Michael G. Findley

Terrorism and Civil War: A Spatial and Temporal Approach to a Conceptual Problem

What is the relationship between civil war and terrorism? Most current research on these topics either explicitly or implicitly separates the two, in spite of compelling reasons to consider them together. In this paper, we examine the extent to which terrorism and civil war overlap and then unpack various temporal and spatial patterns. To accomplish this, we use newly geo-referenced terror event data to offer a global overview of where and when terrorist events happen and whether they occur inside or outside of civil war zones. Furthermore, we conduct an exploratory analysis of six separate cases that have elements of comparability but also occur in unique contexts, which illustrate some of the patterns in terrorism and civil war. The data show a high degree of overlap between terrorism and ongoing civil war and, further, indicate that a substantial amount of terrorism occurs prior to civil wars in Latin America, but yet follows civil war in other regions of the world. While the study of terrorism and of civil war mostly occurs in separate scholarly communities, we argue for more work that incorporates insights from each research program and we offer a possibility for future research by considering how geo-referenced terror and civil war data may be utilized together. More generally, we expect these results to apply to a wide variety of attitudes and behaviors in contentious politics.

Foreign Aid Shocks as a Cause of Violent Armed Conflict

In this study we resolve part of the confusion over how foreign aid affects armed conflict. We argue that aid shocks – severe decreases in aid revenues – inadvertently shift the domestic balance of power and potentially induce violence. During aid shocks, potential rebels gain bargaining strength vis-à-vis the government. To appease the rebels, the government must promise future resource transfers, but the government has no incentive to continue its promised transfers if the aid shock proves to be temporary. With the government unable to credibly commit to future resource transfers, violence breaks out. Using AidData’s comprehensive dataset of bilateral and multilateral aid from 1981-2005, we evaluate the effects of foreign aid on violent armed conflict. In addition to rare-event logit analysis, we employ matching methods to account for the possibility that aid donors anticipate conflict. The results show that negative aid shocks significantly increase the probability of armed conflict onset.

Fighting Fire with Fire? How (Not) to Neutralize an Insurgency

From as early as the Roman Empire to the present day, governments have grappled with how best to respond to political violence from organized insurgent groups. In response to insurgent groups, some governments have emphasized a direct military response or what is often called ‘attrition’. Other states have stressed a softer, political strategy or what is often called the ‘hearts and minds’ approach. Either approach places the population at the center of a struggle between the government and violent dissidents. Despite numerous works emphasizing either ‘attrition’ or ‘hearts and minds’, few theoretical studies have attempted to compare their relative success. Using an agent-based computational model, we examine which approach is more successful at quelling insurgencies and find that a hearts and minds approach is superior to an attrition strategy. We illustrate the model with insights from the Iraqi insurgency and, more generally, the model has implications for other insurgencies, such as in Chechnya.

Combatant Fragmentation and the Dynamics of Civil Wars

The dynamics and outcomes of civil wars are shaped by processes of change largely unaccounted for in current studies. We contend that wars are characterized by processes in which weaker actors are more likely to undergo radical changes such as fragmenting into multiple separate groups. Although extant work does not directly examine the fragmentation of combatants, fragmentation has occurred in almost 45% of civil wars that occurred after 1989. Some of the empirical literature addresses these complexities, albeit in understandably limited ways. Driven by the need for tractability, formal theories focusing on uncertainty and credible commitment problems assume constancy in the number and preferences of warring actors. We explore how the fragmentation of combatants affects the duration and outcomes of wars. Given our focus on fragmentation, we primarily apply this paper to civil wars. A number of results are consistent with our expectations; several counterintuitive results also emerge. For example, we find that when combatants undergo fragmentation, the duration of war does not always increase and such wars often end in negotiated agreements. We discuss empirical cases, such as Iraq, Congo, Chechnya, and the Sudan that illustrate the importance of fragmentation. More generally, this study demonstrates the value of accounting for diverse changes in actors and circumstances when studying the dynamics of war.

More Combatant Groups, More Terror?: Empirical Tests of an Outbidding Logic

We examine and test the logic that outbidding among insurgent groups results in more suicide terrorism specifically and more terrorism of any type, which has become a popular argument in recent years. A global analysis of terrorism from 1970–2004 provides scant support for the notion that outbidding increases suicide terrorism. An extension of the argument to all types of terrorist attacks provides even less support. The logic of outbidding has received considerable attention in academic and policy circles in recent years. 1 Similar to the argument that democratic occupation increases suicide terror, 2 our lack of empirical support suggests that considerable cross-national work is still needed to understand suicide terror adequately. We suggest some reasons why this may be the case, drawing particular attention to the problem of overgeneralizing from a limited set of cases.

Games Rivals Play: Terrorism in International Rivalries

The quantitative terrorism literature has largely overlooked interstate relations when evaluating predictors of transnational terrorist attacks, opting to focus on state, group, or individual-level factors to explain patterns of terrorism using analytical methods that are limited to either the origin or target of the attack. In this piece we argue that this is both incongruous with the larger conflict literature and limiting in terms of theoretical impact. Transnational terrorism in many cases is more accurately considered a component of conflicting relations between two states generally hostile towards each other, which necessitates an examination of both states. We demonstrate, by conducting a series of statistical analyses using politically relevant directed dyads, that interstate rivalries are reliable positive predictors of transnational terrorism. We find that interstate rivalries explain a great deal of variation in cross-national patterns of terrorism, a result that is robust to different rivalry ...The empirical terrorism literature has largely overlooked interstate relations when evaluating predictors of international terrorist attacks, opting to focus on state, group, or individual-level factors to explain patterns of terrorism using analytical methods that are limited to either the origin or target of the attack. In this piece we argue that this is both incongruous with the larger conflict literature and limiting in terms of theoretical impact. Terrorism is more accurately considered a component of conflictual relations between two states generally hostile towards each other, which necessitates an examination of both states. We demonstrate, by conducting a series of negative binomial regression estimates using politically-relevant directed dyads, that interstate rivalries are highly robust, positive predictors of international terrorism. We use two different rivalry measures – Klein, Goertz and Diehl (2006) and Rasler and Thompson (2006) – and find that interstate rivalries, regardless of operationalization, explain a greater degree of variation in patterns of terrorism than do established significant predictors such as regime type, regime capacity to project force, or population.

Bargaining and the Interdependent Stages of Civil War Resolution

This article examines civil war resolution as a process comprised of multiple interdependent stages. It engages directly the idea that peace emerges only as a process comprised of battle, negotiation, agreement, and implementation of an agreement. I hypothesize that events at earlier stages of the peace process have implications for later stages, but not always in the same ways. Drawing on bargaining models of war, I consider how two factors that might prevent successful bargaining—stalemates and the number of actors—can encourage cooperation early in a peace process but impede lasting cooperation at later stages. Using a nested dichotomies statistical approach to capture interdependence, I find support for the argument that stalemates and the number of actors have different effects depending on the stage of the peace process. The results substantiate the need in theoretical and policy work to consider peace as an interdependent, sequential process.

Political Exclusion, Oil, and Ethnic Armed Conflict

Why do members of some ethnic groups rebel against the state? One approach holds that groups subject to exclusion from national politics engage in armed conflict. We theorize that the presence of resource wealth moderates the effect of political exclusion. Ethnic groups subject to exclusion whose settlement area includes oil wealth are more likely to experience the onset of armed conflict than groups experiencing exclusion alone. We depart from the convention of cross-national analysis to examine subnational, geocoded units of analysis—ethnic group settlement areas—to better capture the impact of natural resource distribution. Using data on ethnic group political exclusion derived from the Ethnic Power Relations database and geo-coded indicators, we conduct a series of logistic regression analyses for the years 1946 to 2005. We find that exclusion alone increase the likelihood of conflict, while the presence of oil wealth further raises the risk of war.

Rumor Dynamics in Ethnic Violence

Most scholars believe that rumors spark ethnic violence around the world, yet political scientists have been slow to understand the dynamics of these rumors, including whether they emerge and survive as a matter of course or require certain preconditions. Because empirical observation cannot readily answer this question, we use agent-based modeling to explore whether rumor survival depends on selected group follower and leader characteristics. Our first set of experiments assumes one group. They show that violence-promoting rumors are not inevitable, nor are group leaders necessary for their propagation. But rumor survival peaks when leaders espouse extreme beliefs and interact frequently with their followers. Our second set of experiments assumes rival groups whose members interact on a limited basis. Some of the experiments confirm the one-group conclusions. Others reveal that when one groups leaders persist in advocating moderation, rumor propagation remains low in both groups. Finally, when rival leaders try to outbid each other, rumor survival increases markedly in both groups. By way of conclusion, we consider the policy implications of these findings.

Using Field Experiments in International Relations: A Randomized Study of Anonymous Incorporation1

Efforts to fight international money laundering, corruption, and terrorist financing depend crucially on the prohibition barring the formation of anonymous shell companies. To study the effectiveness of this prohibition, we perform the first international relations (IR) field experiment on a global scale. With university institutional review board (IRB) clearance, we posed as consultants requesting confidential incorporation from 1,264 firms in 182 countries. Testing arguments drawn from IR theory, we probe the treatment effects of specifying (1) the international standards (managerialism), (2) penalties for noncompliance with these standards (rationalism), (3) the desire to follow norms through complying with international standards (constructivism), and (4) status as a U.S. customer. We find that firms prompted about possible legal penalties for violating standards (rationalism) were significantly less likely to respond to inquiries and less likely to comply with international law compared to the placebo condition. Some evidence also suggests that the constructivist condition caused significantly greater rates of noncompliance. The U.S. origin condition and the managerial condition had no significant effects on compliance rates. These results present anomalies for leading theories and underscore the importance of determining causal effects in IR research.