Political Science Commons^™

Implications Of Youth Education On Intrastate Conflict: The Relevance Of Postmaterialism, Anthony (Sungho) Choi

Student Publications

The concept of postmaterialism posits that individuals who are born in an economically and socially secure environment tend to be more open to changes in their societies and accepting of different values among individuals compared to those who are materialists (i.e., individuals who tend to value security, affluence, and strong law and order more in comparison to postmaterialists). Postmaterialism is associated with individuals who are more educated and have access to different educational opportunities, given the existence of economic stability in postmaterialist societies. Focusing on the role of postmaterialist values, I analyze the relationship between educational attainment among youths and …

Young Unemployed People Rebel: A Political Economy Law Or Assumption?, Lacey L. Weynand

Student Publications

In this paper, I investigate the validity of the widely held assumption that high rates of youth unemployment will lead a state to experience internal armed conflict. I hypothesize that as youth unemployment rates increase, a state will have a larger number of internal armed conflicts occur annually. This can happen via three causal mechanisms: 1) opportunity cost calculations; 2) private frustrations, resentment, and feelings of stagnation turning into public grievances; 3) and emotional and psychological triggers leading to participation in violent insurgent activities. I find that while youth unemployment does have a statistically significant influence on the number of …

The Relationship Between State Capacity And Internal Armed Conflict, Rodrigo L. Cotto-Abreu

Student Publications

This paper seeks to evaluate the impact that state capacity has had on the annual incidences of internal armed conflicts in the post-WWII period. This paper proposes that the state’s coercive, administrative, and extractive capabilities are the most effective tools at its disposal when attempting to decrease the likelihood of the onset of internal civil conflict. This paper hypothesizes that the higher the level of state capacity in a given nation-state is, the lower the number or occurrences of internal armed conflict will be. The key finding this paper presents is a statistically significant result linking state capacity to the …

The Curvilinear Relationship Between Political Terror And Internal Armed Conflict, Lilian A. Morrell

Student Publications

I examine the relationship between political terror and the annual incidence of internal armed conflict. Studies have found that other factors associated with violence have a curvilinear relationship to internal conflict, including regime type, GDP, and ethnic fractionalization. I seek to find if political terror has a significant impact on instances of conflict and, more particularly, whether a curvilinear relationship exists between these two variables. I hypothesize that the relationship will be significant and in the shape of an inverse U. If a country uses no political terror, or extensive political terror, then the number of internal armed conflicts will …

Presidential Use Of Diversionary Drone Force And Public Support, Scott S. Boddery, Graid G. Klein

Political Science Faculty Publications

During times of domestic turmoil, the use of force abroad becomes an appealing strategy to US presidents in hopes of diverting attention away from internal conditions and toward a foreign policy success. Weaponized drone technology presents a low cost and potentially high-reward option to embattled presidents. While generally covert operations, drone strikes are frequently reported in the media, making them a viable diversionary tool. To gauge whether drone strikes are in fact capable of diverting the public’s attention, we surveyed 1198 Americans and find that a successful drone strike increases presidential approval despite a weak and sagging economy, and the …

Power Sharing And Democracy In Post-Civil War States: The Art Of The Possible, Caroline A. Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Power Sharing and Democracy in Post-Civil War States examines the challenge of promoting democracy in the aftermath of civil war. Hartzell and Hoddie argue that minimalist democracy is the most realistic form of democracy to which states emerging from civil war violence can aspire. The adoption of power-sharing institutions within civil war settlements helps mitigate insecurity and facilitate democracy's emergence. Power sharing promotes 'democratization from above' by limiting the capacity of the state to engage in predatory behavior, and 'democratization from below' by empowering citizens to participate in politics. Drawing on cross-national and case study evidence, Hartzell and Hoddie find …

Conflict Environments And Civil War Onset, Lindsay Reid, Rachel Myrick, Kelly M. Kadera, Mark J.C. Crescenzi

Political Science Faculty Publications

The spread of civil war poses serious risks and costs. We argue that conflict environments, which vary across time and space, systematically exacerbate the spread of civil war. As conflict in a state’s neighborhood becomes more spatially proximate and as lingering effects of conflict accumulate over time, that state’s risk of civil war onset increases. To theorize and test this argument, we construct the conflict environment (CE) score, a concept that taps into spatial and temporal dimensions of violence in a state’s neighborhood. Using the CE score in established empirical models of civil war onset, we demonstrate that a …

Religious Polarization And The Duration Of Civil Wars, Adrienne M. Poissant

Student Publications

More and more research has begun to look at the impact that religion has on armed conflict. This paper takes a closer look at religious polarization and the impact that it has on the duration of civil wars. The central hypothesis focuses on the idea that polarized societies are less likely to reach a settlement in conflict; therefore, religious polarization should lengthen the duration of civil wars. The research compiled looks at the topic from a variety of different facets while paying attention to other possible contributing factors that can lengthen war and how religion in general plays a role …

Sinister Intentions And Devastating Results: Intervention And Duration Of Civil Conflict, John M. Zak

Student Publications

In the post-Second World War era, intra-state conflict has become an increasingly prominent feature of the international system. Accompanying the increase in civil conflicts has been interventions by third-parties seeking to influence the outcome of those civil conflicts. This has had a decisive impact on the duration of civil conflict that this work seeks to analyze in detail. Using duration of civil conflict as the dependent variable and intervention as the independent variable, this work will seek to demonstrate empirically that intervention in civil conflict has a significant impact on prolonging the duration of the conflict and can contribute to …

External Intervention And The Duration Of Civil Wars, Sofia E. Mouritsen

Student Publications

This paper examines the effect of external intervention on civil war duration from the years 1946-2002. Based on the logic that intervention causes a distortion of the bargaining process in civil wars, it is hypothesized that intervention leads to increased civil war duration. This hypothesis is tested using linear regression analysis, which finds a positive, significant relationship between intervention and civil war duration. Considered in the context of previous literature, it is concluded that in addition to the distorting effect intervention appears to have on the bargaining process, this result may have been informed by the presence of competitive intervention, …

Effects Of Un Peacekeeping Missions, Blake I. Dudley

Student Publications

Of everything the United Nations does, probably one its most scrutinized programs is its peacekeeping missions across the globe. Even though humanity is experiencing an unprecedented level of peace, deadly civil wars still occur across the world, especially in developing nations. The UN has become involved in many of these conflicts, sending peacekeeping forces to the country in crisis. UN peace efforts are very important because they have the potential to save thousands of lives and preventing the further damages of war. It is for this reason that it is vital to examine the UN peacekeeping missions and evaluate the …

When We’Re Connected To A Community, We’Re Less Likely To Be At War With It: The Effect Of Strong Civil Society On Civil War Onset And Incidence, Benjamin R. Pontz

Student Publications

I argue that a strong civil society suggests the existence of institutions that provide alternate mechanisms to reduce grievance as well as opportunities for public problem solving, which, in turn, should result in a decreased probability of civil war onset as well as decreased civil war incidence (a proxy for civil war duration). Controlling for per capita GDP, ethnic fractionalization, regime type, and population -- the measures that tend to have the strongest association with civil war onset and incidence -- I find that the presence of strong civil society does, indeed, have a negative and statistically significant association with …

Confronting Wartime Sexual Violence: Public Support For Survivors In Bosnia, Douglas D. Page, Samuel Whitt

Political Science Faculty Publications

Existing research on conflict-related sexual violence focuses on the motivations of perpetrators and effects on survivors. What remains less clear is how postconflict societies respond to the hardships survivors face. In survey experiments in Bosnia, we examine public support for financial aid, legal aid, and public recognition for survivors. First, we find a persistent ethnocentric view of sexual violence, where respondents are less supportive when the perpetrator is identified as co-ethnic and survivors are perceived as out-groups. Second, respondents are less supportive of male survivors than female survivors, which we attribute to social stigmas surrounding same-gender sexual activity. Consistent with …

Power Sharing And The Rule Of Law In The Aftermath Of Civil War, Caroline A. Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie

Political Science Faculty Publications

What effect do power-sharing institutions agreed to as part of civil war settlements have on the development of the rule of law in post–civil war states? We contend that power-sharing measures facilitate the emergence of the rule of law in two ways. First, they establish a form of institutional constraint that promotes judicial autonomy and independence. Second, they foster a sense of security among judges and other political actors that bolsters commitment to the law. We demonstrate the plausibility of a positive relationship between power sharing and the rule of law through an analysis of post–civil war states between the …

Beyond Keeping The Peace: Can Peacekeepers Reduce Ethnic Divisions After Violence?, Douglas D. Page, Sam Whitt

Political Science Faculty Publications

Existing research suggests that international peacekeeping contributes to conflict resolution and helps sustain peace, often in locations with hostile ethnic divisions. However, it is unclear whether the presence of peacekeepers actually reduces underlying ethnocentric views and parochial behaviors that sustain those divisions. We examine the effects of NATO peacekeeper deployments on ethnocentrism in postwar Bosnia. While peacekeepers were not randomly deployed in Bosnia, we find that highly ethnocentric attitudes were common across Bosnia at the onset of peacekeeper deployments, reducing endogeneity concerns. To measure ethnocentrism, we employ a variety of survey instruments as well as a behavioral experiment (the dictator …

Women And Peace: Female Political Empowerment & The Prevention Of Civil Violence, Piper D. O'Keefe

Student Publications

Today conflict mainly occurs within nations (as opposed to between nations), and the importance of women in creating and maintaining peace (which can be most simply defined as the absence of violence) through informal and formal leadership roles has also become known, offering much for the possibility of the reduction of violence within nations. Testing this relationship through a Poisson regression for the hypothesis that countries that have higher political empowerment for women will have less civil violence in their nations than countries with a lower level of political empowerment for women, this study is able to reject the null …

Civil War Termination, Caroline A. Hartzell

Political Science Faculty Publications

Civil wars typically have been terminated by a variety of means, including military victories, negotiated settlements and ceasefires, and “draws.” Three very different historical trends in the means by which civil wars have ended can be identified for the post–World War II period. A number of explanations have been developed to account for those trends, some of which focus on international factors and others on national or actor-level variables. Efforts to explain why civil wars end as they do are considered important because one of the most contested issues among political scientists who study civil wars is how “best” to …

Islamism In Western Europe: Milli Görüş In Germany, Gonul Tol, Yasemin Akbaba

Political Science Faculty Publications

This study is an inquiry into the nature of the Islamic Community Milli Görüş (Islamische Gemeinschaft Milli Görüş -IGMG) movement in Germany. The movement has been identified as an “Islamist extremist group” by the German Ministry of the Interior in 2005. Germany has the highest number of Turkish immigrants in Western Europe and is home to Milli Görüş’s headquarters. We ask whether radicalization is a response to social, economic and political marginalization of Milli Görüş members in Germany. The data collected during the field research conducted in Germany between the years of 2004 and 2007 was used to explore radicalization …

Digital Peacekeepers, Drone Surveillance And Information Fusion: A Philosophical Analysis Of New Peacekeeping, Lisa Portmess, Bassam Romaya

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In June 2014 an Expert Panel on Technology and Innovation in UN Peacekeeping was commissioned to examine how technology and innovation could strengthen peacekeeping missions. The panel's report argues for wider deployment of advanced technologies, including greater use of ground and airborne sensors and other technical sources of data, advanced data analytics and information fusion to assist in data integration. This article explores the emerging intelligence-led, informationist conception of UN peacekeeping against the backdrop of increasingly complex peacekeeping mandates and precarious security conditions. New peacekeeping with its heightened commitment to information as a political resource and the endorsement of offensive …

Two Steps Forward And One Step Back: An Assessment Of How Uneven Economic Development Affects The Number Of Civil Wars, Cassandra M. Scheiber

Student Publications

The effects of economic development are enormously important in understanding the causes of civil war and the requirements for successful post-conflict reconstruction. In recent decades we have seen an increase in the number of civil wars because of a phenomenon known as the conflict trap. I question why we see an increase in civil wars and what role unstable economic development plays in contributing to the conflict trap. This paper offers evidence to support the hypothesis that uneven economic development increases the risk of multiple civil wars occurring in a short amount of time. Based on the results of testing …

Flight From The Fight? Civil War And Its Effects On Refugees, Paul D. Lowry

Student Publications

Civil war dominates conflict in the modern era. An effect of this is a large number of refugees, who flee from war-torn countries in favor of lands where they can live in safety. This paper examines the extent to which the number of these refugees is affected by the number of civil wars a country has had in a year. Previous literature suggests that civil wars increase destruction in a state and threaten people’s lives, which encourages migration out of a warring country. Based on this, this paper hypothesizes that increasing the number of civil wars in a country will …

The Environment And Civil War: Exploring The Relationship Between The Environmental Performance Index And Incidence Of Internal Armed Conflict, Katerina N. Krohn

Student Publications

The state of the environment is receiving increasing attention. Environmental quality’s possible relationship to violent conflict attracts both popular and academic interest. Prior research has found support for the idea that environmental scarcity is related to higher occurrences of civil war. There have been few comprehensive quantitative studies regarding this relationship. This study tests a more general argument that higher environmental quality can lead to fewer occurrences of internal armed conflict. The study utilizes an environmental performance index found in the Quality of Government Standard Dataset to test its hypothesis. The study finds that the higher the environmental performance index …

Post-9/11 Illegal Immigrant Detention And Deportation: Terrorism And The Criminalization Of Immigration, Stefany N. Laun

Student Publications

This paper analyzes the changes in immigration policy since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in terms of how immigrants are viewed in the United States. The goal is to address the recent criminalization of immigration in that the perceptions of terrorists and immigrants have become relatively synonymous since 2001. Although deportations have decreased, immigrant detention has increased significantly. Detention centers pose threats to the basic human rights of the immigrants residing in them, as well as perpetuate the culture of fear enveloping recent immigrants, whether they are legally or illegally in the country, and native United States citizens …

So We Ran..., Sara R. Bias

Student Publications

This paper tells the true story of a Hungarian refugee who's family fled the communist regime there in 1971. Gabriella Bercze's story reflects on what it was like to live in Hungary under communist rule, and her family's experience in escaping the country, and fleeing to Italy, where they lived in a refugee camp for months before immigrating to the United States in the early 70s.

Italy’S Refugee Burden And The Role Of The Eu In Asylum Cases, Sara R. Bias

Student Publications

Italy's unique geographic location at the coast of the Mediteranean Sea gives much opportunity for the international community to criticize its dealings with asylum seekers crossing the body of water to enter Europe. The UNHCR reported that as of October 2014, 165,000 asylum seekers had taken dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean Sea; of those 165,000 people, Italy received 140,000.

Mixed Motives? Explaining The Decision To Integrate Militaries At Civil War's End, Caroline A. Hartzell

Political Science Faculty Publications

Book Summary: Negotiating a peaceful end to civil wars, which often includes an attempt to bring together former rival military or insurgent factions into a new national army, has been a frequent goal of conflict resolution practitioners since the Cold War. In practice, however, very little is known about what works, and what doesn't work, in bringing together former opponents to build a lasting peace.

Contributors to this volume assess why some civil wars result in successful military integration while others dissolve into further strife, factionalism, and even renewed civil war. Eleven cases are studied in detail—Sudan, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Rwanda, …

Peacebuilding After Civil War, Caroline A. Hartzell

Political Science Faculty Publications

Book Summary: This comprehensive new Handbook explores the significance and nature of armed intrastate conflict and civil war in the modern world. Civil wars and intrastate conflict represent the principal form of organised violence since the end of World War II, and certainly in the contemporary era. These conflicts have a huge impact and drive major political change within the societies in which they occur, as well as on an international scale. The global importance of recent intrastate and regional conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Nepal, Cote d'Ivoire, Syria and Libya – amongst others – has served to refocus …

To Empathize With An Enemy, Rashida Aluko-Roberts

SURGE

I do not like to talk about my time in Sierra Leone, but I think I’m ready to start.

Growing up in Sierra Leone was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I carry with me fond memories of my childhood, growing up on 22 Thompson Street in the one-storey house with red doors and windows and zebra themed paint. Evenings were spent riding bikes with my best friend Fatmata. Weekend afternoons spent playing scrabble and watching our favorite Disney movies with my siblings and neighbors in our living room. Those memories I have kept, happily. [excerpt …

How To Know If You're An Extremist, Katherine M. White

SURGE

I’m a serious West Wing fan. I love it because it not only gives me a little insight into what is obviously a totally accurate depiction of what life is like working in the White House (right?) but it also makes me think. Take this scene from season 3 as an example:

Josh Lyman, the Deputy White House Chief, is stuck in the White House cafeteria with a group of high school students while the White House is under emergency lockdown. Since the students have been promised the opportunity to speak to influential people in D.C. during their visit, Lyman …

Transitions From War To Peace, Caroline A. Hartzell

Political Science Faculty Publications

The Elgar Handbook of Civil War and Fragile States brings together contributions from a multidisciplinary group of internationally renowned scholars on such important issues as the causes of violent conflicts and state fragility, the challenges of conflict resolution and mediation, and the obstacles to post-conflict reconstruction and durable peace-building. This chapter examines the state of current knowledge regarding transitions from war to peace following civil wars.