A Cross-National Analysis of Forced Population Resettlement in Counterinsurgency Campaigns

Abstract

This article studies the forcible relocation of large segments of the society in times of war. Theoretically, our work is based on the hearts-and-minds approach for explaining counterinsurgents’ strategies. We link this general framework to two more specific factors: insurgents’ external support and the incumbent’s status as a foreign occupier. The main contribution of our research is given by the cross-country empirical analysis, where we combine data on population displacement and counterinsurgency campaigns after World War II. We show that insurgents’ external support and incumbents’ status as a foreign occupier are among the main factors raising the risk of forced population resettlement. This article is a systematic, quantitative study of forced displacement across a large set of conflicts, and we demonstrate that the mechanisms behind forcible relocation as an indiscriminate strategy follow major trends across insurgencies.