Civil war risk in democratic and non-democratic neighborhoods

This study questions the extent to which domestic conflict is influenced by national, regional, and international relationships. It is designed to answer specific questions relating to the effects of neighboring characteristics on a state's risk of conflict and instability: What is the interaction between neighboring conflict and political disorder? Do democratic neighborhoods have different conflict trajectories than non-democratic neighborhoods and if so, where and why? Given that most poor countries are located in poor and conflictual neighborhoods, to what extent is there a relationship between poverty and political disorder in different regime neighborhoods? Using spatial lag terms to specify neighboring regime characteristics and multilevel models to differentiate between explanatory levels, this study reiterates the importance of domestic and neighboring factors in promoting or diminishing the risk of instability and conflict. However, the pronounced negative effects of autocratic and anocratic neighborhoods are mitigated by a growing domestic GDP. This study also finds that democratic neighborhoods are more stable, regardless of income level. Research presented here is unique in its contribution on how regime type is a significant development indicator, which in turn is salient in determining the risks of civil war across states.Peace&Peacekeeping,Population Policies,Services&Transfers to Poor,Social Conflict and Violence,Post Conflict Reintegration

Population size, concentration, and civil war : a geographically disaggregated analysis

Why do larger countries have more armed conflict? This paper surveys three sets of hypotheses forwarded in the conflict literature regarding the relationship between the size and location of population groups: Hypotheses based on pure population mass, on distances, on population concentrations, and some residual state-level characteristics. The hypotheses are tested on a new dataset-ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Events Dataset)-which disaggregates internal conflicts into individual events. The analysis covers 14 countries in Central Africa. The conflict event data are juxtaposed with geographically disaggregated data on populations, distance to capitals, borders, and road networks. The paper develops a statistical method to analyze this type of data. The analysis confirms several of the hypotheses.Population Policies,Social Conflict and Violence,Demographics,Country Population Profiles,Health Indicators

What causes regime change in African autocracies?

African states have in recent years shown a vulnerability to military takeovers and the forced removal of established leaders. But these developments in autocracies are not associated with revolutionary change. New research seeks to explain political change in African autocracies by looking at the role of political elites, focussing on cycles of power between a leader and their rivals which determine their survival

Where Rebels Dare to Tread:A Study of Conflict Geography and Co-option of Local Power in Sierra Leone

This analysis illustrates how violence patterns are shaped by local power concentrations. Disaggregated conflict analysis has led to major advances into understanding conflict trends, agents, and dynamics of violence but has not been matched by studies of disaggregated politics, in particular on the subnational level. This analysis details how conflict event location, frequency, and intensity is largely determined by levels of customary authority and development; while armed group bases and control networks are established in areas characterized by weak, co-opted local authorities, wealth generation possibilities, and proximity to other network nodes. This demonstrates that dominant opposition groups co-opt local elites and target those who cannot be easily co-opted or belong to alternative networks. Manifestations of conflict are therefore not well explained by the typically static resource, poverty, or state capacity measures. Local politics and customary authority determine where government, rebels, and militias dare to tread. Sierra Leone Local-Location Event Dataseta new disaggregated data set on the Sierra Leone war and local source feature of Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataprovides substantial evidence for our subnational conflict explanations

The devil is in the details: an investigation of the relationships between conflict, food price and climate across Africa

This study investigates the relationship between violent conflict, food price, and climate variability at the subnational level. Using disaggregated data on 113 African markets from January 1997 to April 2010, interrelationships between the three variables are analyzed in simultaneous equation models. We find that: (i) a positive feedback exists between food price and violence – higher food prices increase conflict rates within markets and conflict increases food prices; (ii) anomalously dry conditions are associated with increased frequencies of conflict; and (iii) decreased rainfall exerts an indirect effect on conflict through its impact on food prices. These findings suggest that the negative effects of climate variability on conflict can be mitigated by interventions and effective price management in local markets. Creating environments in which food prices are stable and reliable, and markets are accessible and safe, can lower the impacts of both climate change and conflict feedbacks

Regime cycles and political change in African autocracies

This article applies a regime cycle framework to understand patterns of change and continuity in African competitive autocracies. We observe that regime change in African autocracies is rarely the result of actions carried out by rebels, opposition leaders or popular masses substantially altering the structure of power. Instead, they are more frequently carried out by senior regime cadres, resulting in controlled reshuffles of power. We argue that such regime shifts are best explained through a cyclical logic of elite collective action consisting of accommodation and consolidation, and ultimately leading to fragmentation and crisis. These dynamics indicate the stage of leader-elite relationships at a given time, and suggest when regimes may likely expand, contract, purge and fracture. We argue that, by acknowledging in which stage of the cycle a regime and its senior elites are dominant, we can gauge the likelihood as well as the potential success of a regime change. Our framework is finally applied to understand recent regime shifts in competitive autocracies across Africa

Political hierarchies and landscapes of conflict across Africa

Almost all African states experience substantial and widespread political insecurity in a variety of forms. This analysis explains how relationships between groups and governments create incentives and disincentives for distinct forms of political violence to emerge. It argues that ethno-regional communities across Africa are situated within a power hierarchy that determines their relative importance to, and inclusion in, regimes. A dynamic power landscape emerges from relative group positions. Various positions within a hierarchy are associated with particular dominant forms of organized political violence as groups challenge political elites, but are bounded by their goals and characteristics. A failure to consider the political hierarchies and landscapes operating within African states has led to an under specification of the causal mechanisms driving different forms of violence, and an overstatement of benefits from declining civil war rates and inclusive governing coalitions