, by no means conforming to conventional Christian orthodoxy in the 13th/14th century, was needed with special urgency in a time of pervasive civil conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional economic integration has become the dominant development pathway promoted, endorsed, and followed by many developing country governments in South East Asia and globally. Focusing on hydropower development, this article shows how forces of globalization manifested in the Myanmar government’s strategies to promote economic growth are shaping the Salween River basin’s development trajectory. Contesting the general belief that economic development would help the country’s transition to full democracy and achieve peace, it illustrates how hydropower development plans in the basin are closely interlinked with human rights issues. Well known for its long histories of violent conflict involving the Myanmar military and ethnic armed groups in various states, hydropower development in the Salween River is not only linked to the ongoing peace process in Myanmar but could also have direct implications on the actual significance of the process. Despite the signing of nationwide ceasefire agreements in 2012, hydropower dam projects could contribute to and trigger reoccurrences of violent armed conflict. Recognizing this conflict-prone and politically fragile condition as the main characteristics of Salween water governance is essential if we are to strive for sustainable and just development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Canadian Foreign Policy Journal (CFPJ) is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Foreign Policy Journal (CFPJ) is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Foreign Policy Journal (CFPJ) is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

An expanding body of literature maintains that gender inequality heightens the probability of intrastate conflict by creating a structure of violence. The paper proposes the legal system as the missing link between social norms and conflict occurrence. Gender neutrality of the penal code coheres with norms of equality and, further, embodies egalitarian, progressive values associated with pacific norms of conflict resolution. The criminalization of rape enhances female empowerment by offering a legal commitment on the part of the state to safeguard women’s physical security. More broadly, legal prohibitions against rape protect women and other vulnerable individuals from sexual aggression. The statistical analysis uses novel data on rape legislation for 194 states over the 1965 to 2005 time period. The length of punitive sentence proxies for the stringency of rape legislation. The empirical findings demonstrate that longer punitive sentences against rape crimes are associated with a significantly lower probability of intrastate conflict. Sanctions against both female and male perpetrators of rape are analyzed separately. The results show that gender neutrality of law whereby the penal code establishes similar sentences for female and male offenders alike also significantly decreases conflict propensity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Quantitative literature discussing violence in civil conflicts tends towards a typical model of engagement between governments and revolutionaries. Whilst recent work has shown the significant impact of multiple anti-government groups, a further feature remains understudied—the role of pro-state militants. This article theorizes a “violence premium” when such groups arise, which leads to all connected groups devoting greater energy to conflict than they would in isolation. Employing duration analysis and data from The Troubles in Northern Ireland, where Republicans act as revolutionary insurgents, Loyalists as pro-state militants, and the British Army as government forces, the violence premium is empirically confirmed. Both Loyalists and Republicans deviate from their underlying strategies to attack more frequently when violence by their rivals increases, with Republicans and the British Army engaging in the same way. An extended analysis, accounting for the status of the victim, shows that the violence premium resulting from interaction between Loyalists and Republicans targeted only the civilian population of Northern Ireland, elucidating the sectarian component of The Troubles. These results show that including all conflict parties and considering how they are linked are important features in studies that aim to determine the net level of violence in civil conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Do natural disasters prolong civil conflict? Or are disasters more likely to encourage peace as hostilities diminish when confronting shared hardship or as shifts in the balance of power between insurgents and the state hasten cessation? To address these questions, this study performs an event history analysis of disasters’ impact on the duration of 224 armed intrastate conflicts occurring in 86 states between 1946 and 2005. I contend that natural disasters increase conflict duration by decreasing the state’s capacity to suppress insurgency, while reinforcing insurgent groups’ ability to evade capture and avoid defeat. First, disasters’ economic impact coupled with state financial outlays for disaster relief and reconstruction, reduce resources available for counterinsurgency and nation building in conflict zones. Second, the military’s role in administering humanitarian assistance can reduce the availability of troops and military hardware for counterinsurgency, prompt temporary ceasefires with insurgents, or both. Third, natural disasters can cause infrastructural damages that disproportionately hinder the state’s capacity to execute counterinsurgency missions, thereby making insurgent forces more difficult to capture and overcome. The combination of these dynamics should encourage longer conflicts in states with higher incidence of disaster. Empirical evidence strongly supports this contention, indicating that states with greater disaster vulnerability fight longer wars. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Bougainville Copper Limited's Panguna mine was a huge and complex undertaking that, despite its potential for creating social disruption, operated successfully for two decades before the outbreak of armed conflict in 1988. One source of conflict, common in mining but neglected in previous research on Bougainville, is labour relations and, in particular, how a local workforce was integrated into a system of negotiation that facilitated the operation of the mine by limiting the level and intensity of workplace conflict. Between 1969 and 1988, the Bougainville Mining Workers’ Union (BMWU) played a key role in this structure of accommodation of conflicting interests. This paper uncovers the history of how the BMWU developed the capacity to represent its members' interests successfully and play a positive role in conflict resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While a significant literature on women's participation in armed rebel groups exists, much of this work is focused on individual cases or regional comparisons among movements. This has led to a lack of cross-national work on women in insurgencies, and a limited understanding of the extent to which women are engaged in civil conflict internationally. This article introduces new data on women's involvement in seventy-two insurgencies active since 1990, and assesses the validity of several assumptions about women and rebellion drawn from existing literature on women in conflict and on civil wars generally. I show that women are active in rebel groups much more often than current scholarship acknowledges. This involvement includes frequent service in combat and leadership roles, where male participants are often presumed to be the default. Finally, while forced recruitment tactics are frequently used to bring women into service, much of their participation appears to be voluntary in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite considerable improvements in reproductive and newborn health throughout the world, relatively poor outcomes persist in areas plagued by conflict or political instability. To assess the contribution of areas of conflict and instability to global patterns of stillbirths and newborn deaths and to identify opportunities for effective intervention in these areas. Analysis of the available data on stillbirths and neonatal mortality in association with conflict and governance indicators, and review of epidemiological and political literature pertaining to the provision of health and public services in areas of conflict and instability. Of the 15 countries with the highest neonatal mortality rates in the world, 14 are characterized by chronic conflict or political instability. If India and China are excluded, countries experiencing chronic conflict or political instability account for approximately 42% of all neonatal deaths worldwide. Efforts to address adverse reproductive and newborn outcomes in these areas must adapt recommended intervention protocols to the special security and governance conditions associated with unstable political environment. Despite troubling relative and absolute indicators, the special requirements of improving reproductive and neonatal outcomes in areas affected by conflict and political instability have not received adequate attention. New integrated political and technical strategies will be required. This should include moving beyond traditional approaches concerned with complex humanitarian emergencies. Rather, global efforts must be based on a deeper understanding of the specific governance requirements associated with protracted and widespread health requirements. A focus on women's roles, regional strategies which take advantage of relative stability and governance capacity in neighbouring states, virtual infrastructure, and assistance regimens directed specifically to unstable areas may prove useful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While changes in leadership appear to affect the conflictual or cooperative character of government–dissident relations, and the study of leadership has been a cornerstone of social science from Weber to Neustadt, studies of civil conflict leave the issue of leadership largely unexplored. This article represents a first effort to develop a theory of leadership change in the unique context of violent intrastate politics. Specifically, with respect to civil conflict, how do changes in leadership affect the choices made by dissident groups and the governments they confront? Can changes in leadership help explain the often unpredicted conflictual and cooperative directions that civil conflicts take? Using formal modeling, this article specifies conditions under which leadership changes may affect the course of a civil conflict. Under certain conditions, changes in leadership will signal a desire for cooperation and prompt opposing leaders to reorient their own domestic audiences in order to reciprocate. This argument is empirically examined through case-study plausibility probes. Policy implications include an improved understanding of the mechanisms directing political dissent and dissident choices and, in so doing, pointing to means of resolving or preventing large-scale political violence within states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the very beginning of the “Arab Spring,” analysts have been arguing about its implications for the Middle East. Indeed, its outbreak in 2011 was probably one of the most important events to have ever taken place in the region, completely transforming its sociopolitical structure and reshaping the configuration of its international relations. Moreover, beyond their regional importance, the revolutionary processes of the Arab Spring have had significant international implications that have affected the actions of countries far beyond the borders of the Middle East. Russia has not been an exception: the regional processes forced Moscow to revise its attitude toward the Middle East, literally dragging the Russian authorities into the shifting currents. Moscow believes that the removal of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from power would trigger the expansion of jihadist activity and increase instability in the Caucasus and southern Russia. Consequently, the Kremlin is deeply concerned about the rise of Islamism in the Middle East, as well as Qatar and Saudi Arabia’s efforts to support Islamist and, indeed, radical factions in the Syrian civil conflict. At the same time, the absence of an obvious ideological basis for current Russian-Syrian relations leaves them open to change. Thus, official guarantees that the jihadists will not export their revolution elsewhere, accompanied by promises to preserve certain Russian economic positions in post-Assad Syria, could possibly clear the way for the emergence of a compromise stance by Moscow on Syria, even on the presently contentious issue of foreign intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional economic integration is crucial for African countries, notably since they are characterized by small domestic markets. In this paper, we analyze how civil conflicts affect the economic fate of regional economic communities through its effect on the synchronicity of regional partners’ economies. We find that conflict decreases business cycle synchronicity when it occurs within a regional economic community, both for the directly affected countries and for their more peaceful regional peers. We therefore find an additional reason to recommend putting prevention and resolution of civil conflicts on the top of the political agenda of African RECs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politics in Sudan have cycled brief democratic interludes and lengthy periods of military rule ended by popular uprising. The failures and current paralysis of the Bashir regime suggest that the end is approaching. Governance failure stems from riverine Arab efforts to impose a Muslim-Arab narrative on a highly diverse country, working through “divide-and-rule” tactics. The demise of that narrative is apparent because the inclusive vision of the late southern leader John Garang has infused the entire periphery. The south has become the independent nation of South Sudan. Divide-and-rule is breaking down in Darfur where Arab-on-Arab violence prevails. The United States worked through regional and UN bodies to achieve the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the referendum in South Sudan, and the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur. These achievements have brought neither peace nor inclusive governance. The new international consensus calls for a single peace process for Sudan, rather than piecemeal approaches to each conflict. The United States should support a two-stage negotiation process—regional and national—to bring the crises in South Kordofan, Blue Nile, and Darfur to a comprehensive solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian government sincerely believes that Assad’s removal from power would trigger the expansion of jihadism and instability in the Caucasus and southern Russia. Moscow is deeply concerned about the rise of Islamists in the Middle East, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia's efforts to support the most radical factions in Syria. At the same time, the obvious absence of the ideological background behind current Russian-Syrian relations makes them a trade item. Thus, official guarantees that the jihadists will not export their revolution elsewhere accompanied by promises to preserve some Russian economic positions in post-Assad Syria will probably create the necessary ground for the emergence of a compromise stance on Syria (including the issue of foreign intervention). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Protection of civilians has become enshrined as a core task for international peacekeeping missions. How to ensure that civilians are safe from violence and human rights abuses is central to developing military doctrine for peacekeeping; how safe civilians are from attack is central to how peacekeeping missions are assessed both by locals and international observers. However, protection of civilians is often seen as something that is done by active peacekeepers on behalf of passive civilians, potentially missing the ways in which peacekeepers' actions interact with strategies that civilians undertake on their own behalf. Integrating peacekeeper and civilian self-protection strategies is not trivial, either from a practical or a moral standpoint. Drawing on primary research among women in Liberia, as well as case studies of civilian protection elsewhere, this essay examines the ways in which working with civilians on protection--creating 'hybrid' systems of protection--inevitably entangles peacekeepers in civilians' other social, political, and moral concerns, undermining at least a naïve impartiality. To retain their moral stance, peacekeepers ought to focus on using the safety they provide to allow different local actors (civilian and armed) to interact safely and, ideally, constructively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the principal parties' manifestos in UK statewide elections 1970–2010. It makes an original contribution by using a mixed methodology to examine the electoral discourse, issue-salience and policy framing associated with civil conflict resolution (CCR) proposals for Northern Ireland. Mandate and accountability theory suggest that party programmes may play an important role in understanding CCR. Accordingly, a series of hypotheses is tested and the findings used to advance an Electoral Discourse Model of Civil Conflict Resolution. The findings show that electoral politics matter in shaping CCR. Statistically significant inter-party differences in issue-salience and policy framing are revealed as parties seek to secure ‘issue-ownership’, influence voter preferences and secure a mandate for action. An iterative inter-party process is shown to lead to frame convergence over time, thereby providing an indicator of progress towards conflict resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On 9 July 2011, following over four decades of intermittent civil conflict, Southern Sudan officially declared independence from the North. The historic secession of the Southern provinces was a culmination of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed by the ruling National Congress Party and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement in 2005. While conventional analysis has depicted the roots of the Sudanese conflict as a result of enduring conflicts over its national identity, and power and resource sharing, this article argues that the seemingly inevitable march towards the emergence of two new nation-states has been a result of a complex dynamic of external as well as local political developments in the greater Horn of Africa. More specifically, I argue that domestic-level factors having to do with regional conflicts in the Horn have greatly influenced the region's external relations in ways that are often obscured by international relations theories that privilege geo-strategic interests over the role of domestic politics. The article highlights the role of the cold war in influencing political developments in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia in ways that shaped the relationship of the Middle East and the Horn region, and the trajectory of the civil conflict in Sudan in particular. I maintain that while security and strategic interests have provided the context for the relationship of the Horn and external actors, the role of domestic politics has played a crucial role in the shifting alliances between Middle Eastern states and the regimes and insurgent groups in the region. I conclude by highlighting the continuing importance of the role of local-level politics in these external relations following the end of the cold war by examining the advent of Islamism in the region in Sudan, arguing that the dynamic relationship between regional and domestic factors has played an important, albeit often neglected, role in the historic partition of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the association between land inequality and civil conflict using a panel of 18 Latin American countries spanning the twentieth century. We find a statistically significant relationship between land inequality and civil conflict onset. This finding is consistent with the ‘land maldistribution hypothesis’ and the view that inequality is important for understanding conflict in Latin America. It is also consistent with recent theories of conflict and the model of revolution applied by Acemoglu and Robinson in their work on political transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A tremendous amount of important work has been done recently on operationalising the protection of civilians as a military task. The bulk of the discussion has focused on how militaries should respond to direct attacks on civilians. This is an important issue, but thinking about civilian protection should also include a serious examination of the ways in which the approach of military organisations to the problem of 'spoiler' groups can affect the level and dynamics of attacks on civilians - importantly, where armed groups are interested in violent control of civilian populations, attempts to 'dislodge' them from areas of control may substantially increase the level of violence against civilians (beyond the dangers to be expected from being near areas where active fighting is taking place). In 2009, the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) supported the Congolese military in operations to dismantle the Hutu-dominated FDLR (Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda, Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) militia group, at massive human cost. Critics have primarily focused on MONUC's failure to protect civilians from direct attack, consonant with the general discourse on tactics for civilian protection. These criticisms are valid, but in this paper I argue that two crucial additional considerations should be kept in mind: the way that military operations can affect violence against civilians, and the way that moralising the approach to armed groups, even those which have committed serious abuses, can limit military and political options - potentially in ways that increase civilian risk in the name of protecting them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies nearly unanimously agree that civil conflicts are more likely to occur in semi-democracies than in either autocracies or democracies. Through multinomial regression analysis, this article re-evaluates this claim by testing the relationship between regime type and civil conflict for the post-Cold War period. Controlling for the material wealth of a country, the heterogeneity of the population, income inequalities and the size of the state, this research finds that the occurrence of minor intrastate wars (25 to 1000 deaths) and major civil wars (more than 1000 deaths) does not differ between hybrid regimes and autocracies. Only democracies have a significantly lower probability of experiencing intrastate fighting and warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are states with growing economies more likely to become involved in violent interstate conflicts? This project examines whether economic growth increases international conflict using a global sample of states from 1875-1999. The theory argues that multi-year economic growth increases the resolve of state leaders to reciprocate and escalate militarized interstate conflicts, thus increasing the occurrence of fatalities or war. The results show that economic growth, but not growth of military expenditures, raises the risk of violent interstate conflicts. The results do not support the proposition that economic slowdowns result in violent interstate conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tsunami of 2004 and ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka are treated in the Special Issue of Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift-Norwegian Journal of Geography as two inter-related disasters. Both have been shaped by long-established patterns of vulnerability. Understanding their outcomes and offering constructive critique about policy responses depend both on explanations and models of social processes as well as an understanding of the post-tsunami policy process in the shadow of civil war. A framework is offered for analysing the policy process to which the articles in the Issue contribute. Policy process is examined in terms of policy narratives, the actors involved and their institutions. Two policy narratives constructed by international development institutions - vulnerability, and livelihood destruction and recovery - are discussed, followed by more focused policy narratives concerning internally displaced persons (IDPs), housing policy, resettlement, and the 'right to return'. They are reproduced dynamically between a range of actors, including those in civil society (differentiated by ethnicity, gender, age, wealth, social and political capital, and geographical location), international non-governmental organisations (INGOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs), civilian government, the military, and others. Policy narratives evolve and interact reflexively with the policy process and address the impact and longer term development effects of the tsunami and the civil conflict that overshadows it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insights from A.F.K. Organski's work on parity and war provide robust and rich explanatory power in understanding international conflict. Several recent applications of this theoretical structure to sub national groups also demonstrate strong support for a parity conflict relationship between competing domestic parties (Benson et al 1997; Benson and Kugler 1998). In this paper, we demonstrate that this theoretical structure has general explanatory power in identifying the necessary conditions for conflict both between and within states, and serves as a useful tool in forecasting the prospects for conflict or cooperation. We study the regional distributions of capabilities in the Horn of Africa to account for the context of conflict in the Sudan and then evaluate the prospects for peace following the 2011 anticipated referendum on independence established in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Two major findings emerge. The referendum will not affect the regional hierarchy in the Horn of Africa. However, the necessary conditions for conflict do emerge between Northern and Southern Sudan given the referendum, with most of the posited scenarios suggesting the possibility of renewal of the decades long North South conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current research suggests that the presence of social capital (Putnam, 1993) in a community setting positively affects physical and psychological health and well-being. Indeed, McKenzie et al. (2002) highlighted the impact of social context on mental health and noted that social capital may be influential in the incidence and prevalence of mental illness. The authors suggested that studies of the geographies of mental health could also be useful in understanding the relationship between social capital and psychological health and well-being but note that this relationship is likely to be complex. The purpose of this paper is to develop the commentary from McKenzie et al. further and consider the relationship between social capital, psychological health and a society experiencing conflict. Social capital is often described as the glue that holds society together, producing a positive environment for a community to foster and thrive. Little attention has focused on the relationship between social capital and psychological health and well-being when specific communities experience (and/or contribute to) political strife and civil disorder. One would assume that social capital at the horizontal level is minimal in these cases as civil conflict acts as a barrier to its production. This would have a deleterious effect on psychological health and well-being. The issues outlined above are explored in the context of one region of the United Kingdom currently experiencing civil conflict: Northern Ireland. Social capital theory is re-conceptualized in this light. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current research suggests that the presence of social capital (Putnam, R. D. (1993). The prosperous community: Social capital and public life. American Prospect, 13, 35-42.) in a community setting positively affects physical and psychological health and well-being. Indeed, McKenzie et al. ((2002). Social capital and mental health. British Journal of Psychiatry, 181, 280-283.) highlighted the impact of social context on mental health and noted that social capital may be influential in the incidence and prevalence of mental illness. The authors suggested that studies of the geographies of mental health could also be useful in understanding the relationship between social capital and psychological health and well-being but note that this relationship is likely to be complex. The purpose of this paper is to develop the commentary from McKenzie et al. further and consider the relationship between social capital, psychological health and a society experiencing conflict. Social capital is often described as the glue that holds society together, producing a positive environment for a community to foster and thrive. Little attention has focused on the relationship between social capital and psychological health and well-being when specific communities experience (and/or contribute to) political strife and civil disorder. One would assume that social capital at the horizontal level is minimal in these cases as civil conflict acts as a barrier to its production. This would have a deleterious effect on psychological health and well-being. The issues outlined above are explored in the context of one region of the United Kingdom currently experiencing civil conflict: Northern Ireland. Social capital theory is re-conceptualized in this light. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]