College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item The Social Terrain of Rebel Held Territory(2020) Breslawski, Marjorie; Cunningham, David; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The extent of local order varies widely in rebel held areas, from total chaos to well-run governing institutions. When these institutions exist, why do some include and even empower civilians to run community affairs, while others exclude civilians from governance? I argue that rebels choose different governing strategies that maximize their utility of territorial control, based on certain characteristics of civilian inhabitants populating the territory. Rebels’ constituency determines whether rebels seek to govern civilians or control them solely with coercive violence, and community cohesion (or lack thereof) then determines the type of institutions that rebels develop. I focus on three different outcomes for communities under rebel control—no institutions, exclusive institutions, and inclusive institutions. I test my argument using historical, statistical, and case evidence, leveraging original cross-national data on local order in rebel held territory as well as interviews with village heads, ex-combatants, and community members in Aceh, Indonesia. The results provide support for my theory and yield implications for our understanding of human security during conflict and the determinants of civilians’ political and social reality during war.Item Public Opinion or Powerful Friends: The Motivation of Minor Power Intervention Into External Conflict(2020) McCulloch, Caitlin; Gallagher Cunningham, Kathleen; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)When and how do minor power states decide to intervene in external conflicts? When minor power states intervene, what form of intervention do they employ? I argue that particular types of intervention (military, financial, or diplomatic) are determined in part by whether a specific intervention is conducted to appease domestic or international audiences. When intervention is primarily a response to the domestic public, foreign policy elites will first and foremost take high visibility intervention action. If there is no strong domestic public opinion on the intervention but there is pressure from major power allies, foreign policy elites will be more likely to take financially costly intervention action. Previous explanations have not examined the entire menu of possible intervention types, missing important variation in the decision-making calculus around intervention. This study tests this theory with a mixture of qualitative and quantitative analysis. It uses a national public opinion survey in the Republic of Georgia (2017) to support which external conflicts interest the public, public preferences for diplomatic intervention, and elite interest in public preference. It then follows this with a historical case study of India, Sri Lanka and the Tamils (1980-1990) illustratively demonstrating the exact mobilization mechanism of the public and their impact on intervention. These two chapters show that the public cares about cases with solidarity ties and media attention, and overwhelmingly prefers diplomatic intervention. It also shows a majority of elite policymakers do believe the public impacts foreign security policy. The last empirical chapter turns to the role of major power allies in motivating intervention. This dissertation uses a statistical analysis and data from 1975-2009 to show the importance of major power security incentives and security contexts in motivating minor power military intervention. It shows mixed impacts of major power security incentives and security contexts in motivating economic intervention, and shows that major power-minor power intervention occurs in less than 1% of all diplomatic intervention cases. This supports that major powers play a large role in motivating military intervention, but suggests that major powers have a smaller role in motivating diplomatic intervention.Item The Strategy of Civil Conflict: The Determinants of Conflict Intensity and Effect of Intensity on Duration(2019) Plettner, Theodore; Reed, William; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Conflict onset and duration have been studied extensively, however the dynamics of what happens within a conflict have received much less attention. At the center of the issue of conflict dynamics is conflict intensity. Some civil conflicts resemble interstate wars with armies using conventional tactics which kill thousands of people per year, while many others consist of small guerrilla conflicts that kill only dozens. The capabilities of the rebel groups in these conflicts determine the tactics they will adopt, which in turn determines how intensely the conflict will be fought. Foreign intervention into civil conflicts influences the tactical decisions of actors, further increasing conflict intensity. To add to the disastrous effects of high-intensity conflicts, when intensity increases, conflicts also last longer, increasing the period over which the damage from these conflicts is inflicted.Item To Campaign, Protest, or Take up Arms: Ethnic Minority Strategies under the Shadow of Ethnic Majority Fragmentation(2018) Hultquist, Agatha Skierkowski; Birnir, Johanna K.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Why do some ethnopolitical minority organizations use violence to achieve their political goals, whereas others eschew force and engage in nonviolence or take part in elections? The literature leads us to expect that the more fragmented the ethnic minority group is, the more likely it is that ethnopolitical minority organizations will use violence against the state. Ethnopolitical minority organizations, however, vary considerably in their strategies. To explain this puzzle, I argue that an under-explored factor - fragmentation within ethnically mobilized groups that control the state - affects how minority organizations select their strategies. Using two original measures of majority fragmentation in combination with existing data on minority strategies in Sri Lanka for 1960-2005, I find that ethnopolitical minority organizations are more likely to use violence when fragmentation within the political majority is relatively low and more likely to engage in nonviolence or to participate in electoral politics when majority fragmentation is relatively high. I also determine that minority organizations are more likely to use mixed strategies of electoral politics and violence and violence and nonviolence as majority fragmentation increases. Finally, I find that majorities are more likely to outbid in positions and policies against minorities when minorities use violence than nonviolence. These results demonstrate that the shadow of majority group fragmentation impacts the nonviolent and violent strategies of ethnic minorities, and introduce a new avenue for research on the role of ethnicity in conflict processes.Item The Provision and Impact of External Military Support to Combatants in Civil War(2015) Aronson, Jacob; Huth, Paul; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)External support has been a prominent feature of many internal conflicts during the past half-century. Existing literature has often cited external support as playing a key role in these conflicts. The many high quality recent works looking at external support reflect this realization. Despite this, a number of important questions about external support remain unanswered. This dissertation addresses three important unresolved questions through three different papers. These questions reflect three broad issues of concern: (1) When is external support likely to occur? (2) What impact does external support have on combatant capabilities? (3) To what extent is a supporter able to influence a combatant? Existing work has highlighted the important role that combatant capability plays in influencing the occurrence of support. Combatant capabilities, however, are not likely to have the same impact on the provision of support regardless of the reason why a supporter would become involved. The first play theorizes about this issue as well as conducts preliminary analysis using new time-varying data of when support is likely to be provided. Similarly, although the influence of external support has largely been assumed in existing academic work—and given limited testing—much recent policy work casts doubt on this influence. Using new disaggregated data on combatant capabilities and the provision of external support, the second paper seeks to identify the impact of support. Support, broadly, is found to heavily impact the ability of rebels to produce large capable forces that are protected from state attacks; this impact, however, depends on the type of support provided. Finally, a main concern for supporters is that they are able to influence the behavior of particular rebel groups. Using supporter influence over rebel use of one-sided violence as an indicator of supporter ability to influence, paper three develops and tests a theory of the conditions required for influence to occur. For influence to occur, a rebel must be reliant on the supporter, the supporter should not be reliant on the rebel, and the supporter must have an incentive to spend resources to exert control.Item When National Minorities Become Local Majorities: Federalism, Ethnic Politics and Violent Conflict(2013) Inman, Molly Jean; Birnir, Johanna K; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)What explains the variation in ethnic conflict in federal systems? Existing theory and empirical evidence are mixed, with some saying it decreases violence, and some saying increases it. This puzzle also leads to a number of research questions: why does federalism fail to resolve the problem of violent ethnic conflict? Why does local ethnic politics in federal units frequently lead to violence within the ethnic group? What effect does federalism have on violence between ethnic groups? Why do central governments intervene with force into local interethnic conflicts rather than simply allowing the local government of the federal unit to resolve the issue? Conversely, why does federalism sometimes work in preventing violent conflict and session in countries where ethnic politics is salient? The theory presented here asserts that the level of intraethnic political competition within the national minority/local majority and the political incentives created by devolving power to the local level determine the answers. I develop a new theory of local ethnic outbidding by minority groups in federal systems which explains how local ethnic politics turns violent when intraethnic political competition is high. Previous theories have focused almost exclusively on national level politics and violence and have largely ignored the subnational level. I also explain how central governments become involved in local ethnic conflicts in federal systems, because local minorities being targeted call upon them for assistance. Existing theories do not explain why the central government would expend resources and political capital to intervene in a local conflict. Finally, I theorize that the presence and active competition of ethnic political parties in federal units does not increase the likelihood of rebellion or secession. Only when interethnic conflict results from ethnic outbidding and the central government intervenes with force does the politically mobilized ethnic group in the federal unit respond with force in-kind. Existing theories try to link ethnic and regional parties in federal units with secession by theorizing that they reinforce local identities which makes an ethnic group want its own country. My theory asserts and the empirical analysis shows that the path to anti-regime violence by the local majority is much less direct and is contingent on central government actions. To test this theory using statistical analysis, I collected original data on intraethnic political competition for 112 ethnic groups in 21 federal countries from 1990-2006 and assembled a new dataset to test this theory about subnational violent ethnic conflict in federal systems. Additionally, I use process tracing to test the theory using case studies of three ethnic groups in Indonesia. The analysis of both the quantitative and qualitative results lends substantial support to the theory. (Word Count:435)Item Risking War: Regime Crises, Political Exclusion and Indiscriminate Violence in Africa(2007-08-28) Roessler, Philip; Lichbach, Mark I.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Between 1956 and 1999 one-third of the civil wars in the world occurred in sub-Saharan Africa. The prevailing explanation given to account for this fact is the economic weakness of African states. While low income is a robust determinant of civil war onset in global models, it is not as precise a predictor within sub-Saharan Africa. Instead, I argue that civil war is often a consequence of how African rulers respond to threats to regime survival, such as failed coups d'etat and other regime crises. In the wake of regime crises, rulers, concerned by their tenuous hold on power, seek to reduce the risk of future coups by eliminating disloyal agents from within the government and increasing spoils for more trusted clients to try to guarantee their support should another coup or threat materialize. The problem for the ruler is distinguishing loyal agents from traitors. To overcome this information problem rulers often use ethnicity as a cue to restructure their ruling networks, excluding perceived 'ethnic enemies' from spoils. The consequence of such ethnic exclusion is that, due to the weakness of formal state structures, the ruler forfeits his leverage over and information about such societal groups, undermining the government's ability to effectively prevent and contain violent mobilization and increasing the risk of civil war. To test this hypothesis, I employ a nested research design. The first part quantitatively tests the causal logic on a sample of 40 African countries between independence and 1999. I find that in the five years after a regime crisis there is a significant increase in the risk of civil war onset, often when the government resorts to indiscriminate violence to regulate the opposition. Part two examines this argument at the micro-level by examining two cases in Sudan based on hundreds of interviews during more than 14-months of fieldwork between 2005 and 2006. The second Sudan case illustrates that the civil war in Darfur in 2003 was a consequence of how the central government responded to a crisis within the Islamic movement in 1999 and 2000.Item Managing Discontent: Institutions, Intervention and Ethnic Conflict(2006-03-21) Biswas, Bidisha; Lichbach, Mark I; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Over the last fifteen years, the number of civil conflicts worldwide has declined and negotiated settlements have increased. The spread of democracy and greater international concern about domestic conflicts have encouraged states to adopt a negotiations-based approach to addressing minority grievances. In many conflicts, international intervention has played a significant role in facilitating dialogue and peace settlements. The complexities of cases of ethno political conflict suggest that a twin track approach, which looks at the domestic and the international levels of analysis, is critical. Yet, the existing literature on conflict management tends to study either international intervention or domestic institutions. Intersections between the two are ignored. Combining a cross-national analysis using the Minorities at Risk (MAR) dataset with a case study of Sri Lanka, this research project examines the relative and combined impact of domestic institutions and international intervention on the management and de-escalation of conflict. Uncertainty and mistrust between the state and minority groups drives political violence. Mitigating this uncertainty and building trust become essential for building peace. The extant literature fails, however, to recognize that the pathways to building trust and reducing uncertainty vary according to domestic political capacity. When the conflict-affected state is facing domestic institutional anarchy, coercive forms of international intervention, such as offering security guarantees through peacekeeping troops, become necessary. In contrast, where conflict co-exists with relative political stability and some measure of democracy, non-coercive intervention, such as mediation, becomes critical. In contrast to collapsed states, the challenge in such countries is to reform, rather than replace or create, institutions. Where the state is not facing a collapse of authority, facilitative intervention, such as mediation, can be a more cost-effective conflict management tool than high-cost, high-impact actions. This class of cases, which includes Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and the Philippines, has not been adequately investigated in the existing scholarly literature. The arguments and findings presented here make an important contribution by focusing on the interactive role of domestic and international variables, particularly in relatively stable states.