Fighting for Aid : Foreign Funding and Civil Conflict Intensity

This dissertation focuses on the sub-national impact of foreign aid on civil conflicts by asking the question: How does foreign aid committed to contested areas affect the intensity of violence in those areas? The main theoretical contribution is to focus on how aid influences warring parties’ decisions to engage in contests over territorial control and how that in turn influences violence intensity. The study introduces two concepts: funding concentration and barriers to exploiting aid. A contested area has greater concentration of funding if warring parties expect a high value of aid to be distributed to only a few locations. Funding is instead diffused if the parties expect aid to be spread over many locations. A low barrier to exploiting aid is present if it is of a type that both state and non-state actors could potentially misuse. There is a high barrier if territorial control is required in order to exploit funding channels. The theory introduces three testable implications: First, greater funding concentration encourages conventional contests over territorial control, which increases military fatalities. The second proposal is that if there is a low barrier to exploiting aid (e.g. humanitarian and food aid) then there will be increased competition between warring parties and civilians, and hence more civilian fatalities. Third, high barrier funding (e.g. education aid) will motivate contests over territorial control and increase military fatalities. This dissertation uses geo-coded aid commitments data and introduces data of warring parties’ battleground control in sub-Saharan Africa, 1989–2008. The research design relies on propensity score matching where pairs of observations are matched based on a range of covariates. The results concerning barriers to exploitation are partially supported. High barrier aid increases military fatalities whereas low barrier aid has little impact on violence. Greater funding concentration increases military fatalities substantially compared to if there is low or no funding concentration. In line with theory, greater funding concentration does not increase civilian fatalities

Fighting for Aid : Foreign Funding and Civil Conflict Intensity

This dissertation focuses on the sub-national impact of foreign aid on civil conflicts by asking the question: How does foreign aid committed to contested areas affect the intensity of violence in those areas? The main theoretical contribution is to focus on how aid influences warring parties’ decisions to engage in contests over territorial control and how that in turn influences violence intensity. The study introduces two concepts: funding concentration and barriers to exploiting aid. A contested area has greater concentration of funding if warring parties expect a high value of aid to be distributed to only a few locations. Funding is instead diffused if the parties expect aid to be spread over many locations. A low barrier to exploiting aid is present if it is of a type that both state and non-state actors could potentially misuse. There is a high barrier if territorial control is required in order to exploit funding channels. The theory introduces three testable implications: First, greater funding concentration encourages conventional contests over territorial control, which increases military fatalities. The second proposal is that if there is a low barrier to exploiting aid (e.g. humanitarian and food aid) then there will be increased competition between warring parties and civilians, and hence more civilian fatalities. Third, high barrier funding (e.g. education aid) will motivate contests over territorial control and increase military fatalities. This dissertation uses geo-coded aid commitments data and introduces data of warring parties’ battleground control in sub-Saharan Africa, 1989–2008. The research design relies on propensity score matching where pairs of observations are matched based on a range of covariates. The results concerning barriers to exploitation are partially supported. High barrier aid increases military fatalities whereas low barrier aid has little impact on violence. Greater funding concentration increases military fatalities substantially compared to if there is low or no funding concentration. In line with theory, greater funding concentration does not increase civilian fatalities

Fighting for Aid : Foreign Funding and Civil Conflict Intensity

This dissertation focuses on the sub-national impact of foreign aid on civil conflicts by asking the question: How does foreign aid committed to contested areas affect the intensity of violence in those areas? The main theoretical contribution is to focus on how aid influences warring parties’ decisions to engage in contests over territorial control and how that in turn influences violence intensity. The study introduces two concepts: funding concentration and barriers to exploiting aid. A contested area has greater concentration of funding if warring parties expect a high value of aid to be distributed to only a few locations. Funding is instead diffused if the parties expect aid to be spread over many locations. A low barrier to exploiting aid is present if it is of a type that both state and non-state actors could potentially misuse. There is a high barrier if territorial control is required in order to exploit funding channels. The theory introduces three testable implications: First, greater funding concentration encourages conventional contests over territorial control, which increases military fatalities. The second proposal is that if there is a low barrier to exploiting aid (e.g. humanitarian and food aid) then there will be increased competition between warring parties and civilians, and hence more civilian fatalities. Third, high barrier funding (e.g. education aid) will motivate contests over territorial control and increase military fatalities. This dissertation uses geo-coded aid commitments data and introduces data of warring parties’ battleground control in sub-Saharan Africa, 1989–2008. The research design relies on propensity score matching where pairs of observations are matched based on a range of covariates. The results concerning barriers to exploitation are partially supported. High barrier aid increases military fatalities whereas low barrier aid has little impact on violence. Greater funding concentration increases military fatalities substantially compared to if there is low or no funding concentration. In line with theory, greater funding concentration does not increase civilian fatalities

Sanctions and Civil War : Targeted Measures for Conflict Resolution

This study raises the issue of how sanctions affect warring parties in a civil war. How do threatened and imposed targeted sanctions affect the likelihood of bringing such parties to conflict resolution? There has been many studies of whether sanctions accomplish what a sender intends. Remarkably, this is the first to explicitly study whether United Nations targeted sanctions have a positive effect on the chances of ending a war, when controlling for the impact of battlefield outcomes. Of the three types of targeted sanctions that are examined the conclusion is that implemented arms embargos are those that have the highest likelihood of positively influencing the parties to move towards conflict resolution. The study is based on an in-depth analysis of recent civil wars in Liberia and Ivory Coast

Sanctions for Conflict Prevention and Peace Building : Lessons Learned from Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia

This report summarizes experiences gained from two ongoing cases of UN targeted sanctions: the case of Liberia, where sanctions in different forms have been in place since 1992; and the more recent situation of Côte d’Ivoire/Ivory Coast, where the first sanctions decisions came in 2004. In Liberia, the sanctions have now come to play a role in building up a new society after many years of war. They aim at contributing to peace building for the future. In Ivory Coast, the goal is to prevent an immediate return to war and to favour a settlement through democratic means. �hese uses of sanctions are highly complex and important to understand. Based on reports, analyses and on interviews conducted in May-June 2006, this publication offers conclusions for these cases and for UN policy on targeted sanctions in general. It includes around thirty recommendations. Events have been updated until August 1, 2006

The UCDP and AidData codebook on georeferencing aid : Version 1.1

This codebook details how aid events that are available from AidData and other donor sources can be assigned latitude and longitude coordinates, i.e. be geo-referenced, under the UCDP/AidData coding rules. The rules are derived from the UCDP Geo-referenced Event Dataset (GED) Codebook version 1.0 (Sundberg et al., 2010) which covers the geo-referencing of violent events. The system has been adapted and complemented by additional rules to enable the coding of aid projects rather than battles. The UCDP GED is used as a starting point as it permits us to identify and record a hierarchy of locations differentiated by various precision scores.Sources vary in the precision that locations are reported; sometimes the exact location is named and in other instances the general area is reported. Following UCDP, the system of geo-referencing used by UCDP/AidData can therefore cope with coordinates at four main levels, ranging from point locations, through two administrative divisions, to the country level. Eight precision categories are connected to the coordinates in order for researchers to select subsets of the data set that contain different levels of precision. The main objective is to record all locations to which aid dollars are committed or distributed. Locations that benefit indirectly are not coded, unless the geographic locations of the indirect areas are significant enough to be clearly spelled out in project documents

The UCDP and AidData codebook on georeferencing aid : Version 1.1

This codebook details how aid events that are available from AidData and other donor sources can be assigned latitude and longitude coordinates, i.e. be geo-referenced, under the UCDP/AidData coding rules. The rules are derived from the UCDP Geo-referenced Event Dataset (GED) Codebook version 1.0 (Sundberg et al., 2010) which covers the geo-referencing of violent events. The system has been adapted and complemented by additional rules to enable the coding of aid projects rather than battles. The UCDP GED is used as a starting point as it permits us to identify and record a hierarchy of locations differentiated by various precision scores.Sources vary in the precision that locations are reported; sometimes the exact location is named and in other instances the general area is reported. Following UCDP, the system of geo-referencing used by UCDP/AidData can therefore cope with coordinates at four main levels, ranging from point locations, through two administrative divisions, to the country level. Eight precision categories are connected to the coordinates in order for researchers to select subsets of the data set that contain different levels of precision. The main objective is to record all locations to which aid dollars are committed or distributed. Locations that benefit indirectly are not coded, unless the geographic locations of the indirect areas are significant enough to be clearly spelled out in project documents

Sanctions for Conflict Prevention and Peace Building : Lessons Learned from Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia

This report summarizes experiences gained from two ongoing cases of UN targeted sanctions: the case of Liberia, where sanctions in different forms have been in place since 1992; and the more recent situation of Côte d’Ivoire/Ivory Coast, where the first sanctions decisions came in 2004. In Liberia, the sanctions have now come to play a role in building up a new society after many years of war. They aim at contributing to peace building for the future. In Ivory Coast, the goal is to prevent an immediate return to war and to favour a settlement through democratic means. �hese uses of sanctions are highly complex and important to understand. Based on reports, analyses and on interviews conducted in May-June 2006, this publication offers conclusions for these cases and for UN policy on targeted sanctions in general. It includes around thirty recommendations. Events have been updated until August 1, 2006

The UCDP and AidData codebook on georeferencing aid : Version 1.1

This codebook details how aid events that are available from AidData and other donor sources can be assigned latitude and longitude coordinates, i.e. be geo-referenced, under the UCDP/AidData coding rules. The rules are derived from the UCDP Geo-referenced Event Dataset (GED) Codebook version 1.0 (Sundberg et al., 2010) which covers the geo-referencing of violent events. The system has been adapted and complemented by additional rules to enable the coding of aid projects rather than battles. The UCDP GED is used as a starting point as it permits us to identify and record a hierarchy of locations differentiated by various precision scores.Sources vary in the precision that locations are reported; sometimes the exact location is named and in other instances the general area is reported. Following UCDP, the system of geo-referencing used by UCDP/AidData can therefore cope with coordinates at four main levels, ranging from point locations, through two administrative divisions, to the country level. Eight precision categories are connected to the coordinates in order for researchers to select subsets of the data set that contain different levels of precision. The main objective is to record all locations to which aid dollars are committed or distributed. Locations that benefit indirectly are not coded, unless the geographic locations of the indirect areas are significant enough to be clearly spelled out in project documents