‘Wars of others’: National Cleavages and Attitudes Toward External Conflicts

Why do individuals sympathize with others’ wars, an antecedent of the decision to become a foreign fighter? By collecting original public opinion data from Lebanon, in 2015, and Turkey in 2017, about the actors of conflict in Syria, we test the argument that an ethno-religious cleavage at home shapes the proclivity of individuals to support others’ wars. Individuals may perceive a war abroad as endangering political and social balance of power at home – and hence own survival. Therefore, when transnational identities map onto a national cleavage, as in the Sunni–Shia cleavage in Lebanon, and Turk – Kurd cleavage in Turkey, individuals are more disposed to show sympathy for others’ wars both to help their kin and to protect the balance of power at home. Our findings imply that efforts to end the trend toward citizens becoming foreign fighters must start at home by mending the relations between ethnic and religious groups

Topics of Learning in the Context of Electoral Competition and Conflict

152 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008.Indirectly attacking the enemy on the electoral field does not leave much leverage for leaders of the external state even when they may be cognizant of the ploy of insurgents. The question then remains: Are voters always gullible making it possible for strategic violence to work its miracles for the rebels? Using a macroeconomic learning model under the assumption of adaptive expectations, I display the conditions under which such strategic action works to the advantage of insurgents. Wars where public sensitivity to expected violence is at its peak provide the most favorable circumstances for rebels in manipulating public opinion. Increased strategic violence then lowers voters' cost tolerance in war inducing a leadership change in the external enemy that is amenable to withdrawal of troops. American operations in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 provide two important observations in testing the hypothesis predicted by the model. Time series event count model estimations confirm that insurgents seek to alter public opinion before elections in battles where voter sensitivity to troop casualties can be successfully exploited. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

Replication Data for: The Effects of Rivalry on Rivalry: Accommodation and the Management of Threats

The paper investigates how states manage multiple rivalries when faced with immediate threats. We argue that accommodation of one rival allows states to shift resources from the management of another rival to deal with the costs of immediate threats. By examining enduring rivalries from 1966-1999, we show that states’ reliance on accommodation in response to threats varies depending on the number of severe threats and the relative capabilities between the states and the threat-issuing rivals. Findings show that when faced with severe but few threats, states prefer to accommodate rivals that did not issue the threat. They are also more likely to give larger concessions to such rivals and to those issuing less severe threats. Finally, the greater the military capability of a rival issuing a severe threat relative to that of the challenged state, the more likely that a threatening rival is accommodated