Varieties of post-civil war violence

Quantitative research on the “durability” of peace following civil wars typically captures the breakdown or survival of “peace” in a binary manner, equating it with the presence or absence of civil war recurrence. In the datasets that underpin such studies, years that do not experience full-scale civil war are implicitly coded as “peaceful.” Yet, post-civil war environments may remain free from war recurrence, while nevertheless experiencing endemic violent crime, state repression, low-intensity political violence, and systematic violence against marginalized groups, all of which are incongruent with the concept of peace. Approaches to assessing post-civil war outcomes which focus exclusively on civil war recurrence risk overestimating the “durability” of peace, implicitly designating as “peaceful” a range of environments which may be anything but. In this article, we discuss the heterogeneity of violent post-civil war outcomes and develop a typology of “varieties of post-civil war violence.” Our typology contributes to the study of post-civil war peace durability, by serving as the basis for an alternative, categorical conceptualization of “peace years” in conflict datasets.

Teaching from experience: foreign training and rebel success in civil War

This paper addresses the relationship between rebel training from external sponsors and civil war outcomes. While past research has examined how foreign support, broadly, shapes the dynamics of civil wars, little attention has been paid to how foreign training of rebel fighters affects civil wars. We theorize that rebels that receive training from formerly successful rebels are more likely to experience favorable conflict outcomes than those with no training or with training from sponsors inexperienced with fighting a civil war. These propositions are tested with a quantitative analysis of all intrastate conflicts from 1975 to 2010, providing support for our hypothesis.

Terrain and war: Measuring topographic and land cover heterogeneity in interstate wars, 1816–2003

This article introduces the War Terrain Indices and Geospatial Representation Dataset (WARTIGER). This dataset addresses a dearth of quality terrain data in the study of interstate war outcomes. It introduces three primary sets of variables for all interstate wars between 1816 and 2003, including disaggregated versions of the First and Second World Wars. The first, spatial extent, approximates the total area of a given war. The second measures topographic heterogeneity using a terrain ruggedness index. The third estimates land cover heterogeneity and presents a trafficability index. These data allow for an accurate and temporal assessment of the role of terrain as they relate to the correlates of war outcomes.

PROSOPOGRAPHY OF THE KHARKIV MEDICAL INSTITUTE IN 1945–1991

PROSOPOGRAPHY OF KHARKIV MEDICAL INSTITUTE IN 1945–1991 Ilin V. The article aims to determine and consider the typical features of the key healthcare organizers in the post-war Soviet Kharkiv. The author created the collective portrait of 15 prominent physicians, scholars and administrators who got education or made a career at Kharkiv Medical Institute. In particular the origin, work path, professional achievements and civic activity were taken into account. As a result the author came to such conclusions: pre-war repressions and the WWII caused the gap of generations in the medical community despite preservation of the certain scientific schools; the relative separation of duties on public-administrative and scientific was noticeable among the healthcare organizers; engagement of women to the healthcare management became widespread; formation of the post-war generation of healthcare administrators was influenced by war outcomes, isolation of a medical science and education, ideological pressure, formal mandatory public activity and importance of informal party and professional ties for the career advancement. The preliminary set of personal qualities typical for the post-war generation of medical administrators was distinguished in comparison with qualities of their teachers – representatives of the last pre-Soviet generation. The prospects of the further studies were outlined such as study of informal vertical and horizontal relations at Kharkiv Medical Institute. Key words: Kharkiv Medical Institute, post-war era, prosopography, Soviet healthcare. Резюме. ПРОСОПОГРАФІЯ ХАРКІВСЬКОГО МЕДИЧНОГО ІНСТИТУТУ В 1945–1991 pp. Ільїн B. Метою статті є визначення та розгляд типових рис ключових організаторів охорони здоров’я в післявоєнному Харкові. Автор створив колективний портрет 15 видатних лікарів, науковців та керівників, які отримали освіту або зробили кар’єру в Харківському медичному інституті. Зокрема, було взято до уваги походження, трудовий шлях, професійні досягнення та громадська активність. У результаті автор дійшов таких висновків: довоєнні репресії та Друга світова війна зумовили розрив поколінь в медичній спільноті попри збереження окремих наукових шкіл; відносний поділ обов’язків на суспільно-адміністративні та наукові був помітним серед організаторів охорони здоров’я; поширеним стало залучення жінок до управління охороною здоров’я; на формування післявоєнного покоління адміністраторів охорони здоров’я вплинули наслідки війни, ізоляція медичних науки та освіти, ідеологічний тиск, формально обов’язкова громадська активність і важливість неформальних партійних й професійних зв’язків для кар’єрного просування. Було визначено попередній перелік особистих рис післявоєнного покоління медичних керівників порівняно з рисами їхніх вчителів – представників останнього дорадянського покоління медиків. Окреслено перспективи подальших досліджень, зокрема, вивчення неформальних вертикальних і горизонтальних відносин у Харківському медичному інституті. Ключові слова: післявоєнна доба, просопографія, радянська охорона здоров’я, Харківський медичний інститут. Резюме. ПРОСОПОГРАФИЯ ХАРЬКОВСКОГО МЕДИЦИНСКОГО ИНСТИТУТА В 1945–1991 ГГ Ильин B. Целью статьи является определение и рассмотрение типичных черт ключевых организаторов здравоохранения в послевоенном Харькове. Автор создал коллективный портрет 15 выдающихся врачей, ученых и руководителей, которые получили образование или сделали карьеру в Харьковском медицинском институте. В частности, во внимание было принято происхождение, трудовой путь, профессиональные достижения и общественная активность. В результате автор пришел к следующим выводам: довоенные репрессии и Вторая мировая война обусловили разрыв поколений в медицинском сообществе несмотря на сохранение отдельных научных школ; среди организаторов здравоохранения наблюдлось относительное разделение обязанностей на общественно-административные и научные; распространенным стало привлечение женщин к управлению здравоохранением; на формирование послевоенного поколения администраторов здравоохранения повлияли: последствия войны, изоляция медицинских науки и образования, идеологическое давление, формально обязательная общественная активность, важность неформальных партийных и профессиональных связей для карьерного продвижения. Был определен предварительный перечень личных качеств послевоенного поколения медицинских руководителей в сравнении с качествами их учителей – представителей последнего досоветского поколения медиков. Очерчены перспективы дальнейших исследований, в частности, изучение вертикальных и горизонтальных отношений в Харьковском медицинском институте. Ключевые слова: послевоенная эпоха, просопография, советское здравоохранение, Харьковский медицинский институт.

Gambling with Violence

State outsourcing of violence to nonstate actors is a global practice that challenges our notions of legitimate warfare, statehood, and citizenship. It matters for counterinsurgency, civil war outcomes, the humane treatment of civilians and former combatants, and the prospects of post-conflict peace. In South Asia, the use of nonstate proxies is deeply entwined with questions of state fragility, the postcolonial social contract, and the rivalry between two nuclear powers. This book explains the origins of state-nonstate alliances in times of civil war. A new balance-of-interests framework is generated through systematic fine-grained analyses of violence outsourcing by Pakistan and India in Kashmir, East Pakistan/Bangladesh, and their respective tribal belts. Central to this framework are the distribution of power inside the theater of war and varied interests of both the state and the nonstate actors. The cases drawn from Pakistan and India demonstrate how different configurations of local power and actors’ priorities result in distinct alliance patterns. The potential applicability of the balance-of-interests approach beyond South Asia is then demonstrated with analyses of Russia’s counterinsurgencies in Chechnya and Turkey’s operations against Kurdish rebels. The book builds on and contributes to the existing scholarship on civil war and counterinsurgency, in particular the burgeoning literature on militias, alliances, and South Asian security.

American Bias in Global Security Studies Data

Three major datasets contain problematic interpretative judgments, arguably biased toward the United States: the Polity dataset; Reiter and Stam's data on war outcomes; and Singh and Way's data on nuclear proliferation. These examples raise the possibility that important datasets in global security studies, and in political science more generally, are systematically affected by an American bias. Bias means that, non-Americans might code the same observations differently, on average. The issue arises because Americans, on average, seem to have certain predispositions that non-Americans, on average, do not have. Other nationalities have their own predispositions. I also demonstrate that each of the three empirical examples has significant implications for causal inferences, altering certain statistical findings based upon them. For instance, I reexamine Haber and Menaldo's study of the resource curse, showing that alternative data coding casts substantial doubt on their inferences.

US-China trade talk will edge away from ‘war’ outcomes

Headline US-CHINA: Trade talk will edge away from ‘war’ outcome