Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Predicting The Future Of Myanmar’S Civil War: Can Half A Century Of Military Rule Be Defeated?, Nathan Ritterling

Honors Theses

In 2021, the military of Myanmar launched a coup in response to their overwhelming defeat in the 2020 elections, resulting in an end to the country’s tentative move towards democracy and in intense violence to suppress opposition to the coup. Anti-junta forces quickly formed in the aftermath to directly oppose the military and return the country to democratic rule, and began collaborating with long-standing ethnic militias in their efforts. This has led to a state of prolonged civil war, as the two sides fight for dominance over the nature of Myanmar’s future government. This paper investigated the potential outcome of …

Book Review: How Civil Wars Start And How To Stop Them, Robert J. Bunker

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Barbara F. Walter

Reviewed by Dr. Robert J. Bunker, director of research and analysis, managing partner, C/O Futures LLC

How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them was written to acquaint readers with “the conditions that give rise to, and define, modern civil war” to “[understand how] close modern America is to erupting into conflict” (xviii). The reviewer notes, “American military officers, sworn government agents, and officials will find the work troubling” and praises its “nonpartisan exploration and objective analysis” in tackling a difficult topic.

2023 Annual Estimate Of The Strategic Security Environment, Usawc Ssi

Monographs, Collaborative Studies, & IRPs

The Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment serves as a guide for academics and practitioners in the defense community on the current challenges and opportunities in the strategic environment. This year’s publication outlines key strategic issues across the four broad themes of Regional Challenges and Opportunities, Domestic Challenges, Institutional Challenges, and Domains Impacting US Strategic Advantage. These themes represent a wide range of topics affecting national security and provide a global assessment of the strategic environment to help focus the defense community on research and publication. Strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China and the implications of …

Book Review: Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler And Stalin, Rev. Dr. Wylie W. Johnson

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Timothy Snyder

Reviewed by Rev. Dr. Wylie W. Johnson, US Army War College class of 2010

Covering the rules of Hitler and Stalin between 1933 and 1945, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin, explores three periods of genocide in which “two great ideological powers that worked out their Darwinian fantasies at the expense of peoples they identified by religion, ethnicity, ideology, and location.” In addition to military casualties, 14 million noncombatants died. The reviewer notes, “Bloodlands is an important book for US military leaders of all ranks for two reasons. First, it is a stark warning to …

Legitimacy In Conflict Contexts: Shifting Rebel Engagement In Sierra Leone And The Presence Of Private Contractors, Anne Lauder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The growth of non-state actors has significantly changed the nature of conflict. Rebel groups increasingly challenge state rule while private military and security companies (PMSCs) increasingly enter conflict spaces on behalf of a variety of actors, including states seeking to suppress insurgencies. This case study of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) during Sierra Leone’s civil war between 1991-2002 contributes to emerging work on rebel behavior by examining how rebel’s legitimacy-seeking behavior might evolve when PMSCs enter a conflict context. I explore the ways that PMSCs can shift perceived incentive structures surrounding insurgents’ interpretations of and engagements with legitimacy during conflict, …

Racialization And International Security, Richard W. Maass

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Racialization—the processes that infuse social and political phenomena with racial identities and implications—is an assertion of power, a claim of purportedly inherent differences that has saturated modern diplomacy, order, and violence. Despite the field's consistent interest in power, international security studies in the United States largely omitted racial dynamics from decades of debates about international conflict and cooperation, nuclear proliferation, power transitions, unipolarity, civil wars, terrorism, international order, grand strategy, and other subjects. A new framework lays conceptual bedrock, links relevant literatures to major research agendas in international security, cultivates interdisciplinary dialogues, and charts promising paths to consider how overt …

Great Disaster: The Impact Of Covid-19 On Yemen, Joshua Odey

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

The COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected countries around the world. Travel became restricted as countries around the world tried to control the pandemic. The global economy was also negatively affected. Nonetheless, many countries around the world took measures to control the economy and have successfully reduced the number of cases and the negative impact of COVID-19. This is not so with other countries such as Yemen, who is currently facing a humanitarian crisis that has greatly weakened their ability to respond to the pandemic.

The purpose of this research paper is to show how COVID-19 has negatively affected Yemen. For more …

Coin Doctrine Is Wrong, M. Chris Mason

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Counterinsurgency does not increase the legitimacy of, or support for, central governments engaged in internal conflicts. Recent research shows quantifiable degrees of government legitimacy, national identity, and population security are necessary precursors and accurate predictors of a government’s ability to outlast a civil uprising. Because the first two predictors—government legitimacy and national identity—can be measured and do not increase during a conflict, the probability of government failure in most cases can be accurately predicted when the conflict starts.

Social Media Is Causing A Threat To Our Democracy, Chloe Krempasky

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

Division between political parties in The United States of America is increasing daily, causing a serious threat to the future of our democracy. People form their own opinions and decide which political party to affiliate with based on childhood experiences or through media outlets. It is more common as technology is advancing that people get their political information through social media. This is starting to become a serious problem. Social media companies are the cause of this, as they create Echo Chambers that only allow people to view content that relates to their political view. There is also Fake news …

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 …

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 …

Post-Civil War Peace Durability: The Role Of Domestic Infrastructure And Military, Alexandra Wilson

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Since 1945, approximately half of the world’s states have been engaged in some type of civil conflict. The aim of this research is to understand why some post-civil war states fail to establish peace durability while others thrive. Through quantitative research of civil wars globally and a qualitative analysis of Iraq, this thesis argues for the necessity of post-civil war policy to focus on the renewal of domestic infrastructure in addition to military investment which suppresses grievance-driven violence. A logistical regression model of all civil wars since 1945 shows that variables, such as healthcare, are evidently associated with more durable …

Transition From Civil War To Peace: The Role Of The United Nations And International Community In Mozambique, Ayokunu Adedokun

Peace and Conflict Studies

With the heavy involvement of the United Nations (UN) and the international community, the Rome General Peace Agreement of 1992 ended more than 16 years of civil war in Mozambique. The peace agreement and post-conflict initiatives by the international community was successful in transforming the Mozambique National Resistance
(Renamo) from a rebel group into a viable political party. Key components of the United Nations and the broader international community success in negotiating peace and creating conditions for political stability and democracy in Mozambique were (a) the provision of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) before democratisation, (b) decentralization of humanitarian and …

Constructing And Destructing The Peace: Models Of International Engagement In Post-Conflict States, Colin Churchill

Political Science Honors Projects

Variance in the stability of post-conflict states presents an interesting predicament. What causes this variance in states two or three decades removed from civil conflict? In this paper, I argue that the type of engagement that international actors take towards post-conflict states explains differences in stability. I draw out four distinct models of international engagement from three case studies of Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Northern Ireland that present the different ways that international actors have constructively and destructively engaged in these states. Furthering this analysis is an examination of the transition or possible transition between models in the cases.

Nelson Mandela And International Good Governance Insights, Laila El Baradei

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

When Do Ties Bind? Foreign Fighters, Social Embeddedness, And Combatant Repertoires Of Behavior During Civil War, Pauline Luz Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How does the extent to which rebel organizations are embedded into local conflict contexts - i.e. the extent to which they "fit in" or "stand out" from local populations - affect their behavior on and off the battlefield during civil war? This dissertation examines why rebel group propensities to engage in governance and violence during war vary at the macro and microlevels of analysis and uses as its point of departure the presence of foreign fighters in the ranks of rebel groups engaged in civil war. I employ a cross-national analysis of insurgencies from 1989-2011, and also conduct a theory-testing …

Contents

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Fate Of Armed Resistance Groups After Peace, David C. Williams

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

No abstract provided.

Fearless Friday: Sherfy Battlefield Garden, Emma E. Korowotny

SURGE

In this edition of Fearless Friday, we’re highlighting one of the newer service projects that Gettysburg College is involved with: Sherfy Battlefield Garden. This summer will mark the fourth planting season at Sherfy, which was developed in 2013 by Hannah Grose ’13. The garden is located just off of Emmitsburg Road by the house that, in 1860, belonged to Joseph Sherfy and his family. Bullet holes mar the brick walls of the farmhouse, testifying to the fighting that occurred all over the fifty acres of Joseph Sherfy’s farmland on the last two days of the Battle of Gettysburg. Sites of …

Can The International Criminal Court Deter Atrocity?, Hyeran Jo, Beth A. Simmons

All Faculty Scholarship

Whether and how violence can be controlled to spare innocent lives is a central issue in international relations. The most ambitious effort to date has been the International Criminal Court (ICC), designed to enhance security and safety by preventing egregious human rights abuses and deterring international crimes. We offer the first systematic assessment of the ICC's deterrent effects for both state and nonstate actors. Although no institution can deter all actors, the ICC can deter some governments and those rebel groups that seek legitimacy. We find support for this conditional impact of the ICC cross-nationally. Our work has implications for …

Nation-Building Is An Oxymoron, M. Chris Mason

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

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 …

Education: A More Powerful Weapon Than War?, Maja K. Thomas

Student Publications

In this paper, I analyze the impact of education on civil war onset, utilizing variables measuring length of compulsory education and number of internal armed conflicts in a given country per year. Using data from the Quality of Government Institute’s Quality of Government Standard Time Series data set, I test this hypothesis and find that an increase in compulsory education length decreases the expected number of internal armed conflicts. The results suggest further importance of education as a great equalizer among individuals as well as nations.

Élites Y Violencia Organizada En México, Andreas Schedler

Andreas Schedler

La Encuesta Nacional de Violencia Organizada (ENVO Élites) fue levantada en otoño del 2013 en México entre seis sectores de élites: gobierno, políticos, academia, medios, empresarios y sociedad civil (N = 629). Indaga en las acciones y actitudes que adoptan las élites mexicanas hacia los actores principales de la violencia organizada criminal: los perpetradores, las víctimas, el Estado y la sociedad civil. El presente informe compara los resultados descriptivos principales entre los seis grupos de élite y entre ellos y la población general.

Ciudadanía Y Violencia Organizada En México, Andreas Schedler

Andreas Schedler

La Encuesta Nacional de Violencia Organizada (ENVO) fue levantada en otoño del 2013 en México (N = 2,400). Indaga en las acciones y actitudes que adopta la ciudadanía mexicana hacia los actores principales de la violencia organizada criminal: los perpetradores, las víctimas, el Estado y la sociedad civil. El presente informe resume sus hallazgos descriptivos principales.

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 …

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.

Liberia: History Of The Origins Of War And Profiles Of Actors, Emmanuel Kotia

Emmanuel Wekem Kotia

The cause of the civil war in Liberia can be traced to the country’s unresolved ethnic and political differences. The country that was founded on the principles of freedom and democracy , but after one and half centuries, of its existence the country descended into destruction in which both democracy and human rights were compromised. This paper traces the history of Liberia from its establishment to the outbreak of the war in 1989 focusing on some of the causes for contradictions in that long history. In particular, the geo-political profile of the Liberian state is examined with a focus on …

Demography, Environment And Conflict In West Africa, Emmanuel Aning, Andrews Atta-Asamoah

Emmanuel Kwesi Aning

In this paper, we argue that West Africa’s conflict experiences since 1990 have never been devoid of the concurrent influence of the youth bulge problematic and the effects of the economic downturns of countries in the sub-region. These factors can therefore not be relegated to the background in present and future attempts to achieve peace. We also argue that the outbreak of conflicts has had grave ramifications on the region’s environmental security. This paper starts with a section that analyses the nexus between demography and conflict from which evidence is deduced to explain the youth bulge phenomenon and supporting destabilising …