Cooperation in conflict zones

International terrorism is often nourished by civil conflicts. This link is one of the main motives for foreign military interventions in distant conflict zones, such as Mali or Afghanistan. The effectiveness of these interventions relies crucially on the cooperation of different actors with diverging interests and incentives. These actors include the civilian population, local government officials, as well as foreign and domestic security forces. My research uses new, granular data on violence in Afghanistan and India to study the cooperation between these actors in conflict zones. As economists specialized in the study civil conflict and security forces,we will use micro-econometric methods to study these interactions.

Our proposal consists of three sub-projects. Each sub-project aims to provide quantitative evidence on how economic interventions and organizational changes can promote effective cooperation in conflict zones. Each sub-project will highlight a different set of actors in the conflict. In a first sub-project, we will study how economic shocks affect civilian cooperation with security forces. Second, we will examine how coordination problems between NATO allies affect security provision. In the third sub-project, we will study the interaction between foreign and domestic security forces, and in particular how Afghanistan’s security transition affected violence outcomes. In addition, we will develop two extension projects. The first one studies how fiscal incentives shape the role of sub-national governments in managing conflicts. The second extension project will focus on public support in troop-sending countries for keeping NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The main contribution of this research proposal is to study the cooperation between actors in conflict zones using recently declassified data sources. The granularity of these new data sources allows for the quantification of empirical relationships and formal tests of research hypotheses. While there is an emerging literature in economics and political science using similar statistical tools, it has paid little attention to the interactions that I propose to study. By shedding new light on how different actors in conflict zones cooperate, my research agenda aims to contribute to better decision-making in these challenging environments.

Collaborators

Thiemo Fetzer (University of Warwick)

Jacob N Shapiro (Princeton University)

Pedro CL Souza (University of Warwick)

Austin Wright (University of Chicago)

Papers

"Security Transitions", joint with Thiemo Fetzer, Pedro CL Souza, and Austin Wright. American Economic Review, 2021.

• Press: Washington Post (The Monkey Cage), Les Echos, The Guardian, Institute of New Economic Thinking, Naked Capitalism, VoxEU, VoxDev.

"Fiscal incentives for conflict", with Jacob Shapiro. Review of Economics and Statistics, 2021.

"Losing on the Home Front? Battlefield Casualties, Media, and Public Support for Foreign Interventions", joint with Thiemo Fetzer, Pedro CL Souza, and Austin Wright. Working Paper.