Bosnia shows that peacekeeping missions in civil conflicts can often have little impact on the level of violence

The conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine have been accompanied by calls for intervention from foreign countries. One possibility for this form of intervention would be a peacekeeping mission of the kind conducted by the UN in Bosnia during the 1990s, but do such missions actually have the capacity to stabilise conflict-torn regions? Using data from the Bosnian war, Stefano Costalli writes on the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations. He notes that peacekeepers were generally deployed in the areas in Bosnia which had the highest levels of violence, but that the response was largely reactive and often suffered delays. Ultimately there was no link between the deployment of UN peacekeepers and an actual reduction in violence

Better the Devil You Know? How Fringe Terrorism Can Induce an Advantage for Moderate Nonviolent Campaigns

Fringe terrorism is common during nonviolent campaigns. We examine how this can modify the strategic environment between dissident groups and the state in ways that present both challenges and opportunities to moderate factions. Terrorism is intended to promote violent escalation in a conflict, but we argue that fringe terrorist activities in a nonviolent campaign under certain conditions can induce an advantage for well-organized moderate factions. The risk of escalation following terrorism can give the government more incentives to offer concessions to moderate campaign leaders if the movement can credibly prevent armed escalation. The ability to control and prevent violence is more likely when nonviolent movements have a hierarchical structure and a centralized leadership, as such campaigns are better able to prevent shifts by supporters towards violent fringes. Using new data on terrorist attacks by factions sharing the same overall objectives as ongoing nonviolent campaigns, we show that nonviolent campaigns are more likely to see substantial gains in spite of fringe terrorist activities when a movement has a hierarchical structure and a centralized leadership

Battaglie senza regole: le guerre civili.

Il saggio tratta del difficile rapporto fra regole di combattimento e dinamiche della violenza nei conflitti civili

Politics behind globalization: the influence of political and security variables on economic interdependence among States

The dissertation investigates the influence of domestic and international politics on economic interdependence among states in the age of globalization. On the one hand it aims at updating the studies on the influence of political variables on international trade taking into consideration the post-Cold War years. On the other hand it aims at expanding the operational definition of economic interdependence performing the first empirical of the influence of politics on bilateral flows of FDI. Through an extensive use of panel data analysis, I find that both domestic and international politics have a relevant impact on economic interdependence even in the context of globalization. However, none of the classic theories of international relations on the causes and consequences of interdependence can fully explain the current dynamics. The system is increasingly complex and the realist and liberal seem to work together accounting for different phenomena that happen contemporaneously