Guest Seminar: ‘Roving and Stationary Bandits in African Civil Wars’

We develop a disaggregated approach to changes in conflict zone, emphasizing dyadic state-rebel characteristics, the relationship between rebels and local population.

You are invited to the POLIS seminar by Professor Kristian Gleditsch (University of Essex).

Kristian is a Professor in the Department of Government  at the University of Essex and a research associate of the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO).

His research interests include conflict and cooperation, democratization, and spatial dimensions of social and political processes.

Abstract

Some conflicts remain highly stable and confined in specific concentrated areas while others differ dramatically in their location over time.  We develop a disaggregated approach to changes in conflict zone, emphasizing dyadic state-rebel characteristics, the relationship between rebels and local populations, and the effects of external support.  We posit that 1) rebels are much weaker than governments in terms of fighting capacity must fight in varied locations for survival; 2) rebel groups that primarily fight for a specific ethnic group and/or for secession will tend to stay geographically focused; and 3) third-party support that weakens local dependence will tend to increase the potential to fight in varying theatres.  We develop new measures of conflict zone movement to test our hypotheses, based on shifts in the conflict polygons derived from the new Georeferenced Event Dataset (GED) developed by the Upppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP).  Our empirical results provide support for all our suggested mechanisms.

All are welcome to attend- PhD and MA researchers particularly encouraged.