Conditional cross-border effects of terrorism in China

This paper explores whether the cross-border effect of ethnic violence is contingent on internal factors, such as domestic security measures, distribution of religious sites, availability of communication tools, and proximity to turbulent neighboring countries. Using county-level data from Xinjiang (1995–2012), our analyses show no support for direct violence-enhancing effects of outside terrorism in Xinjiang. When terrorist attacks increase globally or in neighboring countries, overall violence in Xinjiang diminishes. We attribute this to increased security measures by the government. However, the reduction in violence is highly conditional on local factors. We find that historical religiosity and geographic proximity to the border reduce the subsident effects of external terrorism.

Pro-government militias and civil war termination

Why do governments choose to fund pro-government militias (PGMs) if doing so could extend costly civil conflict? While PGMs are active in a majority of civil wars, their impact on conflict termination remains poorly understood. We argue that the choice to fund PGMs is a strategic one for states and part of their efforts to influence wartime dynamics and conflict termination. We hypothesize that PGMs’ impact on conflict termination is conditional on whether they are government funded. Government-funded PGMs help states to ward off costly negotiations and encourage the rebellion's gradual dissolution. Using competing risks analyses on civil wars ending between 1981 and 2007, we find robust evidence that PGM funding affects conflict outcomes.

Secessionist conflict as diversion from inequality: The missing link between grievance and repression

Why do some secessionist claims turn violent and others stay peaceful? This study elucidates the role of inequality and diversionary tactics of states in secessionist violence. Horizontal inequality increases the grievances of minorities and fuels rebellion. States with high vertical inequality prefer to suppress peripheries instead of increasing redistribution and alleviating their material grievances. States shun redistributing toward peripheral regions because sharing with one group prompts demands for redistribution among other groups, including the dominant group. Fearing resource reallocation at the national scale and potential loss of their elevated social status, the elites opt for violent solutions for secessionist crises. Using a new dataset on self-determination movements I test these conjectures and find strong support for them.

The Ethnic Stacking in Africa Dataset: When leaders use ascriptive identity to build military loyalty

Ethnicity has played a core role in the construction of African security institutions, with leaders often relying on coethnics to secure military loyalty. Such practices, termed ethnic stacking, likely have profound consequences for a range of important outcomes, from combat effectiveness to coup propensity to democratization. The Ethnic Stacking in Africa Dataset provides the first comprehensive data on the ethnic stacking practices of all African countries, from independence to 2018 (with 95.7% of leaders and 98.3% of country years recovered). This new data will allow scholars to better understand African militaries and their behavior and capabilities.

Arming for conflict, arming for peace? How small arms imports affect intrastate conflict risk

Although a prevalent technology of conflict, the impact of small arms imports on the risk of intrastate conflict outbreak has not been examined so far. This article argues that small arms not only enhance general military capabilities, but also contribute to state capacities necessary for conflict prevention. These two mechanisms are incorporated in a formal model of power shifts. The derived hypotheses are tested on 146 countries for the period 1993–2014. Using split-population and penalized fixed-effects logit models as innovative estimation methods for rare-events data, small arms imports are found to have no or even a risk-reducing impact.

Accountability and cyber conflict: examining institutional constraints on the use of cyber proxies

As state-sponsored cyber operations have proliferated, some states are outsourcing these operations to non-state cyber proxies. However, given the relative ease of outsourcing cyber operations, it is puzzling why more states are not engaged in this practice. I examine how domestic accountability institutions potentially explain this restraint in the use of cyber proxies. I argue that in cases where the incumbent is likely to be held to account for cyber operations, there is restraint in the use of proxies. Moreover, I distinguish vertical from horizontal accountability and argue that because vertical accountability mechanisms directly threaten the tenure of the incumbent if outsourced cyber operations go wrong, it has a greater constraining effect relative to horizontal accountability. I test these propositions with new data on the activities of several hacker groups and robustly confirm that accountability institutions do place significant constraints on the use of cyber proxies.

A perfect match? The dampening effect of interethnic marriage on armed conflict in Africa

How does interethnic marriage influence the occurrence of ethnic violence in sub-Saharan Africa? Previous studies on the relationship between intergroup contact and conflict onset have produced mixed findings. Some scholars have argued that this might be due to the way interethnic contact is measured. Building on insights of social psychology, this study examines the influence of interethnic marriage as the ultimate form of positive intergroup contact. In doing so, we combine information of the Demographic and Health Surveys with event data on ethnic conflict. Our analysis shows that areas with higher levels of exogamy significantly experience less ethnic conflict.

Trickledown politics: Do excluded ethnic groups benefit from non-violent national resistance campaigns?

When do excluded ethnic groups obtain more political inclusion? Scholarship demonstrates that ethnic minority-based behavior is consequential for more inclusion. Yet we know little of the consequences of national resistance campaigns for ethnic minorities. Building on literature identifying non-violent national resistance (NVR) campaigns as consequential for outcomes such as democracy, this article identifies non-violent tactic use as key to understanding when national resistance campaigns trickle down to benefit excluded ethnic groups. It establishes empirically that an excluded ethnic group whose country experiences an NVR campaign has a higher probability of more political inclusion.

US aid and substitution of human rights violations

This paper examines the relationship between US aid and human rights violations in autocracies. It argues that autocratic leaders do not want to lose aid owing to their poor human rights records, and yet at the same time, cannot completely stop their rights violations because they often come into power through force. In this situation, the leader acts strategically by substituting the visible rights violations for invisible ones. However, substitution depends on the strategic relationship between the US and the recipient. If the recipient is strategically unimportant, then we can expect substitution; otherwise, it will not be necessary.

Female fighters and the fates of rebellions: How mobilizing women influences conflict duration

We investigate the potential relationship between female combatants and conflict duration. We contend that recruiting female combatants extends war duration via its influence on state–rebel bargaining. The recruitment and deployment of female combatants contribute to divergent perspectives between the rebels and the incumbent regarding the rebel group’s capabilities and the depth of its resolve, which impedes successful bargaining and extends the duration of the conflict. Results from duration analyses using data on the estimated prevalence of female combatants in rebel groups active between 1964 and 2011 support our central hypothesis and suggest that the use of female fighters is associated with longer conflicts.