Introduction: Forecasting in peace research

Prediction and forecasting have now fully reached peace and conflict research. We define forecasting as predictions about unrealized outcomes given model estimates from realized data, and predictions more generally as the assignment of probability distributions to realized or unrealized outcomes. Increasingly, scholars present within- and out-of-sample prediction results in their publications and sometimes even forecasts for unrealized, future outcomes. The articles in this special issue demonstrate the ability of current approaches to forecast events of interest and contributes to the formulation of best practices for forecasting within peace research. We highlight the role of forecasting for theory evaluation and as a bridge between academics and policymakers, summarize the contributions in the special issue, and provide some thoughts on how research on forecasting in peace research should proceed. We suggest some best practices, noting the importance of theory development, interpretability of models, replicability of results, and data collection

Correlations and forecast of death tolls in the Syrian conflict

The Syrian armed conflict has been ongoing since 2011 and has already caused thousands of deaths. The analysis of death tolls helps to understand the dynamics of the conflict and to better allocate resources and aid to the affected areas. In this article, we use information on the daily number of deaths to study temporal and spatial correlations in the data, and exploit this information to forecast events of deaths. We found that the number of violent deaths per day in Syria varies more widely than that in England in which non-violent deaths dominate. We have identified strong positive auto-correlations in Syrian cities and non-trivial cross-correlations across some of them. The results indicate synchronization in the number of deaths at different times and locations, suggesting respectively that local attacks are followed by more attacks at subsequent days and that coordinated attacks may also take place across different locations. Thus the analysis of high temporal resolution data across multiple cities makes it possible to infer attack strategies, warn potential occurrence of future events, and hopefully avoid further deaths

THE LIBERAL PEACE: CHALLENGES TO DEVELOPMENT, DEMOCRACY AND SOFT POWER

The term “liberal” peace refers to the absence of fatal conflict between democratic nations, which are also economically interdependent. This chapter sketches the ideal and economic versions of the liberal peace theory. Policies promoting globalization may engender social conflict risks, as they produce inequality. In developed countries, we are witnessing the rise of populism, and the rolling back of the liberal aspects of democracy in developing countries. The avoidance of these problems requires careful management such that growth is broad-based, and policies promoting greater openness are sufficiently cushioned to protect losers. It is also necessary to manage globalization, and limit its negative impact on domestic social contracts, particularly when it comes to inequality, worker rights, and fiscal austerity

The indivisible hand of peace? Consumption opportunities and civil war

GDP is one of the most robust indicators of civil war onset. As debate continues over the mechanisms underlying the relationship between economic development and civil war, this paper scrutinizes the indicator of GDP directly, disaggregating it into its constituent components to examine whether their distinct associations with conflict onset can shed some light into the black box. Analysis of the individual correlations allows for identification of the driving force behind the aggregate statistical relationship. With this information to hand, consistency checks can be made with existing theories and a new theory presented in this paper, which draws attention to a critical structural factor that drives the supply of civil war labor, namely the lack of consumption opportunities. This factor increases the likelihood of civil war in less economically developed countries as individuals with low consumption opportunities have little to lose from reordering the economic and political system. Analysis of the correlations between components of GDP and the onset of civil war shows that this new theory is most consistent with the key drivers of the aggregate relationship. The examination also highlights a new indicator, which is arguably preferable to GDP as a measure of this relationship

The Rise of Market-Capitalism and the Roots of Anti-American Terrorism

We examine the role of market-capitalism in anti-American terrorism, differentiating between level- and rate-of-change-effects associated with market-capitalist development and their respective relationship with anti-U.S. violence. Using panel data for 149 countries between 1970 and 2007, we find that higher levels of capitalist development - consistent with the capitalist-peace literature - coincide with less anti-American terrorism, while the marketization process has inflammatory effects on anti-American terrorism. These findings are further corroborated by system-level time-series evidence. We argue that a higher level of market-capitalism is associated with less anti-American terrorism by creating economic interdependencies and a convergence of pro-peace values and institutions, while the destabilizing effects of the marketization process may stem from the violent opposition of various anti-market interest groups to economic, politico-institutional and cultural change initiated by a transition towards a market economy. These interest groups deliberately target the U.S. as the main proponent of modern capitalism, globalization and modernity, where anti-American terrorism serves the purpose of consolidating their respective societal position. Our findings that the U.S. may ultimately become a less likely target of transnational terrorism through the establishment of market economies, but should not disregard the disruptive political, economic and cultural effects of the marketization process in noncapitalist societies