Theories of conflict emphasize dyadic interaction, yet existing empirical studies of civil war focus largely on state attributes and pay little attention to nonstate antagonists. We recast civil war ...in a dyadic perspective, and consider how nonstate actor attributes and their relationship to the state influence conflict dynamics. We argue that strong rebels, who pose a military challenge to the government, are likely to lead to short wars and concessions. Conflicts where rebels seem weak can become prolonged if rebels can operate in the periphery so as to defy a government victory yet are not strong enough to extract concessions. Conflicts should be shorter when potential insurgents can rely on alternative political means to violence. We examine these hypotheses in a dyadic analysis of civil war duration and outcomes, using new data on nonstate actors and conflict attributes, finding support for many of our conjectures.
How do domestic institutions affect autocratic leaders’ decisions to initiate military conflicts? Contrary to the conventional wisdom, I argue that institutions in some kinds of dictatorships allow ...regime insiders to hold leaders accountable for their foreign policy decisions. However, the preferences and perceptions of these autocratic domestic audiences vary, with domestic audiences in civilian regimes being more skeptical of using military force than the military officers who form the core constituency in military juntas. In personalist regimes in which there is no effective domestic audience, no predictable mechanism exists for restraining or removing overly belligerent leaders, and leaders tend to be selected for personal characteristics that make them more likely to use military force. I combine these arguments to generate a series of hypotheses about the conflict behavior of autocracies and test the hypotheses using new measures of authoritarian regime type. The findings indicate that, despite the conventional focus on differences between democracies and nondemocracies, substantial variation in conflict initiation occurs among authoritarian regimes. Moreover, civilian regimes with powerful elite audiences are no more belligerent overall than democracies. The result is a deeper understanding of the conflict behavior of autocracies, with important implications for scholars as well as policy makers.
The Geography of Ethnic Violenceis the first among numerous distinguished books on ethnic violence to clarify the vital role of territory in explaining such conflict. Monica Toft introduces and tests ...a theory of ethnic violence, one that provides a compelling general explanation of not only most ethnic violence, civil wars, and terrorism but many interstate wars as well. This understanding can foster new policy initiatives with real potential to make ethnic violence either less likely or less destructive. It can also guide policymakers to solutions that endure.
The book offers a distinctively powerful synthesis of comparative politics and international relations theories, as well as a striking blend of statistical and historical case study methodologies. By skillfully combining a statistical analysis of a large number of ethnic conflicts with a focused comparison of historical cases of ethnic violence and nonviolence--including four major conflicts in the former Soviet Union--it achieves a rare balance of general applicability and deep insight.
Toft concludes that only by understanding how legitimacy and power interact can we hope to learn why some ethnic conflicts turn violent while others do not. Concentrated groups defending a self-defined homeland often fight to the death, while dispersed or urbanized groups almost never risk violence to redress their grievances. Clearly written and rigorously documented, this book represents a major contribution to an ongoing debate that spans a range of disciplines including international relations, comparative politics, sociology, and history.
Ethnonationalist Conflict in Postcommunist Statesinvestigates why some Eastern European states transitioned to new forms of governance with minimal violence while others broke into civil war. In ...Bulgaria, the Turkish minority was subjected to coerced assimilation and forced expulsion, but the nation ultimately negotiated peace through institutional channels. In Macedonia, periodic outbreaks of insurgent violence escalated to armed conflict. Kosovo's internal warfare culminated in NATO's controversial bombing campaign. In the twenty-first century, these conflicts were subdued, but violence continued to flare occasionally and impede durable conflict resolution. In this comparative study, Maria Koinova applies historical institutionalism to conflict analysis, tracing ethnonationalist violence in postcommunist states to a volatile, formative period between 1987 and 1992. In this era of instability, the incidents that brought majorities and minorities into dispute had a profound impact and a cumulative effect, as did the interventions of international agents and kin states. Whether the conflicts initially evolved in peaceful or violent ways, the dynamics of their disputes became self-perpetuating and informally institutionalized. Thus, external policies or interventions could affect only minimal change, and the impact of international agents subsided over time. Regardless of the constitutions, laws, and injunctions, majorities, minorities, international agents, and kin states continue to act in accord with the logic of informally institutionalized conflict dynamics. Koinova analyzes the development of those dynamics in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Kosovo, drawing on theories of democratization, international intervention, and path-dependence as well as interviews and extensive fieldwork. The result is a compelling account of the underlying causal mechanisms of conflict perpetuation and change that will shed light on broader patterns of ethnic violence.
This textbook provides a comprehensive overview of different methods and sources of information-gathering for peace and conflict students and researchers, as well as the challenges presented by such ...work.
Research on conflict-ridden societies carries special challenges for the collection and evaluation of information about the conflict and its actors. First, due to the nature of information emerging, incentives to misrepresent and propaganda is common. News coverage is sometimes poor and reporting is often incomplete, selective and biased. Second, the sensitivity of the topic and the questions posed in peace and conflict research means that access to and the security of informants can be a problem.
Peace and conflict research as a discipline encompasses a number of different approaches for obtaining empirical information which serve as a basis for analyzing various research topics. This book provides a comprehensive overview of different methods and sources of information-gathering for students and researchers, as well as the challenges presented by such work. It offers:
tools for evaluating sources and information
suggestions on where different types of information can be found
advice on using different types of sources, including news reports and written narratives
practical guidelines for constructing large-scale datasets
insights and guidelines for comparative fieldwork, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and surveys
reflection and discussion on important ethical concerns in peace research
This book will be of much interest for students and researchers of peace and conflict studies, conflict resolution, war and conflict studies, development studies, security studies and IR, as well as for NGO workers/researchers.
Kristine Höglund is Associate Professor
In this unique book Scott A. Bollens combines personal narrative with academic analysis in telling the story of inflammatory nationalistic and ethnic conflict in nine cities - Jerusalem, Beirut, ...Belfast, Johannesburg, Nicosia, Sarajevo, Mostar, Bilbao, and Barcelona. Reporting on seventeen years of research and over 240 interviews with political leaders, planners, architects, community representatives, and academics, he blends personal reflections, reportage from a wealth of original interviews, and the presentation of hard data in a multidimensional and interdisciplinary exploration of these urban environments of damage, trauma, healing, and repair.
City and Soul in Divided Societies reveals what it is like living and working in these cities, going inside the head of the researcher. This approach extends the reader's understanding of these places and connects more intimately with the lived urban experience. Bollens observes that a city disabled by nationalistic strife looks like a callous landscape of securitized space, divisions and wounds, frozen in time and in place. Yet, the soul in these cities perseveres.
Written for general readers and academic specialists alike, City and Soul in Divided Societies integrates facts, opinions, photographs, and observations in original ways in order to illuminate the substantial challenges of living in, and governing, polarized and unsettled cities.
Demography has always mattered in conflict, but with conflict increasingly of an inter-ethnic nature, with sharper demographic differences between ethnic groups and with the spread of democracy, ...numbers count in conflict now more than ever. This book argues for and develops a framework for demographic engineering which provides a fresh perspective for looking at political events in countries where ethnicity matters. It asks how policies have been framed and implemented to change the demography of ethnic groups on the ground in their own interests. It also examines how successful these policies have been, focusing on the cases of Sri Lanka, Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland and the USA. Often these policies are hidden but author Paul Morland teases them out with skill both from the statistics and documentary records and through conversations with participants. Offering a new way of thinking about demographic engineering ('hard demography' versus 'soft demography') and how ethnic groups in conflict deploy demographic strategies, this book will have a broad appeal to demographers, geographers and political scientists.
Revolution, civil wars, and guerilla warfare wracked Ethiopia during three turbulent decades at the end of the twentieth century. This book is a pioneering study of the military history and political ...significance of this crucial Horn of Africa region during that period. Drawing on new archival materials and interviews, Gebru Tareke illuminates the conflicts, comparing them to the Russian and Iranian revolutions in terms of regional impact.
Writing in vigorous and accessible prose, Tareke brings to life the leading personalities in the domestic political struggles, strategies of the warring parties, international actors, and key battles. He demonstrates how the brutal dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam lacked imagination in responding to crises and alienated the peasantry by destroying human and material resources. And he describes the delicate balance of persuasion and force with which northern insurgents mobilized the peasantry and triumphed. The book sheds invaluable light not only on modern Ethiopia but also on post-colonial state formation and insurrectionary politics worldwide.
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