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1. Hierarchy and war

   https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12855  

   Beek, Maël van; Lopate, Michael Z; Goodhart, Andrew; Peterson, David A; Edgerton, Jared; Xiong, Haoming; Alam, Maryum; Tiglay, Leyla; Kent, Daniel; Braumoeller, Bear F (January 2025, American Journal of Political Science)

   Reiter, Berinsky (Ed.)

   Abstract Scholars have written extensively about hierarchical international order, on the one hand, and war on the other, but surprisingly little work systematically explores the connection between the two. This disconnect is all the more striking given that empirical studies have found a strong relationship between the two. We provide a generative computational network model that explains hierarchy and war as two elements of a larger recursive process: The threat of war drives the formation of hierarchy, which in turn shapes states' incentives for war. Grounded in canonical theories of hierarchy and war, the model explains an array of known regularities about hierarchical order and conflict. Surprisingly, we also find that many traditional results of the international relations literature—including institutional persistence, balancing behavior, and systemic self‐regulation—emerge from the interplay between hierarchy and war. 

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2. Hierarchies of Violence, Victimhood, and Remedy in the Pursuit of Women’s Rights After War

   https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksaf051  

   Berry, Marie; Lake, Milli; Raja, Sinduja; Zarook, Soraya (June 2025, Global Studies Quarterly)

   Abstract Recent postwar recovery efforts have paved the way for reforms that advance women's participation in politics, inclusion in the economy, and access to justice. In this article, we show how a singular emphasis on gender reforms after war that are inattentive to other societal cleavages can leave various forms of marginalization in the shadows. Subnational interviews on the reverberations of gender reforms in five postwar countries expose three hierarchies that structure access to rights for war-affected communities. We reveal which violence is privileged, whose violence is privileged, and which responses are privileged from the perspectives of differently situated war-affected women, showing how patterns of access to new rights can reinforce exclusionary dynamics. Importantly, because international and domestic actors tend to privilege top-down, state-based responses to wartime violence (what we term hierarchies of remedy), hierarchies of violence and victimhood frequently also reflect state actors’ priorities. Speaking to debates on legal and policy reform, we acknowledge that attention to women's rights after war offers an urgently needed corrective to earlier gender inequalities. Yet, a singular focus on gender reforms that ignores other conflict-related cleavages, particularly those that are amplified by the distribution of political power within the state apparatus, can risk obstructing access for marginalized women, sometimes reproducing grievances that contributed to violence in the first place. For policymakers, we suggest that striving for more equal access to new rights after war will help foster a more inclusive—and therefore more stable and durable—peace. 

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3. Rebel Territorial Control, Governance, and Political Accountability in Civil War: Evidence from the Communist Insurgency in the Philippines

   https://doi.org/10.7916/D86H60VJ  

   Rubin, Michael A. (May 2018, Academic commons)

   Under what conditions do rebel organizations control territory during civil war? How do civilians influence the distribution of territorial control? Why do rebels invest in governance, and why do they target civilians with violence, in some locations but not others? This dissertation advances a political accountability theory to explain how civilians influence the distribution of territorial control and governance during civil war. Existing research explaining variation in rebel territorial control and behavior have emphasized structural and organizational factors, identity politics, economic conditions, and geography. However, the classic insurgency literature and recent counterinsurgency doctrine emphasize the importance of securing civilian support and protecting the population to achieving military objectives in civil war. If true, civilians retain at least some power over rebel personnel. The accountability theory of rebel conduct provides a unified framework linking inter-related conflict processes associated with rebel groups’ territorial control, governance, and strategic use of violence during civil war. It argues that community collective action capacity, the ease with which communities facilitate collective action to pursue common interests, influences the distribution territorial control and belligerent conduct during civil war. The empirical strategy draws upon complementary quantitative and qualitative methods to test the accountability against plausible alternatives using village-level data from the communist insurgency in the Philippines. The results provide robust support for the accountability theory over plausible alternatives, and yield policy implications for peace-building and economic development in conflict-affected states. 

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4. Does government response to natural disasters explain violence? The case of the Sendero Luminoso and conflict in Peru

   https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.13438  

   Mitchell, Sara McLaughlin; Pizzi, Elise; Millerd, Carly; Choi, Jeongho (August 2024, Social Science Quarterly)

   Abstract ObjectiveWe consider how the Peruvian government's responses to natural disaster events shaped political violence patterns from 1989 to 2020. MethodsWe gather data on government disaster response and compare the effect of positive disaster responses, such as reconstruction and regulation of domestic/international aid, and negative disaster responses, such as neglect or placing restrictions on movement near the affected areas, on violent conflict. To address the endogeneity between armed conflict and disaster responses, we estimate a structural equation model where we allow armed conflicts and disaster responses to be fully endogenous. ResultsUsing a structural equation model at the province‐year level, we show that negative disaster responses increase the risks for political violence, while positive disaster responses do not affect the risks for armed conflict. Armed conflict in turn makes negative policy responses to disasters more likely but has no effect on positive disaster responses. ConclusionsThe results suggest that poor government response to natural disasters can foster grievances and aid rebel recruitment, increasing the risks for armed conflicts. 

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5. When do rebels sign agreements with the United Nations? An investigation into the politics of international humanitarian engagement

   https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661231180369  

   Jo, Hyeran; Yi, Joowon (September 2023, European Journal of International Relations)

   International actors engage rebel groups in conflict zones for better humanitarian outcomes. What are the political conditions under which such external engagement occurs in internal conflict zones? We argue that “insecure governments” and politically “modulated rebels” are the key factors that explain the international humanitarian engagement with rebels in civil conflicts. With the history of instability marred by coups and frequently changing hands of governments, insecure governments resort to international help and allow international actors to interact with their internal enemies. In contrast, with strong political control and military capacity, secure governments play a gatekeeper role, dealing with internal enemies autonomously. On the rebel side, politically “modulated rebels” are the prime candidates for international humanitarian engagement. Such modulation is likely to occur after civilian-connecting experiences over time by holding territory or after peace talks. We test these arguments using the case of the United Nations (UN) action plans between 2000 and 2015, in which some rebel groups committed to reducing the practice of child soldiering. We find that the combination of “insecure governments” and “modulated rebels” can systematically account for the UN action plans occurrence. Our analysis has implications for the role of external actors in internal conflict zones around the world. 

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