Journal of Peace Research

Publisher:
Sage Publications, Inc.
Publication date:
2021-09-06
ISBN:
0022-3433

Issue Number

Latest documents

  • Violence against civilians and public support for the state: The moderating role of governance and ideology

    When state armed forces engage in violence against civilians during civil wars, why do some citizens continue to support the government? I argue that individuals’ support for the state in such contexts is shaped by the interplay between their perceptions of violence, governance and ideology. Drawing on research concerning motivated reasoning, I suggest that ideological similarity with and effective governance from the state can alleviate the negative effect of military violence against civilians on support for the state and, conversely, augment the positive effect of insurgent abuse on attitudes toward the government. Analysis of seven years of surveys fielded by the Latin American Public Opinion Project in Colombia between 2005 and 2011 suggests that individuals’ responses to victimization by the state’s armed forces depend on whether the individuals are ideologically aligned with the state. More specifically, among people who have an ideology similar to that of the president, military victimization has a less negative effect on support for the armed forces and for the national government. There is also mixed evidence that the quality of state governance, particularly the provision of security from crime, shapes the ways people respond to victimization. While existing studies primarily focus on the effects of either violence or governance on attitudes toward the state, these findings indicate that a more complete theory of why people support governments which engage in violence against civilians requires an understanding of not only violence but also of governance and ideology.

  • The women and men that make peace: Introducing the Mediating Individuals (M-IND) dataset

    This article presents new data on the individuals who mediate (M-IND) in all active UCDP dyads and lethal MIDs, 1989–2019. The dataset contributes to the systematic study of conflict management in several important respects: it covers both international and internal conflicts, it covers low-intensity violence, and it provides information on individual mediators, who appointed them, and type of mediation. Besides presenting the data collection and descriptive statistics, the article engages with the literatures on multiparty mediation and women, peace and security. M-IND shows that women more commonly are appointed as mediators by nongovernmental organizations than by states and international organizations. Our analysis suggests that greater equality in mediation efforts correlates with the use of more varied mediation strategies and is associated with a greater chance of reaching peace agreements.

  • Leader similarity and international conflict

    Scholars increasingly emphasize personal biographical characteristics of leaders in explaining patterns of foreign policy behavior. This article extends insights from this agenda to study how (dis)similarities in the background characteristics of leaders at the dyadic level shape international conflict outcomes. Trust and uncertainty are central to explaining conflict via their connections to commitment- and information-related causes of war. Psychological research provides evidence that perceived similarities between individuals and groups can foment trust and cooperation. We hypothesize that leaders who share more similar backgrounds and life experiences form stronger social bonds and are more trusting of one another. As such, leaders who have more in common with one another should be able to better manage diplomatic disputes and avoid conflict. We test this hypothesis using a new measure of dyadic-leader-level similarity created with the Leader Experience and Attribute Descriptions (LEAD) dataset and data on international conflict onset in politically relevant dyads throughout the period 1946–2004. We find that pairs of leaders with more similar backgrounds are significantly less likely to experience militarized interstate disputes at all levels of hostility even after accounting for a variety of observable and unobservable determinants of conflict. The findings contribute to our understanding of the determinants of international conflict and help advance research on linkages between psychological and rationalist approaches to studying conflict.

  • Blessing or curse? Assessing the local impacts of foreign direct investment on conflict in Africa

    The question of foreign direct investment (FDI) and socio-political development is debated heavily. Liberals believe that FDI brings economic opportunities and/or increased incentives for peace and security among host societies. Critics suggest that FDI is exploitative, leading to conditions that increase the risk of violence. We take a political economy perspective that views FDI as problematic depending on how FDI affects politically powerful local interests. As such, all forms of FDI should meet domestic opposition, but only FDI in the extractive sector, where domestic political actors have little at stake, escalates to major war. Building on recent work which examines this question pertaining to extractive sector FDI, we introduce sub-national, geo-referenced data on FDI in all sectors for evaluating local conflict using combined data from four distinct geo-referenced conflict databases. Using site-period fixed effects with a difference-in-difference like approach, we find that FDI in all sectors increases local conflict. Conflicts induced by most FDI sectors fall short of becoming civil war, except for extractive sector FDI.

  • Human rights violations and public support for sanctions

    Public pressure to take punitive action against human rights violators is often a driving force behind international sanctions. However, we know little about the way in which public support is shaped by varying types of abuse, the costs and effectiveness of sanctions and the differential harm they inflict upon the target population and leadership. Our study specifically addresses this gap by unpicking contextual factors that jointly sway the perception of morality and the cost-benefit calculus. We propose that there is no simple trade-off between instrumental and moral concerns. The context within which violations take place and the interactions between moral and instrumental dimensions shape preference formation. Findings from our paired conjoint experiment suggest that whether respondents support imposing sanctions depends on the category of human rights abuse and its perceived salience. Individuals also prefer sheltering the target population while punishing the leadership, but collective punishment becomes less unacceptable if the majority of the target population support the human rights infringements. The desire to do something against the perpetrators amplifies the appeal of punishing the leadership but assuages the moral concerns of harming the population.

  • Predicting armed conflict using protest data

    Protest is a low-intensity form of political conflict that can precipitate intrastate armed conflict. Data on protests should therefore be informative in systems that provide early warnings of armed conflict. However, since most protests do not escalate to armed conflict, we first need theory to inform our prediction models. We identify three theoretical explanations relating to protest-repression dynamics, political institutions and economic development as the basis for our models. Based on theory, we operationalize nine models and leverage the political Violence Early Warning System (ViEWS) to generate subnational forecasts for intrastate armed conflict in Africa. Results show that protest data substantially improves conflict incidence and onset predictions compared to baseline models that account for conflict history. Moreover, the results underline the centrality of theory for conflict forecasting: our theoretically informed protest models outperform naive models that treat all protests equally.

  • Domestic accountability and non-compliance with international law: Evidence from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

    Domestic public preferences often shape leaders’ decisions to comply with international legal rulings. Human rights scholars usually assume these preferences favor enforcement and justice. However, just because the public supports human rights does not mean they universally support remedies ordered by international courts. What happens when leaders face competing compliance pressures from an international court and domestic public? I examine this question in the context of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, a regional human rights court that operates primarily in Latin America. I argue that non-compliance may sometimes result from democratic leaders adjusting compliance behavior according to public opinion, especially when the implicated actor is popular. In particular, I argue that compliance is a function of proximity to the next presidential election, therefore necessitating greater responsiveness to the public’s opinions, and the public’s attitudes toward the actor implicated by the ruling. I test my argument on an original dataset of all Inter-American Court rulings implicating the military. I show that if the public does not support the military, the probability of compliance increases closer to an election; however, if the public does support the military, the probability of compliance decreases. My findings suggest the importance of incorporating the public’s attitudes into existing models of compliance with international law.

  • Repression, backlash, and the duration of protests in Africa

    This article investigates the relationship between recent repression of protest and the duration of future protests. A rich scholarship examines how repression impacts dissent, highlighting dissent dimensions such as the number of future events and violent escalation. Less examined is another dimension of dissent – protest duration. We hypothesize that recent repression of protests is pivotal for longer duration of future protest events. Our expectation stems from a participant type mechanism. Recent repression of protest may generate more societal grievances but also increase protesting risks. A simultaneous jump in grievances and risks may increase the number of people protesting who are also risk-acceptant and willing to protest for longer durations. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project data and hierarchal negative binomial models are used to estimate the association between recent repression of protest and subsequent protest duration. Compared to having none of the most recent three protests repressed, a protest in a location where the last three protests were repressed has a substantively longer duration. The results are consistent with the participant type mechanism and existing literature on repression’s heterogeneous effects on individuals.

  • Militarized state-building interventions and the survival of fragile states

    Militarized state-building interventions (MSIs) must fulfill two often conflicting goals. At the time of withdrawal the intervenor must leave in place a state able to survive on its own and govern its territory. States only intervene in other states, however, when they aspire to change the policy of the target in ways they prefer. In attempting to balance these objectives, the intervenor ‘pulls’ policy in its preferred direction by supporting a less popular leader at the cost of leaving behind a state that is no more likely to survive over time than its peers. We test our theory and find evidence for this trade-off by examining all MSIs by great powers and IOs in failed states from 1956 to 2006. Consistent with the theory, we find that MSIs do not on average have any significant effect on state survival. We also find that MSIs that move the target state’s policy closer to that of the external power have a negative effect on survival, but interventions that do not result in a change in policy do not. This argument and finding temper the optimism of much of the contemporary literature on international interventions. Potential intervenors face a stark trade-off. If they draw the policy of the failed state towards their own preferences, then that state will be more likely to fail again in the future.

  • Student protest, violent interactions, and state repression

    Why do states use violence to repress dissent? When do opposition groups escalate conflict by employing violent tactics? We argue that not all opposition groups are created alike, and that understanding who is involved in protest is important for event outcomes. Because of their age and social status, student protesters are more likely to adopt confrontational behaviors, even when engaged in nominally peaceful protest. As such, students are more likely to be seen as threats by security forces tasked with responding to social unrest. Although frequently unplanned, spontaneous interactions between dissidents and regime forces can lead to an escalatory spiral. As such, we expect that student protests are more likely to escalate to violence than protests by other actors, and that security forces are more likely to use repression against students. This relationship will be especially pronounced when youth unemployment is high, leading to heightened grievances and fewer social constraints. Using event data combined with actor information on protest dynamics across seven countries in Africa and Latin America from 1990 to 2016, we find that although student groups are not more likely to engage in riots at the outset, when they do protest, violent interactions with police are more likely. Moreover, youth unemployment significantly increases the potential for violence.

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