The Effect of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Global Armed Conflict: Early Evidence
| Author | Paul W Thurner,Marius Mehrl |
| Published date | 01 May 2021 |
| Date | 01 May 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929920940648 |
| Subject Matter | COVID-19: Pandemics, Global Politics and Societal ChallengesEarly Results |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920940648
Political Studies Review
2021, Vol. 19(2) 286 –293
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929920940648
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The Effect of the COVID-19
Pandemic on Global Armed
Conflict: Early Evidence
Marius Mehrl1 and Paul W Thurner2
Abstract
As COVID-19 spreads around the world, international actors, including the United Nations, have
called for a stop to armed conflict to facilitate efforts to fight the pandemic. At the same time,
coronavirus may also trigger and intensify armed conflict due to its negative economic consequences
and by offering windows of opportunity to opposition movements to attack distracted and
weakened incumbents. We use real-time data on the spread of COVID-19, governmental lockdown
policies, and battle events to study the causal short-term effect of the pandemic on armed conflict.
Our results suggest that both the spread of COVID-19 and lockdown policies exhibit a global
Null effect with considerable regional heterogeneity. Most importantly, governmental lockdowns
have increased armed conflict in the Middle East. In contrast, reported combat has decreased in
Southeast Asia and the Caucasus as the pandemic has spread.
Keywords
COVID-19, armed conflict, coronavirus, Civil War
Accepted: 18 June 2020
Introduction
On 23 March 2020, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, called
for a global ceasefire to ‘create corridors for life-saving aid[,] open precious windows for
diplomacy’, and thus facilitate stopping the spread of COVID-19 among vulnerable popu-
lations in war-torn countries (cited in UN, 2020). Continued armed conflict would hinder
efforts to fight coronavirus and thus act as a catalyser. At the same time, the pandemic
may trigger and fuel fighting due to its negative economic consequences and the windows
of opportunity it offers to opposition movements. We study the short-term effect of
COVID-19 on armed conflict within a difference-in-difference framework, leveraging tem-
porarily fine-grained data on the spread of COVID-19, governmental responses, and battle
1 Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
2
Geschwister-Scholl-Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich,
Germany
Corresponding author:
Marius Mehrl, Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK.
Email: marius.mehrl@essex.ac.uk
940648PSW0010.1177/1478929920940648Political Studies ReviewMehrl and Thurner
research-article2020
Early Results
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