Journal Article
The long-term economic legacies of rebel rule in civil war
THIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | A growing literature has documented widespread variation in the extent to which insurgents provide public goods, collect taxes, and regulate civilian conduct. This paper offers what is, to our knowledge, the first...
Working Paper
Rebel governance during COVID-19
As COVID-19 spread worldwide, armed groups in control of territory were called to address the health emergency. However, our knowledge in this regard is limited. Specifically, it remains poorly understood why different armed groups responded to the...
Working Paper
Armed groups’ modes of local engagement and post-conflict (in)stability
What distinguishes post-war governments that succeed in establishing a stable political order and prevent recurring conflict from those that do not? This comparative study considers the specific threats that typically lead to the collapse of the post...
Working Paper
Armed group opportunism in the face of recent crises
Terrorist and other types of armed groups often exploit natural and human-made disasters and emergencies to advance their causes. This paper studies how some armed groups have responded to two recent global emergencies—climate change and the COVID-19...
Working Paper
Rebel governance and political participation
Rebels, militias, and criminal groups all govern civilians. Governing strategies adopted by armed groups during civil war likely influence citizens’ post-conflict political participation, with consequences for democratic politics.We theorize that an...
Working Paper
Between victory and statehood
What accounts for armed violence in the aftermath of civil war? Efforts to develop a comprehensive framework to understand this phenomenon have been made in the literature. Yet existing studies have in general looked at distinct pre-war, wartime, and...
Blog
Learning from conflicts past: What recent history of Abkhazia tells us about the future of Donetsk and Luhansk
by
Anastasia Shesterinina
March 2022
The recognition of disputed territories as independent states rarely brings underlying conflicts to an end. Instead, fully, and partially, recognized...
Blog
Superpowers, super-spoilers, and hybrid warfare: What the new Cold War means for global cooperation
by
Erica Gaston
March 2022
Last week we woke up to a conflict that had echoes of the Second World War, the Cold War, and the last two decades of hybrid conflict all mixed into...
Blog
Why Russian brutality may backfire: A political violence perspective
by
Daniel Silverman
March 2022
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been fast shifting into a new phase, one many observers have noted is marked by increasing levels of Russian...
Blog
From conflict preventor to security actor: European Peace Facility, Ukraine, and the evolution of EU’s role
by
Katariina Mustasilta, Tyyne Karjalainen
March 2022
Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine has catalysed the European Union (EU) — criticised as a paper tiger yet acknowledged to evolve through crises —...
Blog
Zelenskiy’s wartime transformation: From comedian to national hero
by
Krzysztof Krakowski
March 2022
Shock over the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 continues to be felt. The heroic behaviour of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy...
Blog
What political science can tell us about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has rightly stirred outrage against an act of naked aggression, and sympathy for the plight of ordinary Ukrainians forced...
Blog
The 2022 energy shock
The price and availability of energy is fundamental to the health of the global economy. The Russia–Ukraine war is intensifying an energy shock that...
Working Paper
Community organization and armed group behaviour
This paper investigates how armed groups affect the organization of local communities during armed conflict in Colombia. We estimate the effect of communities’ exposure to armed groups with an econometric specification that takes into account...
Working Paper
The effects of wartime institutions on households’ ability to cope with shocks
This paper studies the legacies of wartime institutions, measured as rebelocracy, on the ability of households to cope with negative income shocks. Rebelocracy is the social order established by non-state armed actors in the communities they control...
Journal Article
Acting like a state
This article examines the complex local dynamics of armed violence in post-war Abkhazia. Drawing on in-depth interviews with the Abkhaz participants and non-participants in this violence and a range of secondary materials, it adapts the conceptual...