Stephen M. Shellman

Fear of Persecution Forced Migration, 1952-1995

Why would people abandon their homes in favor of an uncertain life elsewhere? The short answer, of course, is violence. More specifically, the authors contend that people monitor the violent behavior of both the government and dissidents and assess the threat such behavior poses to their lives, physical person, and liberty. The greater the threat posed by the behavior of the government and dissidents, the larger the number of forced migrants a country will produce. To test hypotheses drawn from this argument the authors use a global sample of countries over more than forty years. Their findings are held to be consistent with their argument, showing that violent behavior has a substantially larger impact on forced migration than variables such as the type of political institution or the average size of the economy.

Active Learning in Comparative Politics: A Mock German Election and Coalition-Formation Simulation

Instructors constantly encourage students to learn and process information. Brock and Cameron assert, “Individuals process information, learn concepts, and solve problems in different ways” (1999, 251). Some students learn by listening, others learn by taking notes, more learn by seeing, and still others learn by doing and saying. Yet in many college class-rooms, the dominant teaching method is the traditional lecture. While lecturing may be a necessary teaching technique, it is often insufficient for teaching a large number of students with varying learning preferences.

Process Matters: Conflict and Cooperation in Sequential Government-Dissident Interactions

Competing hypotheses on the relationship between government and dissident behavior emerge from both formal and empirical models. Yet, the current literature lacks a comprehensive theoretical account of such contradictory effects. This study develops a theory to account for a large number of competing hypotheses within a single framework. The theory explains various government and dissident tactical choices over the course of an internal political struggle by focusing on leaders, their motivations, and the link between their motivations and actions. The theory gives rise to a process model of sequential government-dissident interactions that is used to test several implied hypotheses. Empirical sequential time-series models of government and dissident behavior find support for most of the theorys implied hypotheses in Israel (1979–2002) and Afghanistan (1990–99).

Leaders' Motivations and Actions: Explaining Government-Dissident Conflict-Cooperation Processes

This study posits a theory to explain government and dissident sequential responses to one another and develops a statistical model to test the implied hypotheses. While competing hypotheses emerge from both formal and empirical models, the current literature lacks a single, coherent, theoretical, and empirically corroborated model of the interactive relationship between dissident and government behavior. The study seeks to fill this lacuna in the literature by developing a comprehensive theory to account for a large number of competing hypotheses within a single framework. The subsequent empirical tests enable one to find support for the various competing hypotheses under different sets of conditions. The analyses of Chile (1983—1992) and Venezuela (1987— 1992) provide evidence that the model captures well the sequential responses of Chilean and Venezuelan governments and dissidents.

Predicting Risk Factors Associated with Forced Migration: An Early Warning Model of Haitian Flight

This study predicts forced migration events by predicting the civil violence, poor economic conditions, and foreign interventions known to cause individuals to flee their homes in search of refuge. If we can predict forced migration, policy-makers can better plan for humanitarian crises. While the study is limited to predicting Haitian flight to the United States, its strength is its ability to predict weekly flows as opposed to annual flows, providing a greater level of predictive detail than its ‘country-year’ counterparts. We focus on Haiti given that it exhibits most, if not all, of the independent variables included in theories and models of forced migration. Within our temporal domain (1994–2004), Haiti experienced economic instability, low-intensity civil conflict, state repression, rebel dissent, and foreign intervention and influence. Given the models performance, the study calls for the collection of disaggregated data in additional countries to provide more precise and useful early-warning models of forced migrant events.

Shifting sands: Explaining and predicting phase shifts by dissident organizations

Why does a dissident group go through phases of violence and nonviolence? Many studies of states and dissidents examine related issues by focusing on structural or rarely changing factors. In contrast, some more recent work focuses on dynamic interaction of participants. We suggest forecasting state–dissident interaction using insights from this dynamic approach while also incorporating structural factors. We explore this question by offering new data on the behavior of groups and governments collected using automated natural language processing techniques. These data provide information on who is doing what to whom at a directed-dyadic level. We also collected new data on the attitudes or sentiment of the masses using novel automated techniques. Since obtaining valid and reliable time-series public opinion data on mass attitudes towards a dissident group is extremely difficult, we have created automated sentiment data by scraping publicly available information written by members of the population and aggregating this information to create a pollof opinion at a discrete time period. We model the violence and nonviolence perpetrated by two groups: the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines. We find encouraging results for predicting future phase shifts in violence when accounting for behaviors modeled with our data as opposed to models based solely on structural factors.

Disaggregating actors in intranational conflict

While some of the intrastate war literature calls for the disaggregation of civil conflict, most of those studies focus on the geography of civil conflict failing to take into account the various actors involved in such conflicts. This study addresses the multi-actor nature of civil conflict by examining whether ‘actor aggregation’ affects the inferences drawn from quantitative studies of civil conflict. Using two cases, Cambodia (1980—2004) and Indonesia (1980—2004), the authors examine how multiple dissident groups’ behavior aggregated together can affect the inferences drawn from quantitative studies of government—dissident interactions. The results demonstrate that researchers may draw different inferences and commit both Type I and Type II errors using different actor aggregations. The results have myriad implications for the study of civil conflict and conflict processes.

Political Persecution or Economic Deprivation? A Time-Series Analysis of Haitian Exodus, 1990-2004

This study addresses the factors that lead individuals to flee their homes in search of refuge. Many argue that individuals abandon their homes in favor of an uncertain life elsewhere because of economic hardship, while others argue that threats to their lives, physical person, and liberty cause them to flee. This study engages the debate by analyzing flight patterns over time from Haiti to the United States as a function of economic and security factors. Which factors have the largest influence on Haitian-U.S. migratory patterns? Our results show that both economics and security play a role. However, our analyses are able to distinguish between the effects of different individual economic and security indicators on Haitian-U.S. migration.

Determinants of Popular Support for Iran's Nuclear Program: Insights from a Nationally Representative Survey

Irans nuclear programme has brought ever-sharpening conflict with Israel, the United States, and the European Union. The Iranian public has been actively drawn into this debate, as the Iranian government cultivates support for its actions and by foreign appeals for change (including Bush administration support for regime change). This article explores data relating to public support for Irans nuclear program. We utilize data from a nationally representative, face-to-face poll fielded in Iran in late 2006. The poll (n = 1,000) queried respondents about numerous domestic and external security concerns, including Irans ‘full nuclear fuel cycle’ program. We present data on Iranian beliefs about Irans nuclear program and the determinants of those beliefs. After discussing poll methodology and data integrity, the paper presents summary statistics on key variables about the nuclear program. We estimate three logit models to explain respondent beliefs about the program. The dependent variables address support for the program, the economic importance of the nuclear program, and beliefs that Iran will weaponize. Iranians’ support for the program correlates with perceived status and deterrence benefits conferred by the program and opinions of the United States. Respondents’ concerns about Israel do not drive support for the program. The paper concludes with a discussion of lessons learned from this study for future work of this type in Iran or other coercive environments.

Confronting global issues: a multipurpose IR simulation

This article describes an international relations simulation that focuses on threats of transnational insurgent organizations, the future of the Iraqi regime, and the effect of globalization on foreign policies. It contains both the Simulation Director’s Guide and the Participant’s Guide. The guides explain the steps taken to run the simulation and offer a description of the process. During the game, conflicting goal-directed participants, representing specific actors in the international system, must derive and achieve foreign policy goals given military and monetary constraints. The general rules and procedures apply to simulations involving myriad international processes and actors.