Erica Chenoweth

Democratic Competition and Terrorist Activity

Why is terrorist activity more prevalent in democracies than in nondemocracies? I argue that the main motivation for terrorist attacks in democracies is intergroup dynamics, with terrorist groups of various ideologies competing with one another for limited political influence. I conduct a cross-national, longitudinal analysis of 119 countries for the period 1975–97, using political competition as the key independent variable and the number of transnational terrorist incidents originating in the country as the dependent variable. I find preliminary support for the hypothesis that intergroup competition, motivated by the competition of the political regime, explains an increase in terrorist incidents originating in a state. Evidence also reveals a positive relationship between political competition and the number of terrorist groups that emerge within a state and a positive relationship between the density of domestic interest group participation and terrorist activity. Officials should consider intergroup dynamics to predict terrorist activities and derive effective counterterrorism policies.

Moving Beyond Deterrence: The Effectiveness of Raising the Expected Utility of Abstaining from Terrorism in Israel

Rational choice approaches to reducing terrorist violence would suggest raising the costs of terrorism through punishment, thereby reducing the overall expected utility of terrorism. In this article, we argue that states should also consider raising the expected utility of abstaining from terrorism through rewards. We test effects of repressive (or punishing) and conciliatory (or rewarding) actions on terrorist behavior using the newly developed GATE-Israel dataset, which identifies events by Israeli state actors toward Palestinian targets on a full range of counterterrorism tactics and policies from 1987 to 2004. Results show that repressive actions are either unrelated to terror or related to subsequent increases in terror, and conciliatory actions are generally related to decreases in terror, depending on the tactical period. Findings also reveal the importance of understanding the role of terrorists’ constituencies for reducing violence.

Unpacking nonviolent campaigns

Recent studies indicate that strategic nonviolent campaigns have been more successful over time in achieving their political objectives than violent insurgencies. But additional research has been limited by a lack of time-series data on nonviolent and violent campaigns, as well as a lack of more nuanced and detailed data on the attributes of the campaigns. In this article, we introduce the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) 2.0 dataset, which compiles annual data on 250 nonviolent and violent mass movements for regime change, anti-occupation, and secession from 1945 to 2006. NAVCO 2.0 also includes features of each campaign, such as participation size and diversity, the behavior of regime elites, repression and its effects on the campaign, support (or lack thereof) from external actors, and progress toward the campaign outcomes. After describing the data generation process and the dataset itself, we demonstrate why studying nonviolent resistance may yield novel insights for conflict scholars by replicating an influential study of civil war onset. This preliminary study reveals strikingly divergent findings regarding the systematic drivers of nonviolent campaign onset. Nonviolent campaign onset may be driven by separate – and in some cases, opposing – processes relative to violent campaigns. This finding underscores the value-added of the dataset, as well as the importance of evaluating methods of conflict within a unified research design.

Understanding nonviolent resistance An introduction

The events of the Arab Spring of 2011 have made clear the importance and potential efficacy of nonviolent resistance, as well as the field’s inability to explain the onset and outcome of major nonviolent uprisings. Until recently, conflict scholars have largely ignored nonviolent resistance. This issue features new theoretical and empirical explorations of the causes and consequences of nonviolent resistance, stressing the role that unarmed, organized civilians can play in shaping the course of conflicts. Contributors demonstrate the importance of treating nonviolent and violent strategies, as well as conventional politics strategies, as alternative choices for engaging the state, show how gender ideology can influence which opposition groups use nonviolent resistance, and suggest that the causes of civil war and nonviolent resistance often differ. Other pieces highlight the role of public attitudes regarding whether nonviolent resistance and violence are employed, how experience with activism and repression by the state can shape activists’ perceptions of justice, and how the perceptions of resistance leaders can influence strategic choices. Moreover, several articles examine the key role that security force defections can play in the success of nonviolent resistance, how micro-level nonviolent tactics can improve security in civil war, and how nonviolent campaigns can influence the stability of autocratic states. These contributions suggest that rigorous empirical study of civilian-based contentious politics (rather than only violent contention by armed non-state actors) must be incorporated into the conflict literature. Improved theory and data on the subject will help researchers and policymakers to shape strategies to support these movements when appropriate, and to manage changes in the international system that result from the success of nonviolent uprisings.

Can Structural Conditions Explain the Onset of Nonviolent Uprisings

Despite the prevalence of nonviolent uprisings in recent history, no existing scholarship has produced a generalized explanation of when and where such uprisings are most likely to occur. Our primary aim in this article is to evaluate whether different available models—namely, grievance approaches, modernization theory, resource mobilization theory, and political opportunity approaches—are useful in explaining the onset of major nonviolent uprisings. We assemble a reduced list of correlates based on each model and use each model’s out-of-sample area under the curve and logarithmic score to test each theory’s explanatory power. We find that the political opportunity model performs best for both in- and out-of-sample cases, though grievance and resource mobilization approaches also provide some explanatory power. We use a culled model of the predicted probabilities of the strongest-performing variables from all models to forecast major nonviolent uprisings in 2011 and 2012. In this out-of-sample test, all models produce mixed results, suggesting greater emphasis on agency over structure in explaining these episodes.

All Terrorism Is Local: Resources, Nested Institutions, and Governance for Urban Homeland Security in the American Federal System

This article examines the conditions under which local jurisdictions make effective use of U.S. homeland security resources. It analyzes how resources, institutional context, and governance influence local performance on one homeland security policy dimension—communications interoperability. Governance maturity, nested institutions, and the existence of formal rules are key variables affecting the relationship between resources and performance at the local level. Cities with advanced, multilevel, and formal governance arrangements are more effective at using Urban Area Security Initiative funds to improve their interoperability performance. But current policy approaches slight corresponding demands for shared leadership and cross-sector collaborations.

Do Contemporaneous Armed Challenges Affect the Outcomes of Mass Nonviolent Campaigns

Civil resistance is a powerful strategy for promoting major social and political change, yet no study has systematically evaluated the effects of simultaneous armed resistance on the success rates of unarmed resistance campaigns. Using the Nonviolent and Violent Conflict Outcomes (NAVCO 1.1) data set, which includes aggregate data on 106 primarily nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 with maximalist political objectives, we find that contemporaneous armed struggles do not have positive effects on the outcome of nonviolent campaigns. We do find evidence for an indirect negative effect, in that contemporaneous armed struggles are negatively associated with popular participation and are, consequently, correlated with reduced chances of success for otherwise-unarmed campaigns. Two paired comparisons suggest that negative violent flank effects operated strongly in two unsuccessful cases (the 8-8-88 challenge in Burma in 1988 and the South African antiapartheid challenge from 1952 to 1961, with vio...

Collecting data on nonviolent action Lessons learned and ways forward

While several existing datasets can help to address pressing questions on nonviolent resistance, data collection on nonviolent conflict involves several distinct challenges, including (1) conceptual distinctions between the absence of violence, non-violent behavior, and nonviolent direct action; (2) a systematic violence bias in mainstream news reports; and (3) incentives to misrepresent. As a way forward, we advocate (1) collecting data at multiple temporal and purposive units; (2) diversifying source materials; and (3) coding ambiguity as a meaningful substantive variable.

On Classifying Terrorism: A Potential Contribution of Cluster Analysis for Academics and Policy-makers

One need only consider for a moment the vast array of terrorist groups and their ideologies to grasp the diversity of motivations, tactics, and damage wrought by terrorists around the world. In spite of these differences, scholars have begun to compare and contrast terrorist groups in different polities, arguing that we can learn lessons from such comparisons – especially in transferring counter-terrorism policies from one context to the next. Recent studies on terrorism have provided new ways to compare terrorist groups across cases. Analyses of terrorist groups and incidents have begun to recognize the evolutionary nature of terrorism, as well as its ability to adapt to counterterrorism tactics. Moreover, scholars have noticed that terrorist tactics tend to be “contagious” in that some terrorist groups either emulate other groups’ successes or learn from their mistakes. Despite such observations, most comparisons of terrorist groups include either small-n case studies or large-n quantitative analysis. Small-n analyses often provide thick description while neglecting the “replication” or transferability of observations to a more general explanation of a phenomenon. On the other hand, large-n studies are unable to capture contextual qualities, peculiarities among cases, and omitted variables. As such, researchers often sacrifice causal inference when applying either methodology. While there are advantages and weaknesses to each approach, we suggest that largescale comparisons of terrorist incidents can benefit from the application of cluster analysis, a context-sensitive statistical method. In the search for a more comprehensive classification system, we suggest using cluster analysis to re-classify terrorist groups Defense & Security Analysis Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 345–357, December 2007

State Repression and Nonviolent Resistance

In this article, we review decades of research on state repression and nonviolent resistance. We argue that these two research programs have converged around six consensus findings. We also highlight several areas of divergence, where greater synthesis between the research on state repression and nonviolent resistance might prove useful. We draw attention to remaining controversies surrounding the association between state repression and nonviolent resistance—particularly regarding different theoretical assumptions about structure, agency, and strategic choice; measurement challenges for both repression and dissent; methodological challenges regarding endogeneity, multicausality, and equifinality; and moral hazards associated with the study of nonviolent resistance and the effectiveness of repression. We conclude by highlighting some productive ways forward.