Red alert
Bombing the Way to State-Building? Lessons from the Vietnam War
Melissa Dell & Pablo Querubin
Harvard Working Paper, May 2016
Abstract:
This study uses discontinuities in U.S. strategies employed during the Vietnam War to estimate their causal impacts on security, governance, civic society, and economic outcomes. It identifies the impacts of bombing civilian population centers in South Vietnam by exploiting discontinuities in an algorithm used to target air strikes. Hamlets just barely below the algorithm's rounding thresholds were significantly more likely to be bombed than hamlets just above but were identical beforehand. Estimates document that the bombing of civilian population centers increased the military and political activities of the communist insurgency, weakened local governance, and reduced non-communist civic engagement. The study also exploits a spatial discontinuity across neighboring military corps regions, one commanded for idiosyncratic historical reasons by the U.S. Marines and the other by the U.S. Army. The Marines emphasized a bottom-up hearts and minds approach, whereas Army strategy emphasized search and destroy raids. The Marines' hearts and minds approach plausibly increased access to health care and primary school completion rates, reduced insurgent attacks, and improved attitudes towards the U.S. and the South Vietnamese government, relative to the Army's search and destroy approach.
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From Isolation to Radicalization: The Socioeconomic Predictors of Support for ISIS in the West
Tamar Mitts
Columbia University Working Paper, June 2016
Abstract:
The steady stream of foreign fighters from Western countries to join the Islamic State has gripped the attention of scholars and policymakers around the world. In this paper, I provide the first systematic micro-level study of the socioeconomic predictors of online radicalization and support for ISIS in Europe. I argue that lack of integration in Western countries, coupled with anti-Muslim discrimination and hostility, drives individuals to support ISIS on social media. From December 2015 to May 2016, I collected real-time data on the activity of thousands of ISIS activists and the full social network of their followers on Twitter, a central platform for the organization's recruitment efforts. I captured and analyzed the online activity and textual content produced by ISIS supporters before their accounts were deleted from the Internet. Using data on the geographic location of ISIS supporters, I matched online radicalization indicators with offline data on voteshare for far-right, anti-Muslim parties in Europe to examine whether the intensity of anti-Muslim hostility at the local level predicts support for ISIS on Twitter. Results show that local-level support for far-right parties is a significant and substantively meaningful determinant of pro-ISIS radicalization online, including posting tweets sympathizing with ISIS, describing life in ISIS-controlled territories, discussing foreign fighters, and expressing anti-West sentiment. An event study of the marches organized by the anti-Muslim movement PEGIDA in 2016 suggests that the results are not entirely driven by reverse causality. Of particular relevance to the current debate over refugee policy, I also find that the number of foreigners or asylum seekers in a locality are not significant predictors of radicalization.
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Drone Strikes Reduce Insurgent Violence: Evidence from Pakistan
Asfandyar Ali Mir & Dylan Moore
University of Chicago Working Paper, December 2015
Abstract:
We investigate the consequences of drone strikes for insurgent violence in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) region. Employing a difference-in-differences design combined with an event-study, we document a negative statistical association between the introduction of the US drone policy and insurgent violence in the North Waziristan Agency. The policy was associated with a reduction of 4-11 insurgent attacks per month and 27-63 casualties per month. These are very large effect sizes given that in the year before the policy was implemented the region experienced around 12 attacks per month, resulting in around 55 casualties per month. We offer a theory on coercion by drones, and argue that this drop in insurgent violence is best explained by the non-kinetic effects whereby the fear of drone strikes among insurgents leads to organizational changes that limit their ability to undertake violence.
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Rachel Esplin Odell
MIT Working Paper, June 2016
Abstract:
Why do states claim limited, moderate, or expansive jurisdiction over the waters adjacent to their coasts? I argue that because of the unique role of the maritime hegemon in shaping the law of the sea to conform to its interests, the primary variable determining a state's positions on coastal state jurisdiction is the nature of its relationship to the maritime hegemon - allied, adversarial, or neutral. Other variables that exert important influence on the state's claim include its perceptions of threat from regional maritime powers and its own capability to project power to other states' coasts. This theory not only enables deductive prediction of states' maritime jurisdictional claims, but also provides insights into the process of hegemonic order-building in international relations. After developing this theory, I test it with initial plausibility probes, including an analysis of the contemporary maritime claims of the United States as the maritime hegemon, as well as two controlled comparisons of the current maritime claims of Japan and China, ally and adversary of the United States, and Chile and Peru, states with neutral relationships to the maritime hegemon. The theory's explanatory variables accurately correlate with the outcomes in these studies, with the United States claiming limited jurisdiction over the activities of foreign militaries in its exclusive economic zone, Japan and Chile claiming limited jurisdiction (with caveats), China claiming moderate jurisdiction, and Peru claiming expansive jurisdiction.
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Pugnacious Presidents: Democratic Constitutional Systems and International Conflict
Matthew Kroenig & Madison Schramm
Georgetown University Working Paper, July 2016
Abstract:
How do domestic political institutions affect international conflict? Democratic peace theorists argue that jointly-democratic dyads are less likely to engage in war than other types of states, but these explanations cannot account for the large number of militarized conflicts that fall short of full-scale war among democratic states. We hypothesize that presidential democracies place fewer constraints on the executive's ability to use force and are, therefore, more likely to engage in international conflict than other types of democratic states. Using standard international relations datasets on conflict, we demonstrate that jointly-presidential democratic dyads are over two times more likely to become involved in militarized interstate disputes than other jointly-democratic dyads. Moreover, we find that when it comes to lower-level conflicts, jointly-presidential dyads are statistically indistinguishable from nondemocratic dyads. These results have important implications for our understanding of democratic peace theory and the causes of international conflict.
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My Brother's Keeper? Religious Cues and Support for Foreign Military Intervention
Joshua Su-Ya Wu & Austin Knuppe
Politics and Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Americans are reluctant to support foreign military intervention. However, if victims of violence are identified as Christians, support for intervention is higher. We term this a "Brother's Keeper" effect as Americans, especially more religious Americans, will support intervention that aids co-religionists. To test our argument, we use a survey experiment that randomly assigns respondents to varying accounts of violence in the Central African Republic. Respondents who read Christians are the victims of violence are more supportive of military intervention compared to respondents who read vignettes that do not identify the religious identities of victims. Moreover, these Brother's Keeper effects are stronger among more religious respondents. We also find even stronger effects when extrapolating results as a population effect with survey weights. Our findings reveal that labeling otherwise unknown foreign actors as Christian have significant effects on support for foreign military intervention.
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Beheading the Hydra: Counterinsurgent violence and insurgent attacks in Iraq
Joshua Eastin & Emily Kalah Gade
Terrorism and Political Violence, forthcoming
Abstract:
We evaluate the effectiveness of anti-insurgent violence as a means to suppress insurgency with micro-level data from the Iraq War. Our findings suggest that while violence against insurgents increases the incidence of future insurgent attacks, the intensity of this violence can significantly influence the outcome. Rather than shifting monotonically, the effect is actually curvilinear, first rising, and then contracting. We argue that at low to moderate levels, violence against insurgents creates opportunities for these groups to signal strength and resolve, which enables them to build momentum, heighten civilian cooperation, and diminish political support for counterinsurgency efforts in these forces' home countries. The result is an escalation in insurgent attacks. However, at higher levels, this effect should plateau and taper off as insurgent attrition rises, and as civilian fears over personal safety displace grievances that might otherwise provoke counter-mobilization. Our empirical tests on data from the Iraq War, 2004-2009, demonstrate robust support for this argument.
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The Language of Compromise in International Agreements
Katerina Linos & Tom Pegram
International Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
To reach agreement, international negotiators often compromise by using flexible language: they make controversial provisions vague, or add options and caveats. Does flexibility in agreement language influence subsequent state behavior? If so, do states follow both firm and flexible language somewhat, as negotiators hope? Or do governments respond strategically, increasing their energies on firmly specified tasks, and reducing their efforts on flexibly specified ones? Testing theories about agreement language is difficult because states often reserve flexible language for controversial provisions. To make causal claims, we study an unusually drafted agreement in which states had almost no opportunity to dilute agreement language. We examine the influence of the 1991 Paris Principles on the Design of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), using an original data set of twenty-two institutional safeguards of NHRIs in 107 countries, and case studies. We find that variations in agreement language can have large effects on state behavior, even when the entire agreement is nonbinding. Both democracies and authoritarian states followed the principles' firm terms closely. However, authoritarian states either ignored or reduced their efforts on flexibly specified tasks. If flexibly specifying a task is no different from omitting it altogether, as our data suggest, the costs of compromise are much greater than previously believed.
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Can the International Criminal Court Deter Atrocity?
Hyeran Jo & Beth Simmons
International Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Whether and how violence can be controlled to spare innocent lives is a central issue in international relations. The most ambitious effort to date has been the International Criminal Court (ICC), designed to enhance security and safety by preventing egregious human rights abuses and deterring international crimes. We offer the first systematic assessment of the ICC's deterrent effects for both state and nonstate actors. Although no institution can deter all actors, the ICC can deter some governments and those rebel groups that seek legitimacy. We find support for this conditional impact of the ICC cross-nationally. Our work has implications for the study of international relations and institutions, and supports the violence-reducing role of pursuing justice in international affairs.
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Physical cryptographic verification of nuclear warheads
Scott Kemp et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does one prove a claim about a highly sensitive object such as a nuclear weapon without revealing information about the object? This paradox has challenged nuclear arms control for more than five decades. We present a mechanism in the form of an interactive proof system that can validate the structure and composition of an object, such as a nuclear warhead, to arbitrary precision without revealing either its structure or composition. We introduce a tomographic method that simultaneously resolves both the geometric and isotopic makeup of an object. We also introduce a method of protecting information using a provably secure cryptographic hash that does not rely on electronics or software. These techniques, when combined with a suitable protocol, constitute an interactive proof system that could reject hoax items and clear authentic warheads with excellent sensitivity in reasonably short measurement times.
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Taking versus taxing: An analysis of conscription in a private information economy
Thomas Koch & Javier Birchenall
Public Choice, June 2016, Pages 177-199
Abstract:
Most countries currently man their militaries through conscription (i.e., a draft). Conventional wisdom suggests that, by lowering the budgetary cost of the military, a draft reduces distortionary taxation, especially when military needs are large. We find that this intuition is misguided. When income taxes are set optimally, voluntary enlistments lead to less distortionary taxation than a draft, because the tax base left behind by a volunteer army tends to be more productive than that after a draft. For reasonable parameter values, drafts are more distortionary (and less socially desirable) when military needs are large.
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Status Competition and Territorial Aggression: Evidence from the Scramble for Africa
Joslyn Barnhart
Security Studies, Summer 2016, Pages 385-419
Abstract:
When are states willing to engage in behaviors of little material or strategic value in order to assert their status? This article demonstrates that states are more likely to engage in acts of status assertion if their international standing has been called into question. Such status-challenged states seek opportunities to demonstrate their capabilities as well as their intention to maintain their current status. Status assertions often challenge the status and security of other states, leading these states to engage in more frequent acts of aggression. Evidence for these claims comes from detailed analysis of the Scramble for Africa at the end of the nineteenth century. France and Germany adopted expansionary policies in Africa because their great power status had been called into question. These policy shifts directly led Italy and Britain to adopt expansionary policies, leading to the eventual conquest of 95 percent of the African continent.
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Reducing risks in wartime through capital-labor substitution: Evidence from World War II
Chris Rohlfs, Ryan Sullivan & Thomas Kniesner
Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, April 2016, Pages 163-190
Abstract:
Our research uses data from multiple archival sources to examine substitution among armored (tank-intensive), infantry (troop-intensive), and airborne (also troop-intensive) military units, as well as mid-war reorganizations of each type, to estimate the marginal cost of reducing U.S. fatalities in World War II, holding constant mission effectiveness, usage intensity, and task difficulty. If the government acted as though it equated marginal benefits and costs, the marginal cost measures the implicit value placed on soldiers' lives. Our preferred estimates indicate that infantrymen's lives were valued in 2009 dollars between $0 and $0.5 million and armored troops' lives were valued between $2 million and $6 million, versus the efficient $1 million to $2 million 1940s-era private value of life. Reorganizations of the armored and airborne divisions both increased efficiency, one by reducing costs with little increase in fatalities and the other by reducing fatalities with little increase in costs.
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Moments in time: Temporal patterns in the effect of democracy and trade on conflict
Mark David Nieman
Conflict Management and Peace Science, July 2016, Pages 273-293
Abstract:
Building on economic norms theory, I argue that the causes of international conflict may be contextual rather than constant over time. I explore the temporal patterns in the predictors of conflict in data on European conflict between 1870 and 2001, using an endogenous Markov chain Monte Carlo Poisson change-point model. I find that the period can be divided into two time periods, different in terms of the direction of the effect of the main conflict predictors. While democracy has a positive effect on conflict in the period between 1870 and 1938, it has a negative effect from 1938 to 2001. Likewise, trade initially has no impact on conflict, but later exerts a pacifying effect. Post-estimation analyses suggest that such patterns are best explained by the externalization of contractual norms, which is consistent with economic norms theory.
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Dario Fazzi
Journal of American Studies, August 2016, Pages 699-730
Abstract:
This article looks at Eleanor Roosevelt's role within the intense debate on nuclear fallout as it developed in the US in the early 1950s. In particular, the article analyzes Mrs. Roosevelt's position on nuclear weapons, deterrence, and disarmament; her condemnation of nuclear testing; and her role as both a public intellectual and a mass educator who helped people to understand the real consequences of nuclear fallout. Here, Mrs. Roosevelt emerges as an active voice that, by defending freedom of speech, also contributed to popularizing the issue of nuclear fallout and making American citizens aware of the urgency of a ban on nuclear testing.
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Daniel Rovenpor et al.
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Most research on threat documents its negative consequences. Similarly, most research on intergroup contexts has emphasized their negative behavioral effects. Drawing on the Meaning Maintenance Model and recent perspectives on the potential for positivity in intergroup conflict, we predicted that meaning threat can produce both antisocial and prosocial responses to intergroup conflict, depending on people's preexisting meaning frameworks. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that under meaning threat, low ingroup glorifiers strengthened their support for peaceful conflict resolution, whereas high ingroup glorifiers strengthened their support for military-based conflict resolution. In the context of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Study 3 found that low glorification was associated with greater support for peace during "hot" (but not "cold") conflict, because hot conflict reduced their meaning in life. These findings are consistent with the notion that when meaning is threatened, people affirm their preexisting values - whether pro-social or anti-social - even in the context of intergroup conflict.
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Kinds of Blue: Diversity in UN Peacekeeping Missions and Civilian Protection
Vincenzo Bove & Andrea Ruggeri
British Journal of Political Science, July 2016, Pages 681-700
Abstract:
For a given number of troops in a peace operation, is it advisable to have soldiers from a single country, or should the UN recruit peacekeepers from a variety of donor countries? Since 1990, the number of contributors to peace operations has grown threefold, and most operations have carried the mandate to protect civilians. This article explores the effect of diversity in the composition of a mission, measured by fractionalization and polarization indices, on its performance in protecting civilians in Africa in the period 1991-2008. It finds that mission diversity decreases the level of violence against civilians, a result that holds when geographic and linguistic distances between countries are considered.