Methods for anticipating governance breakdown and violent conflict

In this paper, authors Sarah Bressan, Håvard Mokleiv Nygård, and Dominic Seefeldt present the evolution and state of the art of both quantitative forecasting and scenario-based foresight methods that can be applied to help prevent governance breakdown and violent conflict in Europe’s neighbourhood. In the quantitative section, they describe the different phases of conflict forecasting in political science and outline which methodological gaps EU-LISTCO’s quantitative sub-national prediction tool will address to forecast tipping points for violent conflict and governance breakdown. The qualitative section explains EU-LISTCO’s scenario-based foresight methodology for identifying potential tipping points. After comparing both approaches, the authors discuss opportunities for methodological advancements across the boundaries of quantitative forecasting and scenario-based foresight, as well as how they can inform the design of strategic policy options

Quantitative risk assessment tools for the EU's Eastern and Southern neighbourhoods

Understanding and anticipating violent conflict and the breakdown of governance in the European Union (EU) neighbourhood is complex. However, it is of great value for academia and EU foreign policy. How can the EU know about, prepare for, and possibly help prevent governance breakdown and violent conflict in its neighbourhood? To answer this question, we propose innovative quantitative approaches to capture violent conflict and governance breakdown through survey-based and non-survey-based data at the sub-national level. We assess different theoretical approaches to explaining violent conflict and governance breakdown with a focus on social resilience. Moreover, we discuss numerous methodological tools including random forests, Bayesian methods, and change point analysis. The paper highlights the possibility of measuring and predicting violent conflict and governance breakdown in the EU neighbourhood at the sub-national level. We underline our arguments with initial empirical analyses. Further, we point to several research gaps such as the necessity to develop data collection efforts in order to build analyses and predictions on better data

Steps to war : an analysis of the mechanisms causing the Israel - Hezbollah conflict to escalate

The thesis examines escalation of international crisis involving both a state and a non-state actor. It takes as its starting point the following empirical anomaly. In the summer of 2006 Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. This set in motion a chain of events which ended in what is now called the Second Lebanon War. In October of 2000 Hezbollah however carried out an almost identical operation. The organization kidnapped three and in the process killed four Israeli soldiers, but this time in contrast no process of escalation followed. These two events will be studied as cases of international crisis. By integrating domestic politics into international relations, I will explain why the 2006 Olmert government made decisions so drastically different from the 2000 Barak government. Utilizing a controlled comparison design and game theory I will argue that the combination of a weak Israeli government that came under severe criticism from the Knesset, the shift in the regional balance of power and the information asymmetry that marked the interaction between Israel and Hezbollah together explain why the Hezbollah operation in 2006 escalation into a war, while the almost identical operation in 2000 did not

Trekantdramaet mellom Israel, Iran og Hezbollah

Oktober 2000 kidnappet Hezbollah tre israelske soldater, operasjonen fikk ingen konsekvenser. Da Hezbollah gjennomførte en nærmest identisk operasjon sommeren 2006, endte konfrontasjonen med krig. Hvorfor fikk to så like hendelser så ulike konsekvenser? Svaret ligger i trekantforholdet mellom Israel, Iran og Hezbollah

Can We Predict Armed Conflict? How the First 9 Years of Published Forecasts Stand Up to Reality

Can we predict civil war? This article sheds light on this question by evaluating 9 years of, at the time, future predictions made by Hegre et al. (2013) in 2011. We evaluate the ability of this study to predict observed conflicts in the 2010–2018 period, using multiple metrics. We also evaluate the original performance evaluation, i.e., whether the performance measures presented by Hegre et al. hold in this new 9-year window. Overall, we conclude that Hegre et al. were able to produce meaningful and reasonably accurate predictions of armed conflict. Of course, they did not always hit the mark. We find that the model has performed worse in predicting low level incidence of conflict than in predicting major armed conflict. The model also failed to predict some important broader regional shifts. These, however, represent important insights for future research and illustrate the utility in predictive models for both testing and developing theory

Characterizing and Assessing Temporal Heterogeneity: Introducing a Change Point Framework, with Applications on the Study of Democratization

Various theories in political science point to temporal heterogeneity in relationships of interest. Yet, empirical research typically ignores such heterogeneity or employs fairly crude measures to evaluate it. Advances in models for change point detection offer opportunities to study temporal heterogeneity more carefully. We customize a recent such method for political science purposes, for instance so that it accommodates panel data, and provide an accompanying R-package. We evaluate the methodology, and how it behaves when different assumptions about the number and abrupt nature of change points are violated, by using simulated data. Importantly, the methodology allows us to evaluate changes to different quantities of interest. It also allows us to provide comprehensive and nuanced estimates concerning uncertainty in the timing and size of changes. We illustrate the utility of the change point methodology on two types of regression models (Probit and OLS) in two empirical applications. We first reinvestigate the proposition by Albertus (2017) that labor-dependent agriculture had a more pronounced negative effect on democratic outcomes before the `third wave of democratization'. Next, we utilize data extending from the French revolution to the present, from V-Dem, to examine the time-variant nature of the income-democracy relationship.The research has been funded by the Research Council Norway, ‘Young Research Talent’ grant, pnr 240505 and ‘Young Research Talent’ grant, pnr 275400

Autocratic elections stabilizing tool or force for change?

Do elections reduce or increase the risk of autocratic regime breakdown? This article addresses this contested question by distinguishing between election events and the institution of elections. The authors propose that elections stabilize autocracies in the long term but at the price of short-term instability. Elections are conducive to regime survival in the long run because they improve capacities for co-optation and repression but produce short-term instability because they serve as focal points for regime opposition. Drawing on data from 259 autocracies from 1946 to 2008, the authors show that elections increase the short-term probability of regime failure. The estimated effect is retained when accounting for the endogeneity of autocratic elections; this finding is critical, since some autocrats may or may not hold elections because of perceived effects on regime survival. The authors also find that this destabilizing effect does not operate in the long term. They find some, although not as strong, evidence that elections stabilize autocratic regimes in the medium to long term, despite their destabilizing immediate effects. These temporal effect patterns are present for both executive and legislative elections, and they are robust to using different measures, control variable strategies, and estimation techniques. In line with expectations, both effect patterns are much clearer for multiparty autocratic elections than for completely uncontested elections

Which institutions matter? : Re-considering the democratic civil peace

Despite decades of research, there is no consensus on the relationship between democratic institutions and risk of civil war. We alleviate measurement issues and theoretical ambiguity in much existing work by theoretically and empirically unpacking core features of democracy and their relationship to civil war. We distinguish between institutions that impose vertical constraints on leaders from the population at large, and institutions that allow various groups, including non-incumbent elites, to place horizontal constraints on leader behavior. Both types of democratic institutions, we argue, help leaders overcome commitment problems related to potential agents of rebellion, thus reducing civil war risk. This is particularly so when these institutional mechanisms reinforce each other. Using precise institutional indicators from Varieties of Democracy, we disentangle and separately measure the dimensions of interest. Both vertical and (especially) horizontal constraints mitigate civil war risk, but only clearly so when both types of constraining institutions co-exist in so-called liberal democracies. Absent constraints from a capable parliament or independent judiciary, improvements to the freeness and fairness of elections do not mitigate civil war onset.Malgré des décennies de recherche, il n’existe aucun consensus sur la relation entre les institutions démocratiques et les guerres civiles. Nous atténuons les problèmes de mesure et l’ambiguité théorique de nombreux travaux existants en analysant les caractéristiques fondamentales de la démocratie et leur relation avec les guerres civiles dun point de vue théorique et empirique. Nous distinguons les institutions qui imposent des contraintes verticales aux dirigeants par le biais de la population globale de celles qui permettent á divers groupes, y compris aux élites qui ne sont pas au pouvoir, dimposer des contraintes horizontales pour le comportement des dirigeants. Nous soutenons que ces deux types d’institutions démocratiques aident les dirigeants á surmonter les problèmes dengagement liés aux agents rebelles potentiels, réduisant ainsi le risque de guerre civile. Cela est particulièrement vrai lorsque ces mécanismes institutionnels se renforcent mutuellement. Nous nous appuyons sur des indicateurs institutionnels précis issus de V-Dem pour dégager et mesurer séparément les dimensions dintérêt. Les contraintes verticales et horizontales atténuent toutes deux le risque de guerre civile, mais uniquement lorsque les deux types dinstitutions contraignantes coexistent dans des démocraties dites libérales. En l’absence de contraintes émanant dun parlement compétent ou d’un système judiciaire indépendant, les améliorations apportées á la liberté et á l’équité des élections n’atténuent pas le risque de déclenchement de guerre civile.A pesar de las décadas de investigación, no hay consenso sobre la relación entre las instituciones democráticas y el riesgo de una guerra civil. Minimizamos los problemas de medición y la ambiguedad teórica en gran parte del trabajo existente desentrañando de manera teórica y empírica los rasgos fundamentales de la democracia y su relación con la guerra civil. Realizamos una distinción entre las instituciones que imponen restricciones verticales a los líderes de la población en general y las instituciones que permiten a varios grupos, incluidas las elites no tradicionales, imponer restricciones horizontales al comportamiento de los líderes. Sostenemos que ambos tipos de instituciones democráticas ayudan a los líderes a enfrentar los problemas de compromiso relacionados con los posibles agentes de la rebelión a fin de reducir el riesgo de una guerra civil. Esto es particularmente cierto cuando dichos mecanismos institucionales se refuerzan entre sí. Mediante indicadores institucionales precisos de variedades de democracia (Varieties of Democracy, V-Dem), esclarecemos y medimos por separado las dimensiones de interés. Tanto las restricciones verticales como las horizontales minimizan el riesgo de una guerra civil, pero solo cuando ambos tipos de instituciones restrictivas coexisten en lo que conocemos como democracias liberales. En ausencia de las restricciones de un parlamento competente o de un poder judicial independiente, las mejoras en la libertad e imparcialidad de las elecciones no reducen la posibilidad de que se desate una guerra civil