Policy Implications

2019 ◽  
pp. 271-294
Author(s):  
Vera Mironova
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Other ◽  
Armed Group ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Foreign Government ◽  
Foreign Actor ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
The Right

Although today’s civil conflicts are very different from those of previous generations, it is not a foregone conclusion that today’s Western-affiliated rebel groups will suffer defeat. While with any new conflict the task becomes more and more difficult, it is still possible to outcompete other groups in the rebel bloc, at least right now. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine a victory of a Western-oriented, startup armed group without significant outside support, because they lack experience and resources. At the same time, international actors with a different agenda also don’t want to miss a chance to use their money, experience, and knowledge to increase their sphere of influence through proxy groups in war-torn countries. That, in sum, makes this generation’s civil wars a highly competitive market for outside supporters. I this chapter the author discusses how this knowledge can be used to terminate a conflict more quickly by making foreign government intervention more effective—in particular, how a foreign actor could (1) choose a group in the rebel bloc to support; (2) persuade the group to accept support; and (3) provide the proper help at the right time in order to empower one group at the expense of others within the rebel camp.

FEERs and the ERM∗

1991 ◽  
Vol 137 ◽  
pp. 45-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Exchange Rates ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Other ◽  
Equilibrium Exchange ◽  
The Right

A number of economists, including the author, were critical of the central rate that was chosen when sterling entered the ERM in October 1990, on the ground that it overvalued the pound. Specifically, the central rate against the other ERM currencies implied a higher value for the pound than that yielded by calculations of ‘fundamental equilibrium exchange rates’ (FEERs).The present paper aims to explain the concept of the FEER, introduced by the author in Williamson (1983), and argues that it provides the right criterion for assessing whether a currency is correctly valued. It also sketches the evidence for believing the pound's ERM central rate to be above the FEER. A final section considers the policy implications of the finding that sterling is overvalued.

scholarly journals Coup-Proofing and Civil War

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Koga Sudduth
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
The Future ◽  
Face Threats ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Political leaders face threats to their power from within and outside the regime. Leaders can be removed via a coup d’état undertaken by militaries that are part of the state apparatus. At the same time, leaders can lose power when they confront excluded opposition groups in civil wars. The difficulty for leaders, though, is that efforts to address one threat might leave them vulnerable to the other threat due to the role of the military as an institution of violence capable of exercising coercive power. On one hand, leaders need to protect their regimes from rebels by maintaining strong militaries. Yet, militaries that are strong enough to prevail against rebel forces are also strong enough to execute a coup successfully. On the other hand, leaders who cope with coup threats by weakening their militaries’ capabilities to organize a coup also diminish the very capabilities that they need to defeat their rebel challengers. This unfortunate trade-off between protection by the military and protection from the military has been the long-standing theme in studies of civil-military relations and coup-proofing. Though most research on this subject has focused primarily on rulers’ maneuvers to balance the threats posed by the military and the threats coming from foreign adversaries, more recent scholarship has begun to explore how leaders’ efforts to cope with coup threats will influence the regime’s abilities to address the domestic threats coming from rebel groups, and vice versa. This new wave of research focuses on two related vectors. First, scholars address whether leaders who pursue coup-proofing strategies that weaken their militaries’ capabilities also increase the regime’s vulnerability to rebel threats and the future probability of civil war. Second, scholars examine how the magnitude of threats posed by rebel groups will determine leaders’ strategies toward the militaries, and how these strategies affect both the militaries’ influence over government policy and the future probability of coup onsets. These lines of research contribute to the conflict literature by examining the causal mechanisms through which civil conflict influences coup propensity and vice versa. The literatures on civil war and coups have developed independently without much consideration of each other, and systematic analyses of the linkage between them have only just began.

Intervention: Individual and Collective

1945 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 645-663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles G. Fenwick
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Entire Volume ◽  
Foreign Government ◽  
Internal Affairs ◽  
The Right

Of all the terms in general use in international law none is more challenging than that of “ intervention.” Scarcely any two writers are to be found who define this term in the same way or who classify the same situations under it. To one writer it is the interference of one state in the affairs of another; to a second writer it is “ unwarranted” interference; to a third it is interference in the domestic or internal affairs of the state; to a fourth it is interference in external as well as internal affairs. Some writers include interference of a third state between two belligerents in time of war, by taking sides with one against the other; others include only interference between the parties to a civil war. Some include “ diplomatic intervention,” where the intervening state interferes in behalf of its citizens in cases of alleged denial of justice by the other state; others regard such interference merely as “ interposition,” since it does not involve an attempt to control the character of the foreign government but merely to influence its conduct. Many jurists regard all intervention as illegal; an American jurist constructs an entire volume on international law around the central theme of the right of intervention.

Civil Conflicts Abroad, Foreign Fighters, and Terrorism at Home

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (8) ◽  
pp. 1636-1660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Braithwaite ◽  
Tiffany S. Chu
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Foreign Fighters ◽  
New Terrorism ◽  
At Home ◽  
Empirical Analyses

Terrorist attacks in Brussels (May 2014) and Paris (January and November 2015) highlight the threat related to the arrival of foreign fighters (FFs) from civil wars elsewhere. We develop an argument suggesting that terrorism at home is systematically affected by the exit of the so-called FFs out of civil wars abroad. We contend that foreign civil conflicts ending in success for rebel groups can result in a surplus of well-trained FFs, increasing the risk of terrorism at home. By contrast, when rebel groups are defeated in foreign civil conflicts, we anticipate a restriction in the flow of FFs, which reduces the likelihood of terrorism at home. Empirical analyses on most countries for the years 1970 to 2006 support these hypotheses. Our tests also demonstrate that the flow of FFs is associated with the creation of new terrorism campaigns rather than the exacerbation of existing operations.

scholarly journals Fighting the Hydra

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (6) ◽  
pp. 759-773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell Radtke ◽  
Hyeran Jo
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Negative Binomial ◽  
Negative Binomial Regression ◽  
Causal Chain ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Income Sources ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Economic Coercion ◽  
Conflict Reduction

In the past 25 years, the United Nations has sanctioned 28 rebel groups in 13 civil wars. Have the UN sanctions been effective in meeting the goal of conflict reduction? In this article, we argue that UN sanctions are effective to the extent that they can constrain and weaken some rebel groups. But this constraining effect can only occur when UN sanctions curtail rebel groups’ ability to adapt. For less adaptable groups, UN sanctions can trigger a causal chain of depressed rebel income, territorial losses, and battlefield defeats that leads to conflict reduction. This adaptability is the key to the understanding of UN sanctions’ effectiveness in conflict reduction, as rebel groups often engage in illegal and criminal economic activities and many of them are ‘Hydra-like’, being able to shift their income sources in response to sanction measures. As evidence of how UN sanctions can trigger these conflict dynamics, we first perform negative binomial regression on all civil war cases. We then proceed to provide more detailed evidence for our causal chain by conducting time-series intervention analysis on two sanctioned rebel groups: UNITA in Angola and al-Shabaab in Somalia. Our work is the first systematic quantitative analysis of UN sanctions’ effects on rebel groups, and the results have implications for the viability of economic coercion as a means to intervene into civil conflicts.

Why do civil wars occur? Another look at the theoretical dichotomy of opportunity versus grievance

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 2627-2650 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZEYNEP TAYDAS ◽  
JASON ENIA ◽  
PATRICK JAMES
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Comprehensive Approach ◽  
The Other ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Conflict Processes ◽  
Critical Aspects ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to review major theoretical arguments with regard to the causes of civil war and identify problems associated with the conceptual juxtaposition of opportunity versus grievance that predominates in the field. While they are critical aspects of conflict processes, perception of opportunity and grievance as two mutually competing explanations or separate categories ultimately can limit, rather than facilitate, our understanding of civil conflicts. For example, we show that not all motives can be designated easily as deriving from one or the other. In addition, the existing dichotomous framework masks other important questions about the way that collective action is achieved in some circumstances and not others or the way that some factors seem to generate grievances at one stage, perhaps, but then an opportunity at another orvice versa. Thus the priority should be to develop an integrated, comprehensive approach that can account for fundamental aspects of complex conflict processes. We conclude by providing suggestions for future research on civil conflict.

Divergent Modes of Religiosity and Armed Struggle

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey Whitehouse ◽  
Brian McQuinn
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Small Sample Size ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Armed Struggle ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Supernatural Beliefs

This chapter investigates one of the most powerful mechanisms by which groups may be formed, inspired, and coordinated—ritual—which may be defined as normative behavior with an irretrievably opaque causal structure. The divergent modes of religiosity (DMR) theory is applied to armed groups engaged in civil conflicts, some of which explicitly incorporate “religious” traditions while others vehemently repudiate supernatural beliefs of any kind. It is argued that the DMR theory can be extended to explain recurrent features of ritual traditions which lack many or all beliefs typically marked “religious.” Unlike many religions, rebel groups tend to display the predictions of only one mode, although this may be an effect of small sample size. It is believed that the DMR theory can possibly clarify broad patterns in intergroup violence and the dynamics of contemporary civil wars.

scholarly journals Valuation of Financial Synergies in Mergers and Acquisitions: A Case Study of Multiple Indian Entities

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjala Kalsie ◽  
Aishwarya Nagpal
Keyword(s):  
Mergers And Acquisitions ◽  
Performance Indicators ◽  
Lower Cost ◽  
Cost Of Capital ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Other ◽  
Acquisition Period ◽  
Basic Parameters ◽  
The Right

Mergers and acquisitions are broadly undertaken to have extraneous advantages for the combined entity vis-à-vis standalone entities. The objective of the study is to evaluate the actual financial synergy realisations in case of four recent and significant MandA deals in three different sectors in India: automobile, banking, and pharmaceuticals. These are: Amtek Auto and JMT Auto; Kotak Mahindra and ING Vysya Bank; Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd and Ranbaxy Laboratories; and Express Scripts and Medco Health Solutions. Synergies are calculated for few basic parameters including revenue, expenditure, and PAT in all the four deals and also for industry-specific elementary performance indicators for proper evaluation of the industry. The results suggest Kotak Mahindra -ING Vysya Bank and Sun Pharma-Ranbaxy deals were able to realise most of the synergies that were estimated and were on the right track towards synergy realisation in the post-acquisition period. However, the Amtek Auto-JMT Auto deal couldn’t realise cost synergies as their expenditures elevated to high levels after the merger but it managed to attain lower cost of capital financial synergies. On the other hand, Express Scripts-Medco deal badly failed because it couldn’t attain revenue synergies after the merger. The study concludes with the relevant policy implications.

scholarly journals Female combatants, forced recruitment, and civil conflict outcomes

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 205316801877055 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Braithwaite ◽  
Luna B. Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Female Participation ◽  
Logistic Regression Models ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
The Government ◽  
Conflict Outcomes

Women participated as combatants in almost 40% of civil conflicts that occurred between 1979 and 2009. We offer a novel argument about the effect of female combatants upon the outcomes of the civil conflicts that they join. Groups that recruit female combatants are more likely to achieve victory in their conflicts than are groups that do not recruit female combatants. However, when rebel groups rely upon forced recruitment, they risk undermining the benefits associated with female combatants, lowering their likelihood of victory relative to that of the government. We test this conditional argument using multinomial logistic regression models on a sample of 194 rebel groups globally from 1979 to 2009. We find that female participation appears to decrease the likelihood of government victory in civil wars; this effect holds primarily in instances in which female participation could plausibly be thought of as voluntary. Forced female participation, by contrast, appears to increase the likelihood of a government victory.

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