When do natural disasters lead to negotiations in a civil war?

How do natural disasters affect the treatment of civilians by non-state actors? On the one hand, conflict literature argues that adverse shocks influence the strategic interplay between rebel groups and the government, potentially increasing the level of violence against civilians. On the other hand, sociological research on natural disasters argues that they increase social integration and cooperation and are thus expected to reduce the risk of violent behaviour. In this study, we contend that the dynamics of violence against civilians are different in the short term and long term after a disaster strikes. We argue that natural disasters lead to a decrease in violence against civilians perpetrated by rebel groups in the short run. However, over time this temporary improvement in social integration starts to decline, increasing the level of civilian victimization. To examine this potential temporal dynamic, we combine georeferenced information on one-sided violence (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data; ACLED) and data on disasters (Emergency Event Database; EM-DAT). Our results confirm the expected dynamic effects. This research has important implications for our understanding of how disasters can influence the relationship between civilians, rebel groups, and governments.

Section: Disasters and Conflictmentioning

confidence: 80%

Section: Violence Against Civilians In the Wake Of Disastersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disasters and civilian victimization: Exploring the dynamic effect in Africa, 1997–2017

Haer¹,

RezaeeDaryakenari

2022

“…Conversely, disasters may lead to greater empathy and willingness to help others. Alternative views contend outcomes depend on other contexts and external variables, such as conditions prior to the disaster (Barcelo ´et al, 2022;Nemeth & Lai, 2022) or state capacity (Belligoni, 2020). While efforts have been made to clarify the conditions under which potential positive effects of disasters occur and hold, or how the way disasters unfold can produce positive or negative effects (Reinhardt, 2015(Reinhardt, , 2017, the overall view remains inconclusive.…”

Section: Disasters and Positive Intergroup Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disasters and intergroup peace in sub-Saharan Africa

Chung

Rhee²

2022

How do disasters affect intergroup peace and conflict? Existing research shows that disasters can have opposing effects on how we perceive others: they can exacerbate existing tension in some cases or serve as catalysts for peace and cooperation in others. Yet we know little about the conditions under which we should expect one or the other. In this study, we estimate the impact of disasters on perceptions of out-groups. We combine a dataset of mass disasters with tens of thousands of individual-level survey responses recorded in Round 6 of the Afrobarometer data between 2014 and 2015. Using a difference-in-differences approach exploiting spatial and temporal proximity to disaster occurrences, we estimate the degree to which disasters affect public opinion toward out-groups. As disaster occurrence is plausibly exogenous to interview dates or respondent locations, our approach allows for an improved test of how the shock from disaster can impact public perceptions. Moreover, we show such impact varies by considering the differences in political salience of out-group identities and short- versus long-term differences in the impact on group dynamics. The implications of our findings for understanding the aftermath of past disasters and effects of future disasters on intergroup peace and conflict are discussed.

“…Koubi, 2019; Lehrs, 2020). Other work on disasters has looked at their effects on violence with evidence showing that disasters reduce conflict in the short term (Haer & RezaeeDaryakenari, 2022), and increase the chances of rebel groups seeking negotiations with the government (Nemeth & Lai, 2022). Similarly, Koehnlein & Koren (2022) show that COVID-19 prevalence increases the likelihood of attacks against civilians by pro-government non-state actors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Windows of repression: Using COVID-19 policies against political dissidents?

Barceló

Kubinec

Cheng

et al. 2022

What explains the great variation in the adoption, timing, and duration of government policies made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? In this article, we explore whether government incentives to repress domestic dissidents influence their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that COVID-19 containment policies are observationally equivalent to those that abusive governments use to limit domestic dissent – that is, policies that restrict citizens’ freedom of movement. This creates an opportunity for abusive governments to engage in repressive behavior without countervailing pressure from citizens and the international community. Following this logic, we expect abusive governments to be more likely to adopt restrictive policies, adopt them earlier in the course of the pandemic, and take longer to relax restrictions. Empirically, we find that governments that have recently engaged in state violence against civilians or abused citizens’ human rights were about 10% more likely to enact lockdown and curfew policies. Compared to less repressive countries, these policies were implemented approximately 48 days earlier in the pandemic and kept in place for approximately 23 days longer. Overall, our results advance our understanding of how the repressiveness of state institutions can shape policy responses to a global health crisis.