Economic integration through the EU is unlikely to increase support for independence movements in European states

Independence movements have gained prominence across Europe in recent decades, most notably in Scotland and Catalonia, but what impact does European integration have on this process? Dawn Brancati writes that integration through the EU has often been argued to raise the likelihood of separatism as it reduces the economic need to remain part of a larger free trade area such as the UK or Spain, while also giving an incentive to act as a smaller independent state in EU decision-making. She argues, however, that in practice this effect is limited by the fact separatism relies on pre-existing domestic factors and because the economic benefits of European integration are not always visible to citizens. Moreover, seceding states may face problems joining international organisations such as the EU post-independence, particularly when the state they have seceded from is already a member

Locking down vIolence: The covid-19 pandemic’s impact on non-state actor violence

Lockdown measures, widely used to stop the spread of disease in crises, we argue, are likely to reduce non-state actor violence, especially in urban and non-base areas. These measures deplete actors’ resources, reduce the number of high-value civilian targets, and make it logistically more difficult to conduct attacks. Using the example of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and taking advantage of the exogenous nature of COVID-19 lockdowns, we find that curfews and travel bans significantly reduce violence, especially in populated and non-base areas. These effects are most likely due to short-term changes in ISIS’s targets and logistics rather than its resources. These findings provide important insights into the security aspects of public health crises and offer novel findings into the general effectiveness of two common counterinsurgency tools

Introduction to Special Issue on “Disaggregating Civil War”

We introduce the contributions to this special issue on “Disaggregating Civil War.” We review the problems arising from excessive aggregation in studies of civil war, and outline how disaggregation promises to provide better insights into the causes and dynamics of civil wars, using the articles in this special issue as examples. We comment on the issue of the appropriate level of disaggregation, lessons learned from these articles, and issues for further research. </jats:p

Elections and Ethnic Civil War

Existing research on how democratization may influence the risk of civil war tends to consider only changes in the overall level of democracy and rarely examines explicitly the postulated mechanisms relating democratization to incentives for violence. The authors argue that typically highlighted key mechanisms imply that elections should be especially likely to affect ethnic groups’ inclination to resort to violence. Distinguishing between types of conflict and the order of competitive elections, the authors find that ethnic civil wars are more likely to erupt after competitive elections, especially after first and second elections following periods of no polling. When disaggregating to the level of individual ethnic groups and conflicts over territory or government, the authors find some support for the notion that ethno-nationalist mobilization and sore-loser effects provoke postelectoral violence. More specifically, although large groups in general are more likely to engage in governmental conflicts, they are especially likely to do so after noncompetitive elections. Competitive elections, however, strongly reduce the risk of conflict. </jats:p

Replication data for: Another Great Illusion: The Advancement of Separatism through Economic Integration

copy directly from abstract in PSRM publicatio