Why Target the “Good Guys”? The Determinants of Terrorism Against NGOs

Murdie, Amanda; Stapley, Craig S.

doi:10.1080/03050629.2013.863192

Cited by 16 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 36 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Previous studies suggest that violence against aid projects and workers are most likely where rebels perceive them as politically biased or a tool of the government (Fast 2010;Stoddard, Harmer and DiDomenico 2009). Moreover, groups that advocate nonviolence and reconciliation may encourage attacks because insurgents view these messages as threats to their ability to mobilize local support (Murdie and Stapley 2014). Analyses of Taliban violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan provide support for this argument, though the pattern is common to civil conflicts in other geographic areas as well (Jackson and Giustozzi 2012;Terry 2011).…”

Section: Rebel Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Doing Harm by Doing Good? The Negative Externalities of Humanitarian Aid Provision during Civil Conflict

Wood

Sullivan

2015

The Journal of Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Humanitarian assistance is intended to ameliorate the human costs of war by providing relief to vulnerable populations. Yet, the introduction of aid resources into conflict zones may influence subsequent violence patterns and expose intended recipients to new risks. Herein, we investigate the potential negative externalities associated with humanitarian aid. We argue that aid can create incentives for armed actors to intentionally target civilians for violence. Aid incentivizes rebel violence by providing opportunities for looting and presenting challenges to rebel authority. It potentially incentivizes state violence where it augments rebel capabilities or provides rebels a resource base. We evaluate both arguments using spatially disaggregated data on aid and conflict violence for a sample of nearly two-dozen post-Cold War African countries. The results of multiple statistical analyses provide strong support for the argument that humanitarian aid is associated with increased rebel violence but less support for the relationship between aid and state violence. Acknowledgements: We wish to thank Christopher Fariss, Idean Salehyan, and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript. We thank Emily Molfino for her very helpful research assistance.

show abstract

Section: Rebel Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Doing Harm by Doing Good? The Negative Externalities of Humanitarian Aid Provision during Civil Conflict

Wood

Sullivan

2015

The Journal of Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although military interveners can potentially hold an area, improving the ability of NGOs to work securely (ANSO and CARE, 2005), NGOs themselves often are concerned that foreign armed forces put them in the cross-hairs of violent groups (Nordland, 2010).When there is a military intervention, potential rebels may not be able to tell the difference between NGOs and military personnel, leading NGO workers to be seen as hostile foreign agents. Murdie and Stapley (2014) find that NGO-targeted terrorism is more likely when there is a military intervention of any type within a country's borders; this research, however, did not make a distinction between interventions with a humanitarian purpose and other interventions, where forces could have crossed borders directly in pursuit of rebel/terrorist groups. It is likely that nonhumanitarian interventions are associated with a greater risk of NGO-directed violence; when armed forces are not there for a humanitarian purpose, potential rebels may see all outside influences as likely targets.…”

Section: Why Humanitarian Military Interventions Only?mentioning

confidence: 78%

“…We then dichotomize the dependent variable and run a generalized estimating equation logit model with an AR(1) correlation structure and a rareevents logit model (King and Langche, 2001). This is consistent with Murdie and Stapley (2014).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Help or hindrance? The role of humanitarian military interventions in human security NGO operations

Bell

Blocksome

Brown

et al. 2017

International Political Science Review

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Existing research shows that the combined presence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and military interventions can serve as ‘force multipliers’, leading to improvements in some human security outcomes. In this paper, we examine a couple possible mechanisms that can help to explain why we see these improvements. More specifically, we ask whether this is a result of military intervention aiding in the coordination among NGOs or whether humanitarian interventions, that likely share similar goals with human rights NGOs, provide the security necessary for them to carry out their missions. Using data on military interventions and human rights NGOs, we find that NGOs present in states with humanitarian interventions have more network ties than organizations not in states with interventions. Using the same NGO data and data on terror attacks targeting NGOs, we find less support for the security enhancing effects of humanitarian interventions.

show abstract

“…Terrorists may wish to minimize the government’s tax revenues from corporate profits. Such a goal might also ensure that MNCs cannot contribute to the state’s security efforts (Murdie and Stapley 2014). Likewise, attacks on corporate profits make it harder for MNCs to profitably contribute to the local economy or to engage in corporate social responsibility which can broaden support for the firm or state, undermining a message of grievance.…”

Section: The Strategic Interaction Of Investors and Terroristsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nowhere to Go: FDI, Terror, and Market-specific Assets

Osgood

Simonelli

2020

Journal of Conflict Resolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Under what circumstances does terrorism repel foreign investment? The negative effect of terrorism on foreign investment identified in current scholarship masks heterogeneity across host markets and industries. Foreign investment ought to react less to political violence when host markets match firms’ input requirements, when firms lack viable alternative hosts, and when assets are immobile across markets. We model the endogenous codetermination of terror and investment to derive these comparative statics, highlighting empirical challenges in identifying the effects of terror on foreign direct investment. To overcome these obstacles, we use an instrumental variable estimator which exploits differences in the networks along which terror and investment spread. Using industry-level data on the activities of US multinationals, we test our model and conclude that foreign investors that find it hard to leave particular host markets are doubly penalized: their lack of outside options makes them tempting targets for terror. Our findings have implications for other forms of violent and nonviolent political tactics which affect multinationals and for understanding how foreign investment reacts to heightened risk in host markets.

show abstract

Why Target the “Good Guys”? The Determinants of Terrorism Against NGOs

Cited by 16 publications

References 36 publications

Doing Harm by Doing Good? The Negative Externalities of Humanitarian Aid Provision during Civil Conflict

Doing Harm by Doing Good? The Negative Externalities of Humanitarian Aid Provision during Civil Conflict

Help or hindrance? The role of humanitarian military interventions in human security NGO operations

Nowhere to Go: FDI, Terror, and Market-specific Assets

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About