Tor Georg Jakobsen

Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death! State Repression, Ethnic Grievance and Civil War, 1981–2004

Recent research on the causes of civil war seeks to identify whether group grievances, or opportunity for organisation, motivates rebellion. Similarly, scholars debate whether ethnicity matters in civil war due to group grievances or the opportunity to mobilise. We introduce the lack of empowerment rights, defined as social, political and economic empowerment directly and conditionally in models of civil war onset using novel methods and data. We find no direct effect of repression of rights on war, but higher ethnic fractionalisation increases the risk independently. Nonetheless, higher levels of repression condition the effects of ethnic fractionalisation in ways that maintain peace. State policies that dis-empower people under conditions of high fractionalisation actually reduce the chance of civil war. We do not find that high fractionalisation is only related to lower level armed conflict as some have suggested, but it seems to explain onsets of civil wars above 25 deaths but lower than 1,000 and conflict measured above 1,000 deaths for the period of study that our data allow. The conditional effects of repression and ethnic fractionalisation explain onsets at both levels of war. Our findings are generally unsupportive of the view that grievances due to lack of ethnic group rights drive civil war, but it seems that the opportunity to mobilise does.

Economic nationalism and FDI

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the relationship between economic nationalism and foreign direct investment (FDI) in emerging markets, seeking to establish whether public opinion and prevailing preferences regarding FDI affect the location decisions of multinational companies.Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on public opinion data from 42 non‐Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development countries 1990‐2005, the paper performs a time series cross‐section analysis of the relationship between economic nationalism and FDI. The first main variable measures the extent to which the public holds a positive view of major (domestic) companies. It is hypothesized that in societies where nationalist sentiments dominate, the public prefers indigenous to foreign firms. This induces host authorities to institute more stringent foreign investment rules, which deters FDI. Second, the paper also examines how the publics distribution along the left‐right axis affects FDI patterns. A left‐lea...

Hosting major sports events: the challenge of taming white elephants

While the literature on the economic impacts of major sports events has grown considerably over the years, the question of utilisation of venues built for these events after the party is over has received little attention. This article fills some of the gaps in the literature. By means of a Stadium Utilisation Index, it measures the post-event utilisation of venues that were constructed of significantly refurbished to host major sports events in the period from 1996 to 2010. It reveals some of the challenges facing the utilisation of the venues once ‘the circus has left town’. The regressions identify that private owned stadiums have a higher rate of utilisation than publicly built venues. The stadiums with the highest capacity tend to have higher utilisation. Last, but not least in terms of importance, stadiums in nations with a high degree of corruption had the lowest utilisation.

Why do poor countries suffer costly conflict? Unpacking per capita income and the onset of civil war

Empirical studies on the causes of civil war robustly show that poor countries are more likely to suffer civil war than rich ones. However, the interpretations of this finding differ. The literature proposes three different causal mechanisms: (1) poverty leads to grievances; (2) income proxies the opportunity-cost of rebelling; and (3) income proxies state capacity. Using factor analysis, logistic modeling and multiple imputation, we test which of the three possible explanations can best explain the link between poverty and conflict. We find per capita income to belong to a wealth/poverty dimension, and to have little in common with “pure” measures of grievance and state capacity. Thus our findings support the opportunity-cost argument. The wealth dimension is also shown to be the most important underlying cause of civil war.

Democratic peace and the norms of the public: a multilevel analysis of the relationship between regime type and citizens’ bellicosity, 1981–2008

The democratic peace literature has convincingly shown that democracies do not fight other democracies. Theoretical explanations of this empirical phenomenon often claim that the citizenry in democracies prefers peaceful resolution of interstate conflicts. Still, there is a dearth of studies exploring the public’s preferences and values directly. We seek to rectify this by investigating, in a novel way, the relationship between regime type and citizens’ bellicosity. A comprehensive multilevel research design is employed, with data spanning 72 countries over the period of 1981–2008. This enables us to test one of the theoretical mainstays of the democratic peace thesis, viz., that regime type helps shape individuals’ attitudes toward war-fighting. Our results lend special support to normative democratic peace theory: Citizens of democracies are significantly more pacifistic than citizens of non-democracies. This result upholds when we rigorously control for other relevant factors, including specific characteristics of individuals and rival theoretical explanations.

Fool's gold: major sport events and foreign direct investment

Whether or not a city or a country should bid to host the Olympics or one of the big international football tournaments is often the source of heated debates. One question that is always raised is whether hosting such an event yields positive economic benefits. Using data from the period 1970–2009 we investigate whether there is a link between hosting a major sport event and the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) a country receives. We employ time-series cross-section data for countries that have hosted either the Summer Olympics, the Winter Olympics, the FIFA World Cup or the UEFA European Championship in that period. While our overall results, on balance, offer support to the ‘pessimistic’ side of the debate about the economic effects of hosting mega events, our findings also indicate that some FDI benefits might still accrue to the host. Results are not unambiguous, however. More detailed analysis suggests that staging the Olympics has virtually no effect on FDI inflows, whereas hosting a major, nationwide football tournament might have a small positive impact on foreign investment, particularly in the years leading up to the event. These latter results seem to be driven by smaller nations.

Issue ownership, unemployment and support for government intervention

In this article an examination is made of the association between unemployment and public demand for government intervention in the economy. The main hypothesis is drawn from the theory of issue ownership: public opinion is likely to shift to the left in times of high unemployment combined with a leftist government. Research on issue ownership has typically focused on case studies of particular countries. We extend the discussion to a much larger setting. Relying on data from the International Social Survey Programme from 23 OECD countries in the time period 1985–2007 we find a combined effect of issue ownership and agenda setting. An increase in unemployment leads the public to hold more leftist economic opinions when the government belongs to the left. However, ownership of an issue cannot be guaranteed to last if a party fails to deliver outcomes that are promised and expected from its historical legacy.

The Return of Prejudice in Europe's Regions: The Moderated Relationship between Group Threat and Economic Vulnerability

Using data from 16 countries and employing multilevel analysis that encompasses the national, regional, and individual levels, we find that both economic and social factors trigger anti-immigrant attitudes among Europeans. Regional per capita GDP is positively correlated with tolerant attitudes while the regional unemployment rate drives prejudice. We find a moderating relationship between immigrant population size and per capita GDP, which suggests that, as the size of the immigrant population increases, prejudice rises but only in poorer regions. In more affluent regions, an increase in the immigrant population corresponds to increased tolerance.

Inter-Municipal Cooperation and Satisfaction with Services: Evidence from the Norwegian Citizen Study

ABSTRACT We investigate the effects of inter-municipal cooperation on citizen satisfaction with fire services and refuse handling. While there is a growing interest in cooperation as a way of providing municipal services, little is known of the effect on citizen satisfaction. Through a multilevel analysis combining individual and municipal data, we find that inter-municipal cooperation has a negative effect on satisfaction with fire services, no effect on refuse collection but a positive effect on satisfaction with source separation. The results, we argue, show how the organizational form may affect satisfaction in different ways depending on service characteristics.

Political Nationalism and Attitudes towards Immigration: The Interaction of Knowledge and Policy

The issue of immigration is highly salient to citizens of industrialised democracies. Globalisation and the emergence of an international human rights regime, among other reasons, led to high levels of immigration to industrialised countries in recent decades. Immigrant-receiving states have shown only limited ability to control the size and composition of their immigrant population. Immigration has therefore emerged as a prominent political issue in practically all economically developed countries, and there are raising concerns over anti-immigration sentiments and nationalist tendencies that seem to be taking hold among modern publics. We argue that anti-immigration attitudes are not merely a response to increased immigration, but rather that these attitudes mirror governments’ nationalistic and anti-immigration stance. In addition, people who are interested in politics are expected to be more influenced by their governments’ policies than those who show less interest. We use data from the European Social Survey and the Comparative Manifesto Project to test these claims. Results from our multilevel models show that people living in countries where the government is right wing are more opposed to immigration than people living in countries where the government exhibits less right-wing tendencies. The effect of government policy positions is also found to be conditioned by political interest at the individual level.