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Civil wars show substantial variation in where they are fought. One dimension of this variation is the proximity of fighting to the capital city. While some wars are fought in the periphery, others devastate capital cities, often for months, or years, on end. What explains this? This article approaches the puzzle from a bargaining perspective and argues that wars with evenly balanced belligerents (bipolar conflicts) should be less likely to see fighting in the capital while wars with multiple, evenly matched belligerents (multipolar conflicts) should be more likely to do so. Empirical analysis of new conflict-year data on the location of fighting in civil war and measures of conflict actor 'fractionalization' and 'polarization' from 1975 to 2011 support these claims. Highly asymmetric conflicts are fought furthest from the capital city. Bipolar conflicts are fought closer to the capital, but only modestly so. The transition from a bipolar to a multipolar conflict sharply increases the risk of fighting within 10 km of the capital and decreases the expected distance of conflict from the capital. In general, this article points to the utility of bargaining theory to help explain spatial patterns in violent conflict, in addition to questions of onset, duration, and termination, to which this theory has been traditionally applied.

Do more protesters on the streets make governments likely to grant their demands? Several studies link protest size and government concessions. Yet existing research has limitations: many studies suffer from potential endogeneity due to potential protesters joining protests when they anticipate that concessions are likely, causal mechanisms are often unclear, and many of the most rigorous event-level studies are limited to Western democracies. We reexamine this relationship in a non-Western sample using a novel instrumental variable approach, using Fridays as an instrument for exogenous variation in protest size in predominately Muslim countries. We perform two analyses: one using the NAVCO 3.0 dataset, and the second using the Mass Mobilization in Autocracies Dataset (MMAD). In both analyses exogenous variation in protest size negatively affects the likelihood of concessions. Larger protests are less likely to receive government concessions. We suggest these surprising results point to the importance of unanticipated protests that produce new information about regime stability to motivate government concessions.

Do more protesters on the streets make governments likely to grant their demands? Several studies link protest size and government concessions. Yet existing research has limitations: many studies suffer from potential endogeneity due to potential protesters joining protests when they anticipate that concessions are likely, causal mechanisms are often unclear, and many of the most rigorous event-level studies are limited to Western democracies. We reexamine this relationship in a non-Western sample using a novel instrumental variable approach, using Fridays as an instrument for exogenous variation in protest size in predominately Muslim countries. We perform two analyses: one using the NAVCO 3.0 dataset, and the second using the Mass Mobilization in Autocracies Dataset (MMAD). In both analyses exogenous variation in protest size negatively affects the likelihood of concessions. Larger protests are less likely to receive government concessions. We suggest these surprising results point to the importance of unanticipated protests that produce new information about regime stability to motivate government concessions.

AbstractHow have the structures of state systems varied over time and space? We outline a game theoretic model of the decision by political units to accept offers of graded sovereignty from imperial centers. We conceptualize four types of sovereign bargains – tributary, informal extractive, suzerain, and departmental – as a function of whether a polity has external sovereignty and whether resources flow from the subordinate polity to the imperial center through transfers or direct extraction. We then specify the payoffs for these bargains and theorize how increasing interaction capacity and international competition shape the structure of state systems. We show how increasing interaction capacity is related to the transition from transfers to extraction while international competition plays a role only when interaction capacity is already high. We demonstrate the applicability of our model with case studies from low- and high-density environments during the early modern period, respectively: (1) The Oyo Empire of western Africa; (2) Mysore of south Asia.

How have the structures of state systems varied over time and space? We outline a game theoretic model of the decision by political units to accept offers of graded sovereignty from imperial centers. We conceptualize four types of sovereign bargains – tributary, informal extractive, suzerain, and departmental – as a function of whether a polity has external sovereignty and whether resources flow from the subordinate polity to the imperial center through transfers or direct extraction. We then specify the payoffs for these bargains and theorize how increasing interaction capacity and international competition shape the structure of state systems. We show how increasing interaction capacity is related to the transition from transfers to extraction while international competition plays a role only when interaction capacity is already high. We demonstrate the applicability of our model with case studies from low- and high-density environments during the early modern period, respectively: (1) The Oyo Empire of western Africa; (2) Mysore of south Asia. ; acceptedVersion ; © 2020. This is the authors' accepted and refereed manuscript to the article. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

How have the structures of state systems varied over time and space? We outline a game theoretic model of the decision by political units to accept offers of graded sovereignty from imperial centers. We conceptualize four types of sovereign bargains – tributary, informal extractive, suzerain, and departmental – as a function of whether a polity has external sovereignty and whether resources flow from the subordinate polity to the imperial center through transfers or direct extraction. We then specify the payoffs for these bargains and theorize how increasing interaction capacity and international competition shape the structure of state systems. We show how increasing interaction capacity is related to the transition from transfers to extraction while international competition plays a role only when interaction capacity is already high. We demonstrate the applicability of our model with case studies from low- and high-density environments during the early modern period, respectively: (1) The Oyo Empire of western Africa; (2) Mysore of south Asia. ; publishedVersion

AbstractWere precolonial state systems different to the European model? If so, how did these state systems vary, and do variations in system structure influence the frequency of war? In this article we assess the structure off international systems in nineteenth-century West Africa, Southeast Asia, and South Asia using new data on precolonial states that corrects for some of the biases in the existing Correlates of War state system membership data. We develop a framework to capture variation in political order above and below the state, and explore the similarities and differences between these systems and the European system we know and study. We then assess how rates of inter- and intra-state war varied across these systems. Our results suggest: (1) It is the nature of hierarchy (not so much anarchy) that varies across these systems; and (2) inter-state wars are more frequent, but less intense, in systems composed of decentralised states.

A growing research field examines the conditions under which major nonviolent resistance campaigns—that is, popular nonviolent uprisings for regime or territorial change—are successful. Why these campaigns emerge in the first place is less well understood. We argue that extensive social networks that are economically interdependent with the state make strategic nonviolence more feasible. These networks are larger and more powerful in states whose economies rely upon organized labor. Global quantitative analysis of the onset of violent and nonviolent campaigns from 1960 to 2006 (NAVCO), and major protest events in Africa from 1990 to 2009 (SCAD) shows that the likelihood of nonviolent conflict onset increases with the proportion of manufacturing to gross domestic product. This study points to a link between modernization and social conflict, a link that has been often hypothesized, but, hitherto, unsupported by empirical studies.

Ceasefires are a critical tool for those engaged in conflict management during civil wars, yet little scholarship exists that systematically assesses the durability of these arrangements. We argue that ceasefire failure is driven by variations in the composition of organized dissent including and beyond the context of the civil war. In particular, ceasefires should break down faster given increasingly complicated environments of broader anti-government dissent, where resistance dynamics alter the perceived or actual balance of power between rebels and the state. Using original data on organizations participating in violent and nonviolent dissent across African states from 1990-2015, and new data on civil war ceasefires, we find that ceasefire breakdown is precipitated by complex resistance environments that put the government in a precarious position. Increasing numbers of mobilized organizations, higher ideological fractionalization among those groups, more dense and increasingly decentralized dissident networks all expedite the failure of ceasefires in civil wars.