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Abstract
The article analyzes how Covid-19 might affect the risk of violence against civilians (VAC) in two ways. First, I glean from Armed Conflict Location and Event Data the quantity and types of Covid-related VAC attacks. Second, I present possible economic channels by which Covid could affect mass atrocity risk. I apply the channels to identify possible Covid-related economic risks for VAC in Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The bargaining theory of war and peace has emerged as an important research framework in the social sciences for understanding why wars occur and why opportunities for peace sometimes fail. Close to a dozen distinct "rationalist" sources of war have been theoretically modeled in the bargaining literature, empirical studies of war and peace are increasingly drawing upon bargaining models for theoretical guidance, and "nonrationalist" sources of war based on insights from psychology and sociology can be incorporated into the theory. This article briefly surveys key elements and results of the bargaining theory of war and it emphasizes the untapped potential for the framework to serve as a theory of peace in both research and teaching.

A standard evolutionary game theory model is used to reveal the interpersonal and geographic characteristics of a population that make it vulnerable to accepting the genocidal aims of political leaders. Under conditions identified in the space-less version of the model, genocide architects can engineer the social metamorphosis of a peaceful people-group into one that supports, or does not resist, the architects' atrocity goals. The model reveals policy interventions that prevent the social evolution of genocide among the population. The model is then extended into geographic space by analyzing interactions among peaceful and aggressive phenotypes in a Moore neighborhood. Key concepts of the analyses are applied to the onset and spread of genocide during the Holocaust (1938-1945) and to the prevention of genocide in Côte d'Ivoire (2011). [JEL codes: C73, D74]

AbstractThis article presents a rational choice model of a regime's incentive to allocate resources to fighting rebels and killing civilians when facing an internal threat to its political or territorial control. Assuming that intentional violence against civilians is an inferior input and fighting rebels is subject to increasing marginal returns, three weak state conditions – anocracy, new state status, and low income – increase civilian atrocities within the model. Also, two other risk factors for mass atrocities – discrimination and Cold War conditions – can be seen as "price reducers" for killing civilians, thus increasing the quantity demanded for civilian atrocities in the model. The modeling exercises show how intentional violence against civilians can be viewed through an economic lens of optimal choice and how rational choice theory provides a parsimonious way to theorize and generate empirically testable hypotheses about risk factors for genocide and mass killing.

A model that integrates production, exchange, and conflict is used to theoretically investigate the economic behavior of groups that experience an erosion of security within a state. The focus of our investigation is the comparative effects of different conflict production functions (i.e., ratio and logistic) and parameters (i.e., weapons productivity, conflict decisiveness) on the predictions of the integrated economy model. The model shows how two major analytical categories of mainstream economics—production and exchange—can be a source of demand for arms as groups attempt to protect their economic opportunities in the face of intrastate insecurity. Conditions are also identified under which the gains from specialized production and exchange dampen the potential for conflict and hence serve as a form of conflict mitigation. Many of the results of the integrated model are shown to be quite sensitive to the technology of conflict.

Since Lewis F. Richardson's seminal contribution in arms race modeling, there has been a proliferation of arms race models in journals and books across many disciplines. Despite this proliferation, there are some fundamental methodological problems associated with Richardson-type models and the arms race modeling enterprise in general that have not been adequately addressed. We discuss these methodological problems and offer some suggestions on where the arms race modeling enterprise should head.