Pub Date : 2025-02-05DOI: 10.1177/00223433241300805
Jakob Frizell
Armed conflicts expose states to extraordinary fiscal stress and leave poverty and inequality in their wake. Yet, the fiscal policy responses in contemporary conflict-affected states appear feeble, in striking contrast to historical antecedents, having led to radical and distinctly progressive tax reforms. Whereas extant literature cautions against generalising Western wartime experiences, emphasising qualitative differences in warfare and institutional context, this article argues for the ex ante generality of the link between war and progressive taxation. Accordingly, it elaborates a revised theory of wartime tax bargaining, centred on fiscal need and demand for fiscal fairness, whereby contemporary conflicts, including civil wars, should induce governments to increase taxes, and particularly on the rich. The apparent absence of war-induced progressive taxation in the last decades, in contrast, is overdetermined by international shifts at the end of the Cold War and its influence on local wartime elites. Statistically analysing newly collected data on top personal income tax rates for all conflict-affected countries 1960–2020, it is shown that the link was strong, general and, contrary to common assumption, applied as much to civil as to interstate wars. The results support the theory, whereby acute revenue needs and war-induced demand for fiscal fairness translate into increased taxes on the rich. The sudden uniform disappearance of the association in the last decades, irrespective of country-level factors, is consistent with an interpretation emphasising global shifts precipitated by the end of the Cold War.
{"title":"The fiscal reckoning of war: Contemporary armed conflict and progressive income taxation","authors":"Jakob Frizell","doi":"10.1177/00223433241300805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241300805","url":null,"abstract":"Armed conflicts expose states to extraordinary fiscal stress and leave poverty and inequality in their wake. Yet, the fiscal policy responses in contemporary conflict-affected states appear feeble, in striking contrast to historical antecedents, having led to radical and distinctly progressive tax reforms. Whereas extant literature cautions against generalising Western wartime experiences, emphasising qualitative differences in warfare and institutional context, this article argues for the ex ante generality of the link between war and progressive taxation. Accordingly, it elaborates a revised theory of wartime tax bargaining, centred on fiscal need and demand for fiscal fairness, whereby contemporary conflicts, including civil wars, should induce governments to increase taxes, and particularly on the rich. The apparent absence of war-induced progressive taxation in the last decades, in contrast, is overdetermined by international shifts at the end of the Cold War and its influence on local wartime elites. Statistically analysing newly collected data on top personal income tax rates for all conflict-affected countries 1960–2020, it is shown that the link was strong, general and, contrary to common assumption, applied as much to civil as to interstate wars. The results support the theory, whereby acute revenue needs and war-induced demand for fiscal fairness translate into increased taxes on the rich. The sudden uniform disappearance of the association in the last decades, irrespective of country-level factors, is consistent with an interpretation emphasising global shifts precipitated by the end of the Cold War.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143191915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-02-05DOI: 10.1177/00223433241280152
Sabrina B Arias
I introduce a new dataset of all United Nations Security Council and United Nations General Assembly resolutions passed from 1946–2018, as well as machine-learning-based measures of their references to other resolutions, textual alignment, and topics. I suggest applications of this data for a variety of questions in international relations from the development of international law to the influence of state power in international organizations. I illustrate the utility of this dataset by investigating why policymakers employ references in the drafting of legal documents, and how the inclusion of these references affects political outcomes. I draw on theories of international lawmaking to argue that for states deciding whether to vote in favor of a resolution, these references, by signaling ideological consistency with a state’s foreign policy goals and existing consensus amongst negotiators, serve as a strategy to obtain support for resolutions. I found that the inclusion of references did increase political support for resolutions, using my measure of textual alignment to hold resolution text constant while isolating variation in the inclusion of references. I found that even accounting for foreign aid flows as a canonical alternative explanation of vote choice, reference dynamics were an important predictor of state support for resolutions.
{"title":"The textual dynamics of international policymaking: A new corpus of UN resolutions, 1946–2018","authors":"Sabrina B Arias","doi":"10.1177/00223433241280152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241280152","url":null,"abstract":"I introduce a new dataset of all United Nations Security Council and United Nations General Assembly resolutions passed from 1946–2018, as well as machine-learning-based measures of their references to other resolutions, textual alignment, and topics. I suggest applications of this data for a variety of questions in international relations from the development of international law to the influence of state power in international organizations. I illustrate the utility of this dataset by investigating why policymakers employ references in the drafting of legal documents, and how the inclusion of these references affects political outcomes. I draw on theories of international lawmaking to argue that for states deciding whether to vote in favor of a resolution, these references, by signaling ideological consistency with a state’s foreign policy goals and existing consensus amongst negotiators, serve as a strategy to obtain support for resolutions. I found that the inclusion of references did increase political support for resolutions, using my measure of textual alignment to hold resolution text constant while isolating variation in the inclusion of references. I found that even accounting for foreign aid flows as a canonical alternative explanation of vote choice, reference dynamics were an important predictor of state support for resolutions.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143191906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-30DOI: 10.1177/00223433241294148
Julia Palik, Mauricio Rivera Celestino, David Gomez-Triana, Nicholas Marsh, Ida Rødningen
Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) provisions in peace agreements (PAs) are critical pillars of global peacebuilding efforts. Leading theories suggest that different DDR components address different peacebuilding challenges. Yet existing datasets conceptualize DDR as a binary variable, hindering our ability to observe which DDR components and in what combination are agreed upon by conflict parties and to assess their independent effects on peace. To address this problem, we introduce a global disaggregated dataset on DDR provisions in PAs from 1975 to 2021, identify third-party actors’ involvement, and whether women and children ex-combatants are referenced in the provisions. We show that DDR components do not always come together: 47% of all PAs contain at least one DDR component, but only 26.9% include the full DDR package. Moreover, third-party actors participate in more than half of PAs with at least one DDR provision, and the vast majority of DDR provisions do not reference women and child ex-combatants. We demonstrate the usefulness of our dataset by analyzing the determinants of DDR provisions in PAs. Our analysis shows that different covariates have different effects on different DDR constellations, highlighting the usefulness of our disaggregated approach. The DDR dataset can be a valuable source to better understand the processes, causes, and consequences of DDR provisions.
{"title":"Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration in peace agreements (1975–2021): Introducing the DDR dataset","authors":"Julia Palik, Mauricio Rivera Celestino, David Gomez-Triana, Nicholas Marsh, Ida Rødningen","doi":"10.1177/00223433241294148","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241294148","url":null,"abstract":"Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) provisions in peace agreements (PAs) are critical pillars of global peacebuilding efforts. Leading theories suggest that different DDR components address different peacebuilding challenges. Yet existing datasets conceptualize DDR as a binary variable, hindering our ability to observe which DDR components and in what combination are agreed upon by conflict parties and to assess their independent effects on peace. To address this problem, we introduce a global disaggregated dataset on DDR provisions in PAs from 1975 to 2021, identify third-party actors’ involvement, and whether women and children ex-combatants are referenced in the provisions. We show that DDR components do not always come together: 47% of all PAs contain at least one DDR component, but only 26.9% include the full DDR package. Moreover, third-party actors participate in more than half of PAs with at least one DDR provision, and the vast majority of DDR provisions do not reference women and child ex-combatants. We demonstrate the usefulness of our dataset by analyzing the determinants of DDR provisions in PAs. Our analysis shows that different covariates have different effects on different DDR constellations, highlighting the usefulness of our disaggregated approach. The DDR dataset can be a valuable source to better understand the processes, causes, and consequences of DDR provisions.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143072059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-30DOI: 10.1177/00223433241295838
Andrew Saab
There is substantial evidence that various aspects of violent civil conflict are tied to natural resources, of which diamonds are perhaps the most notorious. While the presence of resources themselves have been given substantial attention, existing works have overlooked a key issue: substitute resources. This article focuses on the geographic distribution of violent conflict relative to natural resource sites as a provider of information on the geostrategic organization and extraction behaviors of insurgents. Using the rise of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, a multilateral regime aimed at regulating the illicit diamond trade, and accounting for the presence of potential substitute resources, empirical evidence indicates that the regulations disrupted and delocalized conflicts away from diamond sites. Moreover, the geography of violent conflict shifted and relocated toward substitute resources such as tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold. These findings suggest that such policy efforts may have adverse unintended consequences on the structure of violent conflict and the expansion of other black markets as a byproduct of regulation-induced changes in extraction incentives.
{"title":"Conflict relocation and blood diamond policy shifts","authors":"Andrew Saab","doi":"10.1177/00223433241295838","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241295838","url":null,"abstract":"There is substantial evidence that various aspects of violent civil conflict are tied to natural resources, of which diamonds are perhaps the most notorious. While the presence of resources themselves have been given substantial attention, existing works have overlooked a key issue: substitute resources. This article focuses on the geographic distribution of violent conflict relative to natural resource sites as a provider of information on the geostrategic organization and extraction behaviors of insurgents. Using the rise of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, a multilateral regime aimed at regulating the illicit diamond trade, and accounting for the presence of potential substitute resources, empirical evidence indicates that the regulations disrupted and delocalized conflicts away from diamond sites. Moreover, the geography of violent conflict shifted and relocated toward substitute resources such as tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold. These findings suggest that such policy efforts may have adverse unintended consequences on the structure of violent conflict and the expansion of other black markets as a byproduct of regulation-induced changes in extraction incentives.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143071510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-30DOI: 10.1177/00223433241273057
Susan Hannah Allen, Clayton McLaughlin Webb
Sanctions episodes, like those imposed by the United States against Cuba and North Korea, can persist for decades. What are the consequences of lifting sanctions? Do the harmful consequences of economic sanctions outlast the sanctions? How do target states adjust after these coercive policies end? A growing literature identifies a range of adverse effects of economic sanctions for targeted states including shrinking income from trade and investment, declining respect for human rights, increased repression, and negative health outcomes. While scholars have studied the impact of sanctions imposition in great detail, we have considerably less systematic knowledge about the fate of governments, economies, and citizens in the years that follow the lifting of sanctions. What are the effects of lifting sanctions? As a first cut, we explore how government spending on public health shifts following the end of sanctions. Do governments reinvest in health after sanctions as a means of countering the negative well-being effects we know are associated with sanctions? Or do regimes maintain low levels of spending because their populations have learned to cope with scarcity? In this article, we analyze the impact of sanctions termination on government spending on health (1980–2018), finding that after sanctions, spending priorities readjust as trade and revenue increase. This readjustment effort diminishes as time passes.
{"title":"Recovering from economic coercion: Does the pain stop when sanctions end?","authors":"Susan Hannah Allen, Clayton McLaughlin Webb","doi":"10.1177/00223433241273057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241273057","url":null,"abstract":"Sanctions episodes, like those imposed by the United States against Cuba and North Korea, can persist for decades. What are the consequences of lifting sanctions? Do the harmful consequences of economic sanctions outlast the sanctions? How do target states adjust after these coercive policies end? A growing literature identifies a range of adverse effects of economic sanctions for targeted states including shrinking income from trade and investment, declining respect for human rights, increased repression, and negative health outcomes. While scholars have studied the impact of sanctions imposition in great detail, we have considerably less systematic knowledge about the fate of governments, economies, and citizens in the years that follow the lifting of sanctions. What are the effects of lifting sanctions? As a first cut, we explore how government spending on public health shifts following the end of sanctions. Do governments reinvest in health after sanctions as a means of countering the negative well-being effects we know are associated with sanctions? Or do regimes maintain low levels of spending because their populations have learned to cope with scarcity? In this article, we analyze the impact of sanctions termination on government spending on health (1980–2018), finding that after sanctions, spending priorities readjust as trade and revenue increase. This readjustment effort diminishes as time passes.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143071515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-20DOI: 10.1177/00223433241276975
Robert Brathwaite, Shanshan Lian, Amanda Murdie, Baekkwan Park
In the last decade, international relations scholarship on shaming by non-governmental organizations has grown dramatically, providing us with many insights into how country-level improvement occurs in the areas of human rights and the environment, among other issues. Using machine learning techniques, this project built an updated dataset on NGO shaming from almost 1.5 million articles in the media from 2001 to 2020. The dataset covers a wide set of organizations with goals outside of the traditional focus on human rights. Our approach will allow researchers to explicitly examine shaming as a dyadic event, occurring from a specific NGO sender to a specific country target. Using our new dataset, we first validated existing research on shaming in the current populist era and then examined how the nature of the NGO and the nature of the country jointly facilitated shaming. Our approach and dataset will be useful to both academics and to the policy community.
{"title":"Tailoring the message: A new dataset on the dyadic nature of NGO shaming in the media","authors":"Robert Brathwaite, Shanshan Lian, Amanda Murdie, Baekkwan Park","doi":"10.1177/00223433241276975","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241276975","url":null,"abstract":"In the last decade, international relations scholarship on shaming by non-governmental organizations has grown dramatically, providing us with many insights into how country-level improvement occurs in the areas of human rights and the environment, among other issues. Using machine learning techniques, this project built an updated dataset on NGO shaming from almost 1.5 million articles in the media from 2001 to 2020. The dataset covers a wide set of organizations with goals outside of the traditional focus on human rights. Our approach will allow researchers to explicitly examine shaming as a dyadic event, occurring from a specific NGO sender to a specific country target. Using our new dataset, we first validated existing research on shaming in the current populist era and then examined how the nature of the NGO and the nature of the country jointly facilitated shaming. Our approach and dataset will be useful to both academics and to the policy community.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"394 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-31DOI: 10.1177/00223433241292143
Ivor Sokolić, Denisa Kostovicova, Lanabi La Lova, Sanja Vico
Fairness of domestic war crimes trials matters for promoting justice and peace. Scholars have studied public perceptions of war crimes trials to assess their fairness, but little is known about whether post-conflict states conduct them fairly. Bias, as a matter of procedural fairness, can manifest as a tendency to favour certain groups over others. Leveraging the theories of judicial decisionmaking, this article investigates two types of bias. The first is in-group bias, which is associated with protection of in-group members and punishment of out-group members. The second is conflict actor bias, which is associated with deflecting responsibility for wrongdoing from state agents to non-state agents of violence. We test for bias in domestic war crimes trials in Serbia with statistical modelling and quantitative text analysis of judicial decisions delivered to Serb and non-Serb defendants (1999–2019). While we do not find evidence of ethnic bias, our results indicate conflict actor bias. Serb paramilitaries received harsher sentences than Serb state agents of violence. Furthermore, we observe bias in the textual content of judgements. Judges depict violence committed by paramilitaries more extensively and graphically than violence by state actors. By revealing these judicial strategies, we demonstrate how a state can use domestic war crimes trials to diminish state wrongdoing and attribute the responsibility for violence to paramilitaries. The conflict actor bias we identify shows how deniability of accountability operates after conflict, complementing existing explanations of states’ collusion with paramilitaries before and during conflict.
{"title":"Are domestic war crimes trials biased?","authors":"Ivor Sokolić, Denisa Kostovicova, Lanabi La Lova, Sanja Vico","doi":"10.1177/00223433241292143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241292143","url":null,"abstract":"Fairness of domestic war crimes trials matters for promoting justice and peace. Scholars have studied public perceptions of war crimes trials to assess their fairness, but little is known about whether post-conflict states conduct them fairly. Bias, as a matter of procedural fairness, can manifest as a tendency to favour certain groups over others. Leveraging the theories of judicial decisionmaking, this article investigates two types of bias. The first is in-group bias, which is associated with protection of in-group members and punishment of out-group members. The second is conflict actor bias, which is associated with deflecting responsibility for wrongdoing from state agents to non-state agents of violence. We test for bias in domestic war crimes trials in Serbia with statistical modelling and quantitative text analysis of judicial decisions delivered to Serb and non-Serb defendants (1999–2019). While we do not find evidence of ethnic bias, our results indicate conflict actor bias. Serb paramilitaries received harsher sentences than Serb state agents of violence. Furthermore, we observe bias in the textual content of judgements. Judges depict violence committed by paramilitaries more extensively and graphically than violence by state actors. By revealing these judicial strategies, we demonstrate how a state can use domestic war crimes trials to diminish state wrongdoing and attribute the responsibility for violence to paramilitaries. The conflict actor bias we identify shows how deniability of accountability operates after conflict, complementing existing explanations of states’ collusion with paramilitaries before and during conflict.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142908531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-31DOI: 10.1177/00223433241289813
Lesley-Ann Daniels
Creating a stable peace is now the key puzzle to resolve in ending civil wars. To date, research has focused on ‘hard’ political and military reforms included in peace agreements, and the impact of ‘soft’ concessions such as language rights, cultural rights or the right to religion have been largely ignored. When do states give these concessions and do they make a difference to peace outcomes? The article argues that the state grants these concessions to dilute ethnic grievances and accommodate the group, bypassing political demands, but gives them strategically to ethnic groups that are politically weak. The concessions have effects through the expressive, demarcating and relational impacts on the receiving group. The article uses original data on identity concessions in a comparison of conflicts with ethnic aims that ended in a peace agreement from 1989 to 2013. The findings show that concessions are given to larger ethnic groups that lack political power. If granted, identity concessions only make peace more durable when fully implemented. The article thus brings a novel contribution to the role of grievances in civil wars and to the settlement of civil conflicts.
{"title":"Identity concessions in ethnic civil wars: When are they given and with what outcomes for peace?","authors":"Lesley-Ann Daniels","doi":"10.1177/00223433241289813","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241289813","url":null,"abstract":"Creating a stable peace is now the key puzzle to resolve in ending civil wars. To date, research has focused on ‘hard’ political and military reforms included in peace agreements, and the impact of ‘soft’ concessions such as language rights, cultural rights or the right to religion have been largely ignored. When do states give these concessions and do they make a difference to peace outcomes? The article argues that the state grants these concessions to dilute ethnic grievances and accommodate the group, bypassing political demands, but gives them strategically to ethnic groups that are politically weak. The concessions have effects through the expressive, demarcating and relational impacts on the receiving group. The article uses original data on identity concessions in a comparison of conflicts with ethnic aims that ended in a peace agreement from 1989 to 2013. The findings show that concessions are given to larger ethnic groups that lack political power. If granted, identity concessions only make peace more durable when fully implemented. The article thus brings a novel contribution to the role of grievances in civil wars and to the settlement of civil conflicts.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"138 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142908532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-31DOI: 10.1177/00223433241291927
Elizabeth J Tennant, Elisabeth A Gilmore
Recent research highlights how the same vulnerabilities that lead to disasters also condition the impact of hazards on violent conflict. Yet it is common practice in the literature to proxy rapid-onset hazards with disaster impacts when studying political violence. This can bias upward estimates of hazard–conflict relationships and obscure heterogeneous effects, with implications for forecasting as well as disaster risk reduction and peace-building activities. To overcome this, we implement an approach that measures and models the separate components of a tropical cyclone event: the hazard, the exposure, and the impacts. We then estimate a set of models that quantify how the incidence and intensity of organized violence respond to hazard exposure. We find little evidence that the average tropical cyclone enhances or diminishes violent conflict at the country level over a two-year time horizon. Yet rather than signaling that storms do not matter for political violence, unpacking this average result reveals two countervailing effects within countries. Conflict, and especially one-sided violence against civilians, tends to escalate in regions directly exposed to the tropical cyclone. In contrast, areas outside the path of the storm may experience a decrease in conflict. These results are heterogeneous with tropical cyclone intensity, and conflict escalation is more likely to occur in settings with less effective governments. Our results underscore the importance of ex-ante efforts targeting government capacity and effective disaster risk reduction to moderate the risk of violent conflict in the wake of tropical cyclones.
{"title":"Dynamics of organized violence in the wake of tropical cyclones","authors":"Elizabeth J Tennant, Elisabeth A Gilmore","doi":"10.1177/00223433241291927","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241291927","url":null,"abstract":"Recent research highlights how the same vulnerabilities that lead to disasters also condition the impact of hazards on violent conflict. Yet it is common practice in the literature to proxy rapid-onset hazards with disaster impacts when studying political violence. This can bias upward estimates of hazard–conflict relationships and obscure heterogeneous effects, with implications for forecasting as well as disaster risk reduction and peace-building activities. To overcome this, we implement an approach that measures and models the separate components of a tropical cyclone event: the hazard, the exposure, and the impacts. We then estimate a set of models that quantify how the incidence and intensity of organized violence respond to hazard exposure. We find little evidence that the average tropical cyclone enhances or diminishes violent conflict at the country level over a two-year time horizon. Yet rather than signaling that storms do not matter for political violence, unpacking this average result reveals two countervailing effects within countries. Conflict, and especially one-sided violence against civilians, tends to escalate in regions directly exposed to the tropical cyclone. In contrast, areas outside the path of the storm may experience a decrease in conflict. These results are heterogeneous with tropical cyclone intensity, and conflict escalation is more likely to occur in settings with less effective governments. Our results underscore the importance of ex-ante efforts targeting government capacity and effective disaster risk reduction to moderate the risk of violent conflict in the wake of tropical cyclones.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"203 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142908514","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-31DOI: 10.1177/00223433241292270
Yasuki Kudo
Great powers frequently signal their alliance commitments during peacetime. While scholars see this peacetime practice as an integral part of great powers’ alliance maintenance, there is significant variation in the intensity of signals that junior allies receive. This article suggests that the choices made by great powers in signalling alliance commitments can be explained by the motivation to encourage compliance among junior allies. Great powers typically form alliances to exert control over their junior allies’ decision-making and thereby maintain their sphere of influence. Yet, great powers may face difficulty in making junior allies accommodate their demands as junior allies’ interests are not always in alignment. This article argues that great powers attempt to maintain their allies’ incentive to comply by reaffirming alliance commitments as an ex-post reward. In addition, to increase the efficiency of this reward strategy, great powers carefully select the targets, taking into account their allies’ willingness to make concessions. Empirical analysis using the sample of United States alliance relationships provides evidence that supports these arguments. This article contributes to the literature by deepening our comprehension of how great powers manage their alliances and providing at least a partial answer to how asymmetric alliances are maintained. Furthermore, this article has important implications for how great powers maintain their status within the international system.
{"title":"Rewarding loyalty: Selective reassurance and enforcement of asymmetric alliances","authors":"Yasuki Kudo","doi":"10.1177/00223433241292270","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241292270","url":null,"abstract":"Great powers frequently signal their alliance commitments during peacetime. While scholars see this peacetime practice as an integral part of great powers’ alliance maintenance, there is significant variation in the intensity of signals that junior allies receive. This article suggests that the choices made by great powers in signalling alliance commitments can be explained by the motivation to encourage compliance among junior allies. Great powers typically form alliances to exert control over their junior allies’ decision-making and thereby maintain their sphere of influence. Yet, great powers may face difficulty in making junior allies accommodate their demands as junior allies’ interests are not always in alignment. This article argues that great powers attempt to maintain their allies’ incentive to comply by reaffirming alliance commitments as an ex-post reward. In addition, to increase the efficiency of this reward strategy, great powers carefully select the targets, taking into account their allies’ willingness to make concessions. Empirical analysis using the sample of United States alliance relationships provides evidence that supports these arguments. This article contributes to the literature by deepening our comprehension of how great powers manage their alliances and providing at least a partial answer to how asymmetric alliances are maintained. Furthermore, this article has important implications for how great powers maintain their status within the international system.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142908533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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