Although the Nazi Holocaust provides the most expansive and resonant example of concentration camps in popular commentary and social science research, recent revelations regarding the detention and abuse of Uyghurs in camps in Xinjiang, China, as well as Ukrainian citizens in Russian-occupied Eastern Ukraine, reflect the persistence of this technology of mass violence. To gauge how common the use of this technology has been and to facilitate research into its comparative contexts, we introduce the Concentration Camps (CCamps) dataset. We first conceptualize concentration camp systems as bounded, irregular spaces housing targeted, resident civilian populations, whom camp administrators purposefully neglect, often force into labor, and sometimes kill en masse. Based upon this conceptualization, we describe the CCamps dataset, which surveys 150 camp systems administered globally between 1896 and 2018. Finally, we discuss some potential applications for this dataset in the literatures on conflict, peace, and repression.

Powersharing institutions are often prescribed to enhance civil peace, democratic survival, and the equitable provision of public services, and these institutions have become more prevalent over time. Nonetheless, the past decade has seen a rise in democratic backsliding and competitive authoritarianism, raising questions about how the relationship between powersharing, democracy, and civil peace may be evolving. This article introduces an update to the Inclusion, Dispersion, and Constraints (IDC) powersharing dataset that adds nine years of data, up through 2019. These new data include enhanced intercoder reliability checks, a significant reduction in missing values, and the documentation and correction of some coding errors in the original data. We also employ latent variable models to estimate each of three types of powersharing, allowing scholars to account for measurement uncertainty in analyses of the causes and consequences of powersharing. This dataset allows scholars to address urgent questions about whether previously observed relationships between powersharing and democracy and powersharing and civil peace still hold in this new era, and in what contexts powersharing institutions remain advisable.

Abstract Transitional justice practices frequently involve public apologies where former combatants confess their wrongdoings and ask for forgiveness, with the underlying assumption that such displays facilitate the reintegration of ex-combatants into society. However, little is known about the public response to ex-combatant apologies. In this article, we investigate the causal effect of an armed group apology on attitudes toward ex-combatant reintegration in Colombia. Our study builds on a novel experiment implemented in Meta, a conflict-ridden department of Colombia. The experiment entailed exposing a subset of participants to a video in which a former rebel group leader apologizes for violent acts committed by their armed group during the civil war. To examine the extent to which external actors influence the effectiveness of apologies, we incorporated third-party ‘encouragements to forgive’ (endorsements) in two additional treatment conditions. Our analysis demonstrates that, on average, participants do not exhibit higher reintegration attitudes when exposed to the apology, regardless of third-party endorsements. However, the absence of a treatment effect is not due to an indifference to the apology. In an exploratory heterogeneity analysis, we show that the apology induces negative effects on some indicators of reintegration attitudes among participants that did not support the peace agreement. This finding aligns with qualitative data gathered in a follow-up survey, which indicates that opponents of the peace agreement generally describe negative emotional responses to the FARC-EP apology. The results call for a reconsideration of unchallenged prescriptions of public apologies after conflict.

Although there has been much interest in how communication technology can shape conflict, the deliberate targeting of the telecommunication infrastructure by rebel groups has been largely overlooked. This article demonstrates that while some rebel groups systematically target telecommunications, others do not. It is argued that this reflects deliberate choices, and that rebel groups adapt their strategies based on cost–benefit analyses. Given the aim of avoiding detection and being targeted themselves, rebels may be more likely to target the telecommunication infrastructure when faced with a government with a technologically sophisticated military. However, a further increase in the opponent’s technological capabilities beyond a certain tipping point may compel rebels to employ preventive measures other than targeting telecommunications. Marxist-socialist or religious groups are expected to be more likely to target telecommunications to maintain a homogeneous propaganda space directed at their constituency, facilitating indoctrination and propaganda. These expectations were evaluated in an analysis of all rebel groups for the period 1970–2013. The results showed a non-linear relationship between rebel targeting of telecommunication infrastructure and the technological capabilities of the government forces, while Marxist-socialist and ethno-religious groups were more likely to target telecommunications compared with other groups.

Abstract Relational scholarship is burgeoning across the social sciences and gaining ground in peace and conflict studies. But relationalism is prone to misunderstanding. This article demonstrates that the ‘relational’ is an ontological orientation, with foundational implications for how social scientists know the world, rather than a methodological stance oriented to relationships. It offers a threefold framework that clarifies forms of relational-ontological scholarship and the trade-offs among them without prescribing the methods of relational research. It argues that while all forms of relational-ontological scholarship have value, those that give greater emphasis to relations than to entities help to better analyse dynamism and diversity, and that the normative value of relational approaches lies in considering peace as an effect of relations and turning to relations-in-themselves.

Conflicts involving pastoralists have been on the rise in the past two decades in West, Central and East Africa. This article argues that land alienation is a major source of this type of violence. We employ a narrow identification strategy of relevant pastoral conflicts based on the Armed Conflict Location Event Dataset and create a unique indicator of land alienation comprised of three types of land use changes (conversion of land into conservation areas, crop farms, and industrial mining projects). Relying on a disaggregated quantitative comparative design of 50 km-by-50 km cells covering the Sahelian region from 2002 to 2019, we find that land alienation is an underlying cause of pastoral conflicts. Moreover, we show that the impact of land alienation on pastoralist violence spreads over long distances and is influenced by state presence and climatic conditions. Our analysis further reveals an overlap between pastoralist violence and armed conflict. Bridging a gap between macro- and micro-level studies, we contribute to shed more light on the determinants of pastoral conflicts, a type of violence that has received scant attention in the geospatial quantitative literature.

The reconnaissance strike complex is synonymous with modern military power, and prominent realist theories would have predicted rapid proliferation after its successful debut in the Gulf War. Instead, the complex has proliferated slowly. To explain this puzzle, we theorize that interstate security threats significantly impact proliferation, but not in the way traditionally presumed. Although the literature on weapons proliferation has largely assumed a monotonically increasing relationship should hold between the capabilities of a state’s adversaries and a state’s own capability, we draw from the economics literature and game theoretic insights from political science to argue that the relationship should resemble an inverted-U. When states have rivals with moderate reconnaissance strike capabilities, they have security incentives to compete with them. However, when states face highly advanced adversaries, it becomes more difficult to escape or match their competition, making symmetrical acquisition less appealing. While most prior research focuses on narrower aspects of the reconnaissance strike complex like missiles or smart bombs, we test our theory on a novel dataset tracking country-level acquisition of eight aspects of the complex from 1980 to 2017: Ballistic missiles; bombers; cruise missiles; fighter aircraft; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets; precision-guided munitions; satellites; and submarines. We find strong support for our inverted-U argument. States that have rivals with moderate reconnaissance strike capabilities have over double the reconnaissance strike capabilities themselves than states that have rivals with very low or very high capabilities. Our findings hold for broader measures of the complex that closely proxy a state’s general military capabilities, narrower measures of the complex, and alternative measures of general military sophistication, indicating our theory has broad applicability. This article explains why some states invest heavily in conventional capabilities despite an already-large lead over their adversaries, and why other states instead opt to invest in alternatives rather than balancing symmetrically.

The transnational nature of cyberspace alters the role of third-party countries (TPCs) in international conflict. In the conventional environment, military operations are primarily confined to the boundaries of the combatants or a designated war zone. However, during cyber conflicts, operations may occur on the digital infrastructure of states not otherwise involved in the dispute. Nevertheless, within the cyber conflict literature, little is said about TPCs who, by virtue of interconnectivity, may find themselves involved in a conflict not of their own making. Consequently, we examine the political and diplomatic hazards of cyber operations involving these actors. Through survey experiments involving participants from the United Kingdom and Canada, we assess the public opinion impact of an offensive cyber operation’s revelation on a TPC population. We find that while these incidents are viewed negatively, prior authorization and the involvement of an ally reduces this tendency. Such conditions lead the public to perceive these operations as corresponding with their national interest while suppressing fears of the possible consequences following their indirect involvement.

Do leaders in nondemocratic regimes face public backlash when they threaten to use military force and back down? Whether citizens disapprove of empty threats is central to studying the domestic ‘audience costs’ in international crisis bargaining, but there is little experimental evidence of this phenomenon from autocracies. In this research article, I present the results of an original survey experiment investigating the microfoundations of domestic audience costs in the Russian Federation. My findings showed that even in Putin’s Russia, the citizens expressed attitudes in line with the audience costs theory. However, I also demonstrate that the effect of audience costs treatments was significantly stronger for the opponents of the current Russian leadership than for the supporters. The results of this study represent an important contribution to the existing literature by providing micro-level empirical evidence from a personalist nondemocratic regime.

Abstract Recent research shows that comprehensive peace agreements (CPAs) are effective in ending civil wars and improving post-conflict conditions, but CPAs emerge in only a fraction of civil wars. This study provides systematic evidence about the origins of CPAs and the role of international actors in facilitating their signing. We argue that mediation is more likely to be successful and that CPAs are more likely to emerge in those civil war countries that are members in a higher number of IGOs with high economic leverage. Using their financial and institutional leverage, these IGOs can help the combatants overcome the credible commitment problems associated with entering into mediation, and with making sufficient concessions and compromises to reach and sign a CPA. Analyzing all intrastate armed conflicts from 1989 to 2011, we find that a conflict country’s memberships in IGOs with high economic leverage increase the odds of (1) mediation occurring and (2) mediation subsequently leading to the signing of CPAs. This finding is robust to common sources of spurious relationships between international institutions and the behavior of conflict parties. Participating in IGOs with high economic leverage carries important positive consequences for civil war management and enhances the impact of mediation on getting conflict parties to sign CPAs.