Aila M. Matanock

Bullets for Ballots: Electoral Participation Provisions and Enduring Peace after Civil Conflict

Why does fighting recur following some civil conflict peace settlements, but not others? What kind of agreements are associated with more enduring peace? Post-conflict elections can often complicate and even undermine peace agreements. Agreements that contain “electoral participation provisions,” however, may help stabilize settlements and produce more enduring peace. Electoral participation provisions mandate that rebel groups be allowed to compete alongside the government in post-conflict elections. Such provisions encourage external actors, such as intergovernmental organizations and foreign donors, to become engaged in post-conflict elections. As part of this engagement, they can provide incentives to the parties to adhere to the terms of the settlement, as well as detect and sanction instances of noncompliance. New cross-national data suggest that conflict after peace settlements recurs less often when electoral participation provisions are included than when they are not. The data also suggest that this pacifying relationship holds when combatants expect international engagement.

Using violence, seeking votes Introducing the Militant Group Electoral Participation (MGEP) dataset

In many cases, including some of the most destructive civil conflicts and some of the newest emerging democracies, militant and ex-militant groups form political parties to participate in elections. Despite the prevalence of such electoral participation, it has rarely been studied, and scholars have not explored its influence on outcomes such as conflict or democratization. A lack of comprehensive data has impeded this research. The dataset introduced in this article provides annual data on militant and ex-militant group participation in legislative elections between 1970 and 2010. The Militant Group Electoral Participation (MGEP) dataset allows for further empirical study of the patterns, causes, and consequences of this behavior. Moreover, in combination with other datasets, MGEP stands to provide additional insights on conflict, peace, democratization, and electoral politics more broadly. In this article, I describe MGEP, provide summary statistics on the data, and show its applications, including through a replication study on post-conflict elections.

The colombian paradox: Peace processes, elite divisions & popular plebiscites

Ending civil conflict is difficult, particularly through political settlements. Conflicts now often occur in states with elections, and voters have sometimes been directly involved in the process, potentially in efforts to overcome elite divisions. Yet, according to evidence from the 2016 popular plebiscite in Colombia, referendums and other tools of direct approval by voters seem to amplify elite divisions and therefore are not a useful mechanism to strengthen peace processes in this way. Focusing instead on traditional elite-led negotiations that seek to satisfy each faction may have a better chance of producing signed settlements, although the Colombian case also suggests some alternative forms of inclusivity that may help increase the overall legitimacy of the process and improve the odds of implementation.

Living in Fear: The Dynamics of Extortion in Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency

Why do drug trafficking organizations sometimes prey on the communities in which they operate, but sometimes provide assistance to these communities? What explains their strategies of extortion and cooptation toward civil society? We argue that the level of territorial contestation among armed criminal groups explains variation in coopting and coercing civil society. Using new survey data from Mexico, including list experiments to elicit responses about potentially illegal behavior, the paper measures the prevalence of extortion and assistance among drug trafficking organizations. In general, our experiments find higher extortion rates than those reported in national victimization surveys. In support of our theory, then, these data show that territorial contestation among rival organizations produces more extortion, and, in contrast, uncontested municipalities provide the most assistance.

Does Counterinsurgent Success Match Social Support? Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Colombia

Dominant theories of counterinsurgency suggest that state forces must win over citizens to identify insurgents among them. Yet even where state forces are losing, polling shows consistently strong support for counterinsurgents. How can we explain this discrepancy? Dominant theories of counterinsurgency could be incorrect, or, as we posit, individuals systematically may falsify their reported preferences. This study builds on the intuition that individuals feel pressure to report consistently strong support for the military when asked directly, perhaps especially when they rely on an illegal organization or economy. We argue that this pressure decreases when individuals are asked indirectly, in a way that allows them to conceal their response. To assess, we randomize whether support for the military is measured directly and indirectly in a survey experiment in Colombia. We find lower rates of support with the indirect measure, and the difference is most pronounced in areas of insurgent control.

The Contagious Diffusion of Worldwide Terrorism: Is It Less Common Than We Might Think?

ABSTRACT Studies of the contagious spread of insurgency and conflict across national boundaries has generated a good deal of empirical research over time. While the contagious spread of terrorism has also been a policy concern, few empirical studies exist on the extent to which terrorism spreads contagiously. This article uses methods developed by criminologists to study the spread of crime to examine the worldwide diffusion of terrorism from 1970 to 2013. We distinguish between contagious increases (based on shared borders) and non-contagious increases (where no borders are shared). We define the “domino effect” as a particular type of contagious diffusion where high levels of terrorism spread to an adjoining country but also remain high in the host country. Our analysis shows that both contagious and non-contagious diffusion has been rare over the past 43 years, non-contagious diffusion is more common than contagious, and when contagious diffusion occurs, it is very likely to occur according to the domino effect.