Suchergebnisse

What explains the role of restraints on military for limiting victimisation of civilians? We find that a higher number of officers trained on counterinsurgency are associated with a lower number of civilians killed by government forces in civil wars. We also find that the number of civilians killed by government forces reduces as the degree of military involvement in politics reduces, and as the judiciary becomes independent. These results suggest that if the goal is to curb indiscriminate civilian killings, better training in counterinsurgency, the existence of judicial checks, and lowering military influence in politics are practical policy tools.

AbstractWhile the growing body of research on non-violent political movements centres on the idea that choosing non-violence tends to produce more favourable outcomes for dissidents, the question of why some non-violent campaigns still fail has not been sufficiently empirically investigated. Building on the extant research on the effects of group dynamics and certain external actors, we examine the role of the natural resource wealth of target states on the outcomes of non-violent campaigns. We hypothesize that the probability that a non-violent movement will fail increases as the target state's natural resource wealth increases. This natural resource wealth could serve to neutralize the potential for support from both domestic and external actors, thereby increasing the risk of failure. The results of our statistical analyses support our hypothesis and suggest that non-violent campaigns are more likely to fail in states with higher natural resource wealth, particularly that which stems from oil.

Abstract
This article examines the forces that encourage targets and challengers involved in claim disputes to offer concessions first. Our framework focuses upon reputation and pressure as key forces that can influence concession-making by claim dispute targets and challengers. We argue that past concession behavior both inside and outside of a claim dyad influences the willingness to make concessions, but does so in distinct ways. We also argue that pressure arising from internal conflict within the disputants and from major power involvement in managing the dispute, also influences the occurrence of concession-making. The results of our hazard analysis show that states involved in claim disputes do consider their opponent's previous concession-making behavior. Our findings point clearly to the history of concessions within the dyad as a key influence on subsequent concession-making and that major power involvement increases the likelihood of concession-making by both challengers and targets.

Land reform has been employed as a component of counterinsurgency strategies to inoculate peasants against rebel appeals by giving peasants their own land. However, the remedial effects of land reform can be undermined by right wing violence and rebel violence intended to subvert land reform implementation. We used municipio level data on land reform and election results from El Salvador to test propositions on the competing effects of land reform and political violence - right wing and rebel - on the distribution of popular support between the regime versus the rebels versus anti-reform parties in the regime. We find consistent evidence across three elections that "land to the tiller" forms of agrarian reform do increase support for the regime while right wing violence does erode support for reformist parties.