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}
Pub Date : 2024-12-18DOI: 10.1177/00223433241290315
Sam A Erkiletian
What explains the variation in combatant socialization and resocialization outcomes? Why do some combatants adopt the intended norms of their organization while others resist them? Combatants regularly undergo intensive socialization and ‘resocialization’ processes within total institutions – regimented environments like armed organizations and re-education programs that seek to alter their norms. Total institutions profoundly shape the behaviors and attitudes of combatants during and after conflict. However, even within these controlled environments, combats develop norms differently, and it is still not clear what factors drive this variation in combatant preference formation. This article presents and tests a framework that combatant socialization is in part driven by subgroups – the smaller social units within total institutions that form the informal structure and environment of combatants. Specifically, subgroup leaders moderate socialization processes by reinforcing or undermining the official norms of the organization. To test this expectation, I leverage archival data from the British re-education program for German POWs (1946–1948) which sought to ‘democratize’ them. To facilitate re-education, British officials installed pro-democratic POWs into subgroup leadership positions in select camps. Using a novel dataset constructed from hand-coded administrative reports, I measure the effect of subgroup leadership type on socialization outcomes. The results suggest that subgroup leaders moderate socialization outcomes.
{"title":"The role of subgroup leaders in combatant socialization and resocialization: The British re-education program for German POWs (1946–1948)","authors":"Sam A Erkiletian","doi":"10.1177/00223433241290315","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241290315","url":null,"abstract":"What explains the variation in combatant socialization and resocialization outcomes? Why do some combatants adopt the intended norms of their organization while others resist them? Combatants regularly undergo intensive socialization and ‘resocialization’ processes within total institutions – regimented environments like armed organizations and re-education programs that seek to alter their norms. Total institutions profoundly shape the behaviors and attitudes of combatants during and after conflict. However, even within these controlled environments, combats develop norms differently, and it is still not clear what factors drive this variation in combatant preference formation. This article presents and tests a framework that combatant socialization is in part driven by subgroups – the smaller social units within total institutions that form the informal structure and environment of combatants. Specifically, subgroup leaders moderate socialization processes by reinforcing or undermining the official norms of the organization. To test this expectation, I leverage archival data from the British re-education program for German POWs (1946–1948) which sought to ‘democratize’ them. To facilitate re-education, British officials installed pro-democratic POWs into subgroup leadership positions in select camps. Using a novel dataset constructed from hand-coded administrative reports, I measure the effect of subgroup leadership type on socialization outcomes. The results suggest that subgroup leaders moderate socialization outcomes.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"83 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142849100","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 : 2024-12-18DOI: 10.1177/00223433241283323
Camille Laville, Pierre Mandon
Do variations in local incomes influence peace and conflict in low- and middle-income countries? The present meta-regression analysis contributes to answering this question by delving into the narratives that researchers use to qualify how various shocks affect conflict risk through channels implicitly linked to income. After examining 2,464 subnational estimates from 64 recent empirical studies, we find that several publication biases related to authors’ methodological choices influence our understanding of this phenomenon. Importantly, studies that fail to uncover empirical effects that conform to researchers’ expectations on the theoretical mechanisms are less likely to be published. After accounting for publication selection bias, the analysis finds that, on average, income-increasing shocks in the agriculture sector are negatively associated with the local risk of conflict. Nonetheless, the analysis finds no average effect of income-decreasing shocks in the agriculture sector or income-increasing shocks in the extractive sector on the local risk of conflict. The article opens avenues for further study on the granular observed heterogeneity in the literature, particularly focusing on the conditional aspects of how shocks and conflicts are measured and the geographical coverage, among others.
{"title":"Internal conflicts and shocks: A narrative meta-analysis","authors":"Camille Laville, Pierre Mandon","doi":"10.1177/00223433241283323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241283323","url":null,"abstract":"Do variations in local incomes influence peace and conflict in low- and middle-income countries? The present meta-regression analysis contributes to answering this question by delving into the narratives that researchers use to qualify how various shocks affect conflict risk through channels implicitly linked to income. After examining 2,464 subnational estimates from 64 recent empirical studies, we find that several publication biases related to authors’ methodological choices influence our understanding of this phenomenon. Importantly, studies that fail to uncover empirical effects that conform to researchers’ expectations on the theoretical mechanisms are less likely to be published. After accounting for publication selection bias, the analysis finds that, on average, income-increasing shocks in the agriculture sector are negatively associated with the local risk of conflict. Nonetheless, the analysis finds no average effect of income-decreasing shocks in the agriculture sector or income-increasing shocks in the extractive sector on the local risk of conflict. The article opens avenues for further study on the granular observed heterogeneity in the literature, particularly focusing on the conditional aspects of how shocks and conflicts are measured and the geographical coverage, among others.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"262 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142849554","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 : 2024-12-18DOI: 10.1177/00223433241279379
Sarah Birch
The impact of extreme weather events on electoral processes is not well understood, yet as the climate changes, such events are predicted to become more common. This highlights the need for scholars to investigate how natural hazards affect election campaigns and electoral administration. Drawing on data from the Electoral Contention and Violence dataset, this article uses a difference-in-differences approach to assess the effect of tropical storms on electoral contention over seven elections held in the Philippines between 1992 and 2010. It finds that storms that occur in the year leading up to an election increase, and that this effect is likely accounted for by both economic grievances consequent upon the negative impact of storms on agricultural output and grievances generated by storm-induced disruptions to the electoral process. These findings suggest that as climate change intensifies, – and the violence that contention often entails – could become more common in a number of contexts. This has implications for electoral administration, and it implies the need for cooperation across electoral and meteorological agencies in places where weather extremes are likely to occur in the runup to electoral events.
{"title":"Extreme weather and contentious elections","authors":"Sarah Birch","doi":"10.1177/00223433241279379","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241279379","url":null,"abstract":"The impact of extreme weather events on electoral processes is not well understood, yet as the climate changes, such events are predicted to become more common. This highlights the need for scholars to investigate how natural hazards affect election campaigns and electoral administration. Drawing on data from the Electoral Contention and Violence dataset, this article uses a difference-in-differences approach to assess the effect of tropical storms on electoral contention over seven elections held in the Philippines between 1992 and 2010. It finds that storms that occur in the year leading up to an election increase, and that this effect is likely accounted for by both economic grievances consequent upon the negative impact of storms on agricultural output and grievances generated by storm-induced disruptions to the electoral process. These findings suggest that as climate change intensifies, – and the violence that contention often entails – could become more common in a number of contexts. This has implications for electoral administration, and it implies the need for cooperation across electoral and meteorological agencies in places where weather extremes are likely to occur in the runup to electoral events.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"63 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142849549","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 : 2024-11-25DOI: 10.1177/00223433241275335
Slava Jankin, Alexander Baturo, Niheer Dasandi
Every year since 1946, the General Debate has taken place at the beginning of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly session. Representatives from all UN member states deliver an address, discussing the issues that they consider most important in global politics, revealing their governments’ positions, and seeking to persuade other states of their perspectives. The annual UN General Debate statements provide invaluable information for scholars of international relations – comparable globally and over time. However, these texts are stored as poor quality images without relevant metadata, preventing researchers from applying data science methods. This paper introduces the complete UN General Debate Corpus (UNGDC). Building on a previous incomplete release of UNGDC, we have extended the corpus to cover the entire 1946–present period, included additional data on all speakers and provided advanced search and data visualization tools on a new website. The complete corpus contains over 10,000 speeches from 202 countries, including historical countries – making it the most comprehensive, unique and accessible collection of global political speeches. We discuss the complete UNGDC, provide relevant information for data users and present illustrative examples of how the corpus can be employed to address key questions in world politics.
{"title":"Words to unite nations: The complete United Nations General Debate Corpus, 1946–present","authors":"Slava Jankin, Alexander Baturo, Niheer Dasandi","doi":"10.1177/00223433241275335","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241275335","url":null,"abstract":"Every year since 1946, the General Debate has taken place at the beginning of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly session. Representatives from all UN member states deliver an address, discussing the issues that they consider most important in global politics, revealing their governments’ positions, and seeking to persuade other states of their perspectives. The annual UN General Debate statements provide invaluable information for scholars of international relations – comparable globally and over time. However, these texts are stored as poor quality images without relevant metadata, preventing researchers from applying data science methods. This paper introduces the complete UN General Debate Corpus (UNGDC). Building on a previous incomplete release of UNGDC, we have extended the corpus to cover the entire 1946–present period, included additional data on all speakers and provided advanced search and data visualization tools on a new website. The complete corpus contains over 10,000 speeches from 202 countries, including historical countries – making it the most comprehensive, unique and accessible collection of global political speeches. We discuss the complete UNGDC, provide relevant information for data users and present illustrative examples of how the corpus can be employed to address key questions in world politics.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142713018","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 : 2024-11-25DOI: 10.1177/00223433241274979
Angela Chesler
Does environmental displacement provoke political instability? Though migration has long been considered an intermediary in the causal path between environmental change and political upheaval, the relationship remains theoretically underdeveloped and evidence has been limited. This article examines the impact of displacement caused by sudden-onset natural hazards on disruptive antigovernment events including armed conflict, protests and violent riots. It leverages the new Environmental Displacement Dataset (EnDis), an original dataset that identifies quantities of human movement in response to six types of sudden-onset natural hazards in Africa from 1990 to 2017, including floods, storms, wildfires, landslides, earthquakes and volcanic activity. The results of the analyses show that while environmental displacement is not associated with civil war onset or protests, it does increase the incidence of attacks by armed non-state actors and violent riots. Importantly, these destabilizing effects occurr primarily (1) in the context of displacement driven by floods and storms, and (2) when levels of displacement are well above average. Collectively, these findings portend deepening security crises and violent political upheaval as climate change drives more frequent episodes of extreme weather and excessive environmental displacement.
{"title":"Environmental displacement and political instability: Evidence from Africa","authors":"Angela Chesler","doi":"10.1177/00223433241274979","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241274979","url":null,"abstract":"Does environmental displacement provoke political instability? Though migration has long been considered an intermediary in the causal path between environmental change and political upheaval, the relationship remains theoretically underdeveloped and evidence has been limited. This article examines the impact of displacement caused by sudden-onset natural hazards on disruptive antigovernment events including armed conflict, protests and violent riots. It leverages the new Environmental Displacement Dataset (EnDis), an original dataset that identifies quantities of human movement in response to six types of sudden-onset natural hazards in Africa from 1990 to 2017, including floods, storms, wildfires, landslides, earthquakes and volcanic activity. The results of the analyses show that while environmental displacement is not associated with civil war onset or protests, it does increase the incidence of attacks by armed non-state actors and violent riots. Importantly, these destabilizing effects occurr primarily (1) in the context of displacement driven by floods and storms, and (2) when levels of displacement are well above average. Collectively, these findings portend deepening security crises and violent political upheaval as climate change drives more frequent episodes of extreme weather and excessive environmental displacement.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"198 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142713017","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 : 2024-11-16DOI: 10.1177/00223433241279377
Andrey Tomashevskiy
The notion of affinity among countries is central in studies of international relations: it plays an important role in research as scholars use measures of affinity to study conflict and cooperation in a variety of contexts. To more effectively measure affinity, I argue that it is necessary to utilize multidimensional data and take into account the network context of international relations. In this paper, I develop the deep affinity concept and introduce a new algorithm, the three-step graphical LASSO (GLASSO), to infer and recover latent affinity networks. This technique leverages the abundance of monadic and dyadic state-level data to identify the presence or absence of affinity links between pairs of countries. Directly incorporating network effects and using a variety of multidimensional data inputs, I used the three-step GLASSO to estimate latent affinity links among countries. With these data, I examined the implications of affinity for international conflict and foreign direct investment, and found that the measure of affinity generated with the three-step GLASSO outperformed alternative affinity measures and was associated with decreased conflict and increased economic interaction.
{"title":"Friends and partners: Estimating latent affinity networks with the graphical LASSO","authors":"Andrey Tomashevskiy","doi":"10.1177/00223433241279377","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241279377","url":null,"abstract":"The notion of affinity among countries is central in studies of international relations: it plays an important role in research as scholars use measures of affinity to study conflict and cooperation in a variety of contexts. To more effectively measure affinity, I argue that it is necessary to utilize multidimensional data and take into account the network context of international relations. In this paper, I develop the deep affinity concept and introduce a new algorithm, the three-step graphical LASSO (GLASSO), to infer and recover latent affinity networks. This technique leverages the abundance of monadic and dyadic state-level data to identify the presence or absence of affinity links between pairs of countries. Directly incorporating network effects and using a variety of multidimensional data inputs, I used the three-step GLASSO to estimate latent affinity links among countries. With these data, I examined the implications of affinity for international conflict and foreign direct investment, and found that the measure of affinity generated with the three-step GLASSO outperformed alternative affinity measures and was associated with decreased conflict and increased economic interaction.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142645941","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 : 2024-11-16DOI: 10.1177/00223433241267800
Peyman Asadzade
Why do protests emerge and endure in some localities but not others? This study focuses on urban protests in the city of Tehran, Iran’s capital and largest city, during the 2022 uprising to explain why protests emerged and endured in some neighbourhoods but not others. Using an original geocoded dataset of 339 protest events at the neighbourhood level, I test two competing sets of demographic and spatial explanations. The results reveal that protests are more likely to emerge and persist in neighbourhoods with a higher percentage of educated citizens, closer proximity to university campuses and convenient access to metro stations. I provide theoretical explanations on how education boosts political awareness, university campuses act as networking hubs influencing surrounding areas and metro stations facilitate critical gathering points for protests. The findings remain consistent even when I control for a range of variables and use alternative specifications.
{"title":"Demographic features or spatial structures? Unpacking local variation during the 2022 Iranian protests","authors":"Peyman Asadzade","doi":"10.1177/00223433241267800","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241267800","url":null,"abstract":"Why do protests emerge and endure in some localities but not others? This study focuses on urban protests in the city of Tehran, Iran’s capital and largest city, during the 2022 uprising to explain why protests emerged and endured in some neighbourhoods but not others. Using an original geocoded dataset of 339 protest events at the neighbourhood level, I test two competing sets of demographic and spatial explanations. The results reveal that protests are more likely to emerge and persist in neighbourhoods with a higher percentage of educated citizens, closer proximity to university campuses and convenient access to metro stations. I provide theoretical explanations on how education boosts political awareness, university campuses act as networking hubs influencing surrounding areas and metro stations facilitate critical gathering points for protests. The findings remain consistent even when I control for a range of variables and use alternative specifications.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142645942","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 : 2024-11-16DOI: 10.1177/00223433241276341
Hannah Smidt, Constantin Ruhe, Sabine Otto
Human rights are a fundamental principle and purpose of the United Nations (UN). Yet, UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs) exhibit substantial variation in their ability to engage in human rights activities. While existing research has investigated deployment and mandates, we explain what peacekeepers can actually do on the ground. We argue that the UN Security Council’s permanent member states (the P5) limit human rights mandates if they have private interests in PKO host countries, thereby diminishing peacekeepers’ ability to promote and protect human rights. Moreover, armed conflict shifts priorities away from human rights activities. We use novel data on 21 human rights activities in African countries (1991–2016) and item response models to capture PKOs’ latent ability to engage in these activities. Random and fixed effects regression and mediation analyses with sensitivity tests support our expectations. We find that the P5’s economic interests in the PKO host country negatively correlate with the strength of human rights mandate provisions, which in turn negatively correlates with PKOs’ ability to engage in human rights activities. We find similar, although less consistent, correlations for P5’s security interests. Yet, while mandates partly define the scope of PKOs’ activities, field-level conditions also have an influence. Specifically, ongoing armed conflict negatively correlates with PKOs’ ability to engage in human rights activities. Our results suggest that rising challenges to the liberal international order by powerful states, coupled with the more frequent deployment of PKOs in conflict zones, will likely increase the hurdles that UN PKOs need to overcome to meet expectations regarding their human rights engagement.
{"title":"Many hurdles to take: Explaining peacekeepers’ ability to engage in human rights activities","authors":"Hannah Smidt, Constantin Ruhe, Sabine Otto","doi":"10.1177/00223433241276341","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241276341","url":null,"abstract":"Human rights are a fundamental principle and purpose of the United Nations (UN). Yet, UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs) exhibit substantial variation in their ability to engage in human rights activities. While existing research has investigated deployment and mandates, we explain what peacekeepers can actually do on the ground. We argue that the UN Security Council’s permanent member states (the P5) limit human rights mandates if they have private interests in PKO host countries, thereby diminishing peacekeepers’ ability to promote and protect human rights. Moreover, armed conflict shifts priorities away from human rights activities. We use novel data on 21 human rights activities in African countries (1991–2016) and item response models to capture PKOs’ latent ability to engage in these activities. Random and fixed effects regression and mediation analyses with sensitivity tests support our expectations. We find that the P5’s economic interests in the PKO host country negatively correlate with the strength of human rights mandate provisions, which in turn negatively correlates with PKOs’ ability to engage in human rights activities. We find similar, although less consistent, correlations for P5’s security interests. Yet, while mandates partly define the scope of PKOs’ activities, field-level conditions also have an influence. Specifically, ongoing armed conflict negatively correlates with PKOs’ ability to engage in human rights activities. Our results suggest that rising challenges to the liberal international order by powerful states, coupled with the more frequent deployment of PKOs in conflict zones, will likely increase the hurdles that UN PKOs need to overcome to meet expectations regarding their human rights engagement.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142645947","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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