Civil War and the Formation of Social Trust in Kosovo

2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 717-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Kijewski ◽  
Markus Freitag
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Nationwide Survey ◽  
Event Data ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
War Experiences ◽  
The Impact

While a new, growing subset of the literature argues that armed conflict does not necessarily erode social cohesion in the postwar era, we challenge this perspective and examine how civil war experiences shape social trust in Kosovo after the war from 1998 to 1999. Based on a nationwide survey conducted in 2010 and the disaggregated conflict event data set of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, we simultaneously analyze the impact of individual war-related experiences and exposure to war in the community through hierarchical analyses of twenty-six municipalities. Our findings confirm that civil war is negatively related to social trust. This effect proves to be more conclusive for individual war experiences than for contextual war exposure. Arguably, the occurrence of instances of violence with lasting psychological as well as social structural consequences provides people with clear evidence of the untrustworthiness, uncooperativeness, and hostility of others, diminishing social trust in the aftermath of war.

War experiences, economic grievances, and political participation in postwar societies: An empirical analysis of Kosovo

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 405-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Freitag ◽  
Sara Kijewski ◽  
Malvin Oppold
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Economically Disadvantaged ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
War Experiences ◽  
War Victims ◽  
The Impact

This article contributes to the debate evolving around the political legacy of armed conflict. We evaluate the effect of war experiences during the 1998–1999 civil war in Kosovo on various modes of political participation. We find that war victims are on average more likely to participate in non-institutionalized forms of participation such as signing petitions and to participate in protests in the postwar era. In addition, we show that the impact of war experiences on political protest is contingent upon the postwar situation. War experiences are linked to protest behavior when a survivor is economically disadvantaged after the war. However, war experiences lose their impact on protest behavior when people do not encounter economic grievances in the postwar environment. In this vein, exploring the postwar context enriches our understanding of the political legacy of war victimization.

A Pandemic of Violence? The Impact of COVID-19 on Conflict

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara M.T. Polo
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Event Data ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Johns Hopkins University ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Advantage ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis article examines the impact and repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on patterns of armed conflict around the world. It argues that there are two main ways in which the pandemic is likely to fuel, rather than mitigate, conflict and engender further violence in conflict-prone countries: (1) the exacerbating effect of COVID-19 on the underlying root causes of conflict and (2) the exploitation of the crisis by governments and non-state actors who have used the coronavirus to gain political advantage and territorial control. The article uses data collected in real-time by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) and the Johns Hopkins University to illustrate the unfolding and spatial distribution of conflict events before and during the pandemic and combine this with three brief case studies of Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Libya. Descriptive evidence shows how levels of violence have remained unabated or even escalated during the first five months of the pandemic and how COVID-19-related social unrest has spread beyond conflict-affected countries.

Civilian Victimization and Ethnic Civil War

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1199-1225
Author(s):  
Lars-Erik Cederman ◽  
Simon Hug ◽  
Livia I. Schubiger ◽  
Francisco Villamil
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
The State ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Civilian Population ◽  
Targeted Violence ◽  
Structural Variables ◽  
Global Coverage

While many studies provide insights into the causes of wartime civilian victimization, we know little about how the targeting of particular segments of the civilian population affects the onset and escalation of armed conflict. Previous research on conflict onset has been largely limited to structural variables, both theoretically and empirically. Moving beyond these static approaches, this article assesses how the state-led targeting of specific ethnic groups affects the likelihood of ethnic conflict onset and the evolution of conflicts once they break out. Relying on a new data set with global coverage that captures the ethnic identity of civilian victims of targeted violence, we find evidence that the state-led civilian victimization of particular ethnic groups increases the likelihood that the latter become involved in ethnic civil war. We also find tentative, yet more nuanced, evidence that ethnic targeting by state forces affects the escalation of ongoing conflicts.

scholarly journals The geo-temporal evolution of violence in civil conflicts: A micro analysis of conflict diffusion on a new event data set

2021 ◽  
pp. 002234332097869
Author(s):  
Arzu Kibris
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Latent Variable ◽  
Probit Model ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Event Data ◽  
Exact Matching ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Turkish State ◽  
Micro Analysis

Existing works on diffusion fail to account for the incapacitating effects conflict events may have on the operational capability of the combatant sides and how these effects may determine the evolution of a conflict. I hypothesize that it is those events with losses on the state side that are likely to be associated with geo-temporal spillovers, whereas events with insurgency losses are less likely to be associated with future mayhem in their vicinity. To test my arguments, I first introduce a new, comprehensive and detailed event dataset on the long-running civil conflict in Turkey. The Turkish State–PKK Conflict Event Database (TPCONED) includes the exact date and county-level location for the fatal events of the armed conflict between the Turkish state and the rebel organization PKK since its very beginning in 1984 with detailed information on combatant casualties. I then employ a split population bi-probit model which allows me to comprehensively depict the geotemporal evolution of the conflict by acknowledging, estimating and accounting for the variation in the underlying conflict proneness across locations as a latent variable that shapes the diffusion of events. The results of the statistical analyses offer support for my hypotheses and reveal that how events evolve over space and time is conditioned by the damages suffered by the combatant sides. I demonstrate the robustness of these results on a matched sample I obtain by employing the Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) on the data.

The Empirical Record of Highly Structured Intergovernmental Organizations and Armed Conflict Escalation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaroslav Tir ◽  
Johannes Karreth
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Intergovernmental Organizations ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Low Level ◽  
The Impact

For a systematic, empirical test of this book’s main hypothesis, we develop a research design for a quantitative analysis of low-level armed conflicts. We define these conflicts as the occurrence of politically motivated violence resulting in at least twenty-five battle deaths. The analysis examines whether low-level armed conflict escalated to full-scale civil war and surpassed a threshold of 1,000 casualties. Since World War II, roughly one-third of more than 260 separate low-level armed conflicts have escalated to civil war. Analyzing systematic patterns among these conflicts, we find strong evidence favoring our hypothesis. Countries that belong to a larger number of highly structured intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) face a significantly lower risk that emerging low-level armed conflicts on their territories escalate to full-scale civil wars. The impact of a greater number of memberships in highly structured IGOs is substantial, cutting the risk of escalation by more than half.

Invisible Digital Front: Can Cyber Attacks Shape Battlefield Events?

2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadiya Kostyuk ◽  
Yuri M. Zhukov
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Additional Data ◽  
Physical Violence ◽  
Cyber Attacks ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Event Data ◽  
The Relationship

Recent years have seen growing concern over the use of cyber attacks in wartime, but little evidence that these new tools of coercion can change battlefield events. We present the first quantitative analysis of the relationship between cyber activities and physical violence during war. Using new event data from the armed conflict in Ukraine—and additional data from Syria’s civil war—we analyze the dynamics of cyber attacks and find that such activities have had little or no impact on fighting. In Ukraine—one of the first armed conflicts where both sides deployed such tools extensively—cyber activities failed to compel discernible changes in battlefield behavior. Indeed, hackers on both sides have had difficulty responding to battlefield events, much less shaping them. An analysis of conflict dynamics in Syria produces similar results: the timing of cyber actions is independent of fighting on the ground. Our finding—that cyber attacks are not (yet) effective as tools of coercion in war—has potentially significant implications for other armed conflicts with a digital front.

scholarly journals Women, Civil War and Struggle for Survival: A Study of Tamil Women in Ampara District of Sri Lanka

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Athula Withanawasam
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Public Assistance ◽  
Age Difference ◽  
Male Partners ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Tamil Women

Even though the civil war in Sri Lanka officially ended in 2009, the hardship created by war is long-lasting and will take years to reconcile. This research is about the impact of war politics on women of Tamil community in the Ampara district of Sri Lanka during the period of armed conflict. The findings of this study reveal that the girls of the Tamil community were forcefully recruited to join the Tamil militant groups. Hence, parents found the only way to rescue their children and to assure their existence was to arrange teenage marriages. Most of those marriages were not legally registered. This paved the way for the male partners to abandon their spouses, often with children. The women whose children were forcefully recruited to militant forces and whose life was lost in the battle filed were given the dignity of ‘Veera Thai’ (Heroine Mother) with an allowance as gratitude for bearing such a war hero. However, it was revealed the title itself had resulted in many types of hardships. The government also deliberately denied any public assistance to those families. The study has found that the women in the numerically weakest groups during war time, irrespective of age difference, had undergone many and varied hardship. The study further has identified that the hardship experienced by these women continued even in the post-civil war context. Therefore, the study urges that these types of hardship faced by women in the post-war context need to be handled with political sensitivity to the equity and justice for women.

What do they Want? Rebels’ Objectives and Civil War Mediation

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmela Lutmar ◽  
Lesley Terris
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Intrastate Conflicts ◽  
Group Goals ◽  
Rebel Group ◽  
The Impact

AbstractIn this paper, we focus on mediation in intrastate conflicts, specifically on the impact of rebel group goals on the prospects for mediation. We ask whether the goals for which rebel groups fight (i.e. secession, irredentism, autonomy, greater political rights, government overthrow) have an impact on the likelihood that these conflicts will be mediated. We test our hypotheses on a new data set of rebel groups in Africa 1962–2010.

scholarly journals Strategies and Tactics in Armed Conflict: How Governments and Foreign Interveners Respond to Insurgent Threats

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (9) ◽  
pp. 2207-2232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Lynne Sullivan ◽  
Johannes Karreth
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Civilian Protection ◽  
Forced Resettlement ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Employment Choices ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
Internal Armed Conflicts

We introduce a new data set on the strategies and tactics employed by belligerents in 197 internal armed conflicts that occurred between 1945 and 2013. The Strategies and Tactics in Armed Conflict (STAC) data set provides scholars with a rich new source of information to facilitate investigations of how regimes and their foreign supporters have responded to insurgent threats and the effects of actors’ force employment choices on a wide variety of intra- and postconflict outcomes. In addition to seventeen novel variables that measure the strategies and tactics employed by governments and intervening states, the STAC data set contains independently coded measures of many variables that overlap with existing data sets—a feature that facilitates the replication of existing studies and robustness checks on the results of new studies. We demonstrate the utility of the STAC data with an analysis of the impact of rebel mobilization on the basis of ethnicity on the propensity of governments to employ forced resettlement, civilian protection, civilian welfare projects, and civilian targeting to counter the insurgent threat.

Age at Exposure to Parental Suicide and the Subsequent Risk of Suicide in Young People

Crisis ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuan-Ying Lee ◽  
Chung-Yi Li ◽  
Kun-Chia Chang ◽  
Tsung-Hsueh Lu ◽  
Ying-Yeh Chen
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Proportional Hazards ◽  
Proportional Hazards Model ◽  
Cox Proportional Hazards ◽  
Cox Proportional Hazards Model ◽  
Birth Registry ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Parental Suicide ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Age At Exposure

Abstract. Background: We investigated the age at exposure to parental suicide and the risk of subsequent suicide completion in young people. The impact of parental and offspring sex was also examined. Method: Using a cohort study design, we linked Taiwan's Birth Registry (1978–1997) with Taiwan's Death Registry (1985–2009) and identified 40,249 children who had experienced maternal suicide (n = 14,431), paternal suicide (n = 26,887), or the suicide of both parents (n = 281). Each exposed child was matched to 10 children of the same sex and birth year whose parents were still alive. This yielded a total of 398,081 children for our non-exposed cohort. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to compare the suicide risk of the exposed and non-exposed groups. Results: Compared with the non-exposed group, offspring who were exposed to parental suicide were 3.91 times (95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.10–4.92 more likely to die by suicide after adjusting for baseline characteristics. The risk of suicide seemed to be lower in older male offspring (HR = 3.94, 95% CI = 2.57–6.06), but higher in older female offspring (HR = 5.30, 95% CI = 3.05–9.22). Stratified analyses based on parental sex revealed similar patterns as the combined analysis. Limitations: As only register-­based data were used, we were not able to explore the impact of variables not contained in the data set, such as the role of mental illness. Conclusion: Our findings suggest a prominent elevation in the risk of suicide among offspring who lost their parents to suicide. The risk elevation differed according to the sex of the afflicted offspring as well as to their age at exposure.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document