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ABSTRACT. This article examines attitudinal differences and similarities among ethnic groups in conflict‐affected societies. Conventional wisdom tells us that societies that have experienced violent struggles in which individuals of different ethnic groups have (been) mobilized against each other are likely to become polarized along ethnic lines. Indeed, both policy‐makers and scholars often assume that such divisions are some of the main challenges that must be overcome to restore peace after war. We comparatively examine this conventional wisdom by mapping dimensions of social distance among 4,000 survey respondents in Bosnia‐Herzegovina and the North Caucasus region of Russia. The surveys were carried out in December 2005. Using multidimensional scaling methods, we do not find patterns of clear attitudinal cleavages among members of different ethnic groups in Bosnia‐Herzegovina. Nor do we find patterns of clear ethnic division in the North Caucasus, although our social distance matrices reveal a difference between Russians and ethnic minority groups.

How will local violent conflict patterns in sub-Saharan Africa evolve until the middle of the 21st century? Africa is recognized as a particularly vulnerable continent to environmental and climate change since a large portion of its population is poor and reliant on rain-fed agriculture. We use a climate-sensitive approach to model sub-Saharan African violence in the past (geolocated to the nearest settlements) and then forecast future violence using sociopolitical factors such as population size and political rights (governance), coupled with temperature anomalies. Our baseline model is calibrated using 1° gridded monthly data from 1980 to 2012 at a finer spatio-temporal resolution than existing conflict forecasts. We present multiple forecasts of violence under alternative climate change scenarios (optimistic and current global trajectories), of political rights scenarios (improvement and decline), and population projections (low and high fertility). We evaluate alternate shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) by plotting violence forecasts over time and by detailed mapping of recent and future levels of violence by decade. The forecasts indicate that a growing population and rising temperatures will lead to higher levels of violence in sub-Saharan Africa if political rights do not improve. If political rights continue to improve at the same rate as observed over the last three decades, there is reason for optimism that overall levels of violence will hold steady or even decline in Africa, in spite of projected population increases and rising temperatures.

We address two questions on the effects of climate change for social instability. First, do droughts and their associated environmental impacts affect support for the use of violence? Second, do local-level formal and informal institutions moderate support for violence when and where droughts worsen? To answer these questions, we conducted a national survey of 1,400 Kenyans in 2014. Respondents were asked about patterns of rainfall and the presence of rules regulating natural resource use and access. Survey data are joined to spatially disaggregated observed rainfall trends. The survey uses endorsement experiments to elicit honest responses about support for using violence. There is some evidence of a direct, though limited, link between observed drought and violent attitudes. Certain local-level natural resource use rules have moderating effects on support for violence where drought is reported and precipitation is less frequent. This conditional and contextual effect is an important modification of overly simplistic narratives of universal climate change effects.

We address two questions on the effects of climate change for social instability. First, do droughts and their associated environmental impacts affect support for the use of violence? Second, do local-level formal and informal institutions moderate support for violence when and where droughts worsen? To answer these questions, we conducted a national survey of 1,400 Kenyans in 2014. Respondents were asked about patterns of rainfall and the presence of rules regulating natural resource use and access. Survey data are joined to spatially disaggregated observed rainfall trends. The survey uses endorsement experiments to elicit honest responses about support for using violence. There is some evidence of a direct, though limited, link between observed drought and violent attitudes. Certain local-level natural resource use rules have moderating effects on support for violence where drought is reported and precipitation is less frequent. This conditional and contextual effect is an important modification of overly simplistic narratives of universal climate change effects.

It is widely remarked that advanced industrial democracies are now undergoing a period of political dealignment resulting in unstable electoral alliances. Such factors as embourgeoisement, social mobility, mass society, community disintegration, cognitive mobilization, an aging party system, & value change are adduced as explanations for this, but which reasons predominate is not generally agreed on. It is proposed that dealignment logically should lead to geographical instability in electoral patterns; however, analysis of electoral data from eleven nations does not support this. It is proposed here that political choices must be understood in their local contexts. Parties & movements based on issues polarization rely on individual rather than community strategies & thus do not undermine community support for specific parties. This perspective accounts for trends in European countries; Third World countries on the other hand, are better seen as examples of "the politics of failure." In the US, traditional party solidarity -- based on sectional loyalties -- has largely been replaced by candidate solidarity, weakening the link between issues & parties -- even though issues remain linked to regions. Overall, three types of electoral system can be contrasted: traditional party politics, individual politics, & politics of failure; the dealignment era reflects increased reliance on individual rather than community strategies. Comments are offered by: Kevin R. Cox who sees the relation between the contextual & the compositional as poorly defined & proposes an alternative account; Russell J. Dalton (Florida State U, Tallahassee), who distinguishes between patterns of realignment & dealignment & sees Johnston's findings as more relevant to realignment; John O'Loughlin (U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), who argues that the breakdown of traditional party divisions & loyalties is not as great as has been claimed & points to the importance of voting systems for individual electoral choices; & Fred M. Shelley (U of Southern California, Los Angeles), who speculates on inherent characteristics of democratic governments that may give rise to the phenomena Johnston describes. In The Context of a Paradox, Johnston replies to these comments, emphasizing two main questions: the validity of the paradox of geographic stability, & the relative importance of compositional & contextual approaches to understanding electoral behavior. 2 Tables, 68 References. W. H. Stoddard

Recent studies concerning the possible relationship between climate trends and the risks of violent conflict have yielded contradictory results, partly because of choices of conflict measures and modeling design. In this study, we examine climate–conflict relationships using a geographically disaggregated approach. We consider the effects of climate change to be both local and national in character, and we use a conflict database that contains 16,359 individual geolocated violent events for East Africa from 1990 to 2009. Unlike previous studies that relied exclusively on political and economic controls, we analyze the many geographical factors that have been shown to be important in understanding the distribution and causes of violence while also considering yearly and country fixed effects. For our main climate indicators at gridded 1° resolution (∼100 km), wetter deviations from the precipitation norms decrease the risk of violence, whereas drier and normal periods show no effects. The relationship between temperature and conflict shows that much warmer than normal temperatures raise the risk of violence, whereas average and cooler temperatures have no effect. These precipitation and temperature effects are statistically significant but have modest influence in terms of predictive power in a model with political, economic, and physical geographic predictors. Large variations in the climate–conflict relationships are evident between the nine countries of the study region and across time periods.