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Full-Text Articles in Peace and Conflict Studies

Presidential Use Of Diversionary Drone Force And Public Support, Scott S. Boddery, Graid G. Klein May 2021

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 …


Conflict Environments And Civil War Onset, Lindsay Reid, Rachel Myrick, Kelly M. Kadera, Mark J.C. Crescenzi May 2020

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 …


Confronting Wartime Sexual Violence: Public Support For Survivors In Bosnia, Douglas D. Page, Samuel Whitt Aug 2019

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 May 2019

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 Aug 2018

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 …


Civil War Termination, Caroline A. Hartzell Oct 2016

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 Jan 2016

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 …


Mixed Motives? Explaining The Decision To Integrate Militaries At Civil War's End, Caroline A. Hartzell Apr 2014

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 Feb 2014

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 Jan 2013

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.