Rebels can comply with international law during a conflict by not violating international borders, yet strategic goals may incentivize rebels to violate these borders. When do international borders affect the spatial and temporal distribution of rebel activity in a conflict setting? I theorize rebels have an incentive to refrain from violating borders when doing so will reduce their international legitimacy. When international legitimacy is a less important goal, rebels will be more likely to violate borders. I test this claim in the context of the 1948 War in Mandate Palestine by exploiting a quasi-natural experiment in how the 1947 UN partition line was drawn. Using an original dataset on over 1,000 Palestinian villages from British colonial documents and an atlas of aerial photographs of Palestine, I use a geographic regression discontinuity design to see how the UN partition line affected the location and timing of depopulated villages during the war. The results show that villages in areas that the UN assigned to the future Israeli state as part of the 1947 partition plan were more likely to be conquered before Israel received recognition. These findings have important implications for understanding where and when rebels target areas and shed new light on important dynamics of the 1948 War in Palestine.
Rebels can comply with international law during a conflict by not violating international borders, yet strategic goals may incentivize rebels to violate these borders. When do international borders affect the spatial and temporal distribution of rebel activity in a conflict setting? I theorize rebels have an incentive to refrain from violating borders when doing so will reduce their international legitimacy. When international legitimacy is a less important goal, rebels will be more likely to violate borders. I test this claim in the context of the 1948 War in Mandate Palestine by exploiting a quasi-natural experiment in how the 1947 UN partition line was drawn. Using an original dataset on over 1,000 Palestinian villages from British colonial documents and an atlas of aerial photographs of Palestine, I use a geographic regression discontinuity design to see how the UN partition line affected the location and timing of depopulated villages during the war. The results show that villages in areas that the UN assigned to the future Israeli state as part of the 1947 partition plan were more likely to be conquered before Israel received recognition. These findings have important implications for understanding where and when rebels target areas and shed new light on important dynamics of the 1948 War in Palestine.
In this article, I examine the relationship between migration and terrorism in Western European countries from 1980 to 2004. I find that an increase in migration is positively related to an increase in terrorism, but only right-wing terrorism. Immigration has no effect on left-wing terrorism or other non-right-wing terrorism. I also examine the effect of incoming refugees on terrorism and find similar results. I argue that these population flows increase terrorism in part because they aggravate the grievances of those on the radical right. To provide empirical support for this mechanism, I conduct a subnational analysis of right-wing terrorism in Germany. For German states, the percentage of foreign-born immigrants is a bigger predictor of anti-immigrant violence than economic variables such as employment or trade levels. The flow of immigrants from outside of Europe is also positively related with right-wing terror, while no relationship exists for intra-European migration. This analysis serves to qualify the study of terrorism as a strategic choice by showing that increased antipathy toward an out-group, rather than a changing strategic environment, explains variation in levels of terrorism, at least among liberal democracies.
This article argues that the US print media influenced US foreign policy by crafting a powerful narrative of Gamal Abdel Nasser that characterised Nasser as an expansionistic dictator by comparing him to Hitler and Mussolini. This narrative gained currency when the US public became anxious over Israel's security after the Czech arms deal of 1955. The narrative influenced US policy by strengthening the cultural relationship between Israel and the US by describing Nasser in similar terms, and also by influencing Eisenhower's and Dulles' perceptions of the Middle East immediately prior to the US deployment of troops to Lebanon in 1958. Adapted from the source document.
AbstractDo elections affect legislators' voting patterns? We investigate this question in the context of environmental policy in the U.S. Congress. We theorize that since the general public is generally in favor of legislation protecting the environment, legislators have an incentive to favor the public over industry and vote for pro‐environment legislation at election time. The argument is supported by analyses of data on environmental roll call votes for the U.S. Congress from 1970 to 2013 where we estimate the likelihood of casting a pro‐environment vote as a function of the time to an election. While Democrats are generally more likely to cast a pro‐environment vote before an election, this effect is much stronger for Republicans when the legislator won the previous election by a thinner margin. The election effect is maximized for candidates receiving substantial campaign contributions from the (anti‐environment) oil and gas industry. Analysis of Twitter data confirms that Congressmembers make pro‐environmental statements and highlight their roll call voting behavior during the election season. These results show that legislators do strategically adjust their voting behavior to favor the public immediate prior to an election.
Despite the number of problems that can occur when core model assumptions are violated, nearly all quantitative political science research relies on inflexible regression models that require a linear relationship between dependent and independent variables for valid inference. We argue that nonparametric statistical learning methods like random forests are capable of combining the benefits of interpretability and flexibility. Recent work has shown that under suitable regularity conditions, averaging over predictions made by subsampled random forests produces asymptotically normal predictions. After estimating the variance, this property can be exploited to produce hypothesis tests and confidence intervals analogous to those produced within a parametric framework. We demonstrated the utility of this approach by replicating an important study on the determinants of civil war onset and show that subtle nonlinear relationships are uncovered, providing a new perspective on these ongoing research questions.
AbstractHow do states respond to political resistance? The standard repression or concession logic presumes that the state is strong enough to punish or co-opt dissent effectively. Instead, we argue that the state may disengage when it is weak. We show that colonial governments in French West Africa reduced public investments in districts where chiefs engaged in largely nonviolent disobedience. However, we also show that chieftain disobedience reduced government taxes and fees on Africans, rather than increased them as punishment. Because the state was too weak to punish with higher taxation or to concede by increasing investments, the state disengaged in hard-to-rule districts. Our findings show that chieftain resistance helps explain why subnational development was so unequal during colonialism. Low-level and nonviolent resistance, often overlooked in the conflict literature, also affect state–society relations and state formation.¿Cómo responden los estados a la resistencia política? La lógica convencional de represión o concesión presupone que el estado es lo suficientemente poderoso como para castigar o cooptar la disidencia de forma eficaz. Sin embargo, sostenemos que el estado puede desentenderse cuando es vulnerable. Demostramos que los gobiernos coloniales del África Occidental Francesa redujeron las inversiones públicas en los distritos en los que los jefes ejercían una desobediencia mayoritariamente no violenta. Sin embargo, también demostramos que la desobediencia de los caciques permitió reducir los impuestos y aranceles del gobierno sobre los africanos, en lugar de aumentarlos como castigo. Como el estado era demasiado vulnerable para castigar con mayores impuestos o para ceder aumentando las inversiones, el estado se desentendió de los distritos difíciles de gobernar. Nuestros resultados muestran que la resistencia de los dirigentes ayuda a explicar por qué el desarrollo de la región fue tan desigual durante el colonialismo. La resistencia no violenta y de bajo riesgo, que a menudo se ignora en la literatura sobre conflictos, también afecta a las relaciones entre el estado y la sociedad, y a la formación del estado.Comment les États réagissent-ils à la résistance politique ? La logique standard de répression ou de concession présume que l'État est suffisamment puissant pour sanctionner ou coopter efficacement la dissidence. Au lieu de cela, nous soutenons que l'État peut se désengager lorsqu'il est faible. Nous montrons que les gouvernements coloniaux de l'Afrique Occidentale Française réduisaient les investissements publics dans les districts où les chefs s'engageaient dans une désobéissance en grande partie non violente. Toutefois, nous montrons également que la désobéissance des chefs réduisait aussi les taxes et frais imposés aux Africains par le gouvernement plutôt que de les accroître en guise de sanction. Étant donné que l'État était trop faible pour sanctionner par une taxation plus élevée ou pour faire des concessions en augmentant les investissements, l'État s'est désengagé dans les districts difficiles à gouverner. Nos conclusions montrent que la résistance des chefs contribue à expliquer pourquoi le développement subnational a été aussi inégal durant le colonialisme. La résistance non violente et de faible intensité, souvent négligée dans la littérature sur les conflits, affecte également les relations entre État et société et la formation des États.
AbstractWhy do some governments subsidize gasoline consumption, despite its very high economic and environmental costs? We answer this question by examining how a state's political regime and level of institutional capacity jointly determine its level of fossil fuel price distortion. We find that, without sufficient institutional capacity, democratic regimes do not necessarily provide less fuel subsidies, as those governments are unable to pursue other more efficient welfare policies. Using data on monthly domestic gasoline prices from 2003 to 2015, we demonstrate that democratic governments with high institutional capacity are less likely to control domestic gasoline prices. Democratic institutions and strong institutional capacity jointly mitigate the effect of the benchmark oil price increases on the domestic price. These results suggest that the combination of motive (democratic accountability) and means (institutional capacity) can help countries avoid inefficient subsidy policies.
What explains right-wing radicalization in the United States? Existing research emphasizes demographic changes, economic insecurity, and elite polarization. This paper highlights an additional factor: the impact of foreign wars on society at home. We argue communities that bear the greatest costs of foreign wars are prone to higher rates of right-wing radicalization. To support this claim, we present robust correlations between activity on Parler, a predominantly right-wing social media platform, and fatalities among residents who served in U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, at both the county and census tract level. The findings contribute to understanding right-wing radicalization in the US in two key respects. First, it examines widespread, nonviolent radical-right activity that, because it is less provocative than protest and violence, has eluded systematic measurement. Second, it highlights that U.S. foreign wars have important implications for domestic politics beyond partisanship and voting, to potentially include radicalization.
Abstract What are the origins of conflict-related population displacement? Why do some communities in conflict zones suffer mass casualties while others evade conflict violence? Whether civilians migrate before or after belligerent operations in their vicinity influences the scale of casualties and population displacement in war. "Preemptive evacuation" is a specific manifestation of forced displacement, in which whole communities leave their homes before belligerents attempt to seize control in their local area. In conflicts involving strategic civilian-targeted violence, social cohesion, by promoting collective action, enhances communities' capabilities to mobilize collective migration, thereby increasing the likelihood of preemptive evacuation. An investigation of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War probes the plausibility of the theory. Detailed information about Arab Palestinian villages in the previously restricted Village Files is used to construct a village-level dataset, which measures social cohesion and other social, political, and economic characteristics. These documents and data provide crucial sources of evidence to researchers investigating Palestinian society and development, the origins of Israel's statehood, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Findings suggest that areas where communities lack social cohesion may suffer higher casualties from targeted violence, signaling a need for urgent diplomatic and humanitarian prevention or mitigation efforts.
