Civil Wars

Taught: Spring 2022

Course information

Juan Tellez (pronounced: “Teh-yes”)

jftellez@ucdavis.edu

Tuesdays, 9:00 AM - 11:50 AM

Kerr Hall 594

Office Hours

Course description

This course is a graduate seminar on the study of civil wars and other forms of political violence. The course is designed to prepare advanced graduate students to do research on civil wars and political violence. Each week, we will cover a mix of foundational and new research in one of (to my mind) the key active research agendas in the study of civil wars. The weekly readings are primarily how students will: a) develop a foundation in the literature; b) figure out which topic areas might drive their dissertation work.

The course will also emphasize applied learning through: 1) critical reviews that mirror journal article reviews; 2) a data exploration exercise; 3) an original research design.

This course is designed for graduate students who already have basic training in research design and methods. The replication assignment in particular assumes an ability to read and write code in R. If you want to take the course but have not already taken the methods sequence POL 211-213, please come talk to me.

Course policies

Late proposals, papers, etc. will be penalized by a letter grade per day.

Assignments

• Weekly comments (10 percent): Each week you will post (at most) a half page of questions or bullet points comments on the readings. You can raise questions about theory, method, point out conflicts between readings, develop links with previous weeks’ readings, whatever. These needn’t be long and detailed, but they should be thoughtful. Due by Monday 6pm before each class.
• Two article reviews (30 percent): You will write two, three-page (or so, double-spaced) reviews. Your review should eschew summary in favor of critically evaluating the paper (a great guide here). The basic goal is to make a recommendation to an editor (me in this case) as to whether or not the paper should be published. If your recommendation is to “revise and resubmit” assume that implies a high probability of publication. The first review is due by end of day Friday, April 15th. The second review is due by end of day Friday, May 13th. Note that these are dissertation projects or job market papers of recent PhDs. Please review two of these three papers:
  • “They’re still here, he’s all gone: American Fatalities in Foreign Wars and Right-Wing Radicalization at Home”
  • “More than money: The political consequences of compensation”
  • “The Legacies of Atrocities and Who Fights”
• Data exploration (30 percent): You will be placed into two-member research teams. Each team will present for 10ish minutes on the empirics of their paper for the week. Presentations should describe the paper, put it in the context of a broader literature, and promote discussion about the empirics of the paper. You have two options: 1) explore the underlying dataset or replication data; look at distributions, patterns, temporal and spatial limitations, etc.; replicate findings or estimate different models from the authors; 2) make a tutorial / “explainer” of the methodology at the center of the paper (e.g., matching, instrumental variables, etc.). You will turn in:
  • an RMarkdown file to replicate all of your (1) analysis or (2) methods tutorial
  • a cleaned .rda datafile (i.e., ready to use, only relevant variables, no “-999” for NA, etc.) for either (1) the analysis or (2) the methods tutorial
  • your presentation slides
• Research proposal (30 percent): 12 pages. See rubric. Draft research proposals due May 27th by midnight. Final proposal due June 7th.

Schedule

Note: the schedule is subject to change.

Week 1 – Mar 29 : What is civil war?

Required

• Stathis N Kalyvas and Laia Balcells, “International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict,” American Political Science Review 104, no. 3 (2010): 415–429.
• Christopher Blattman and Edward Miguel, “Civil War,” Journal of Economic Literature 48, no. 1 (2010): 3–57.
• Stathis Kalyvas, “The Ontology of ‘Political Violence’: Action and Identity in Civil Wars,” Perspectives on Politics 1, no. 3 (2003): 475–494.
• Michael D. Ward, Brian D. Greenhill, and Kristin M. Bakke, “The Perils of Policy by p-Value: Predicting Civil Conflicts,” Journal of Peace Research 47, no. 4 (2010): 363–375.

Recommended

• Stathis Kalyvas and Scott Straus, “Stathis Kalyvas on 20 Years of Studying Political Violence,” Violence: An International Journal 1, no. 2 (2020): 389–407.
• Nicholas Sambanis, “What Is Civil War?: Conceptual and Empirical Complexities of an Operational Definition,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 48, no. 6 (2004): 814–858.

Week 2 – Apr 5 : Causes of civil war

Required

• James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (2003): 75–90.
• Lars-Erik Cederman, Nils B Weidmann, and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, “Horizontal Inequalities and Ethnonationalist Civil War: A Global Comparison,” American Political Science Review 105, no. 3 (2011): 478–495.
• David B. Carter, Andrew C. Shaver, and Austin L. Wright, “Places to Hide: Terrain, Ethnicity, and Civil Conflict,” The Journal of Politics 81, no. 4 (2019): 1446–1465.
• Elaine K. Denny and Barbara F. Walter, “Ethnicity and Civil War,” Journal of Peace Research 51, no. 2 (2014): 199–212.
• Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “Greed and Grievance in Civil War,” Oxford Economic Papers 56 (2004): 563–595.
• Solomon M. Hsiang, Marshall Burke, and Edward Miguel, “Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict,” Science 341, no. 6151 (2013): 1235367.

Recommended

• Halvard Buhaug, Lars-Erik Cederman, and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, “Square Pegs in Round Holes: Inequalities, Grievances, and Civil War,” International Studies Quarterly 58, no. 2 (2014): 418–431.
• Cullen S Hendrix and Idean Salehyan, “Climate Change, Rainfall, and Social Conflict in Africa,” Journal of Peace Research 49, no. 1 (2012): 35–50.
• John O’Loughlin et al., “Climate Variability and Conflict Risk in East-Africa, 1990-2009,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109, no. 45 (2012): 18344–18349.
• Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, “Actor Fragmentation and Civil War Bargaining: How Internal Divisions Generate Civil Conflict,” American Journal of Political Science 57, no. 3 (2013): 659–672.
• Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

Week 3 – Apr 12 : Political economy of conflict

⭐First review due: Friday, April 15th

Required

• Oeindrila Dube and Juan F Vargas, “Commodity Price Shocks and Civil Conflict: Evidence from Colombia,” The Review of Economic Studies 80, no. 4 (2013): 1384–1421.
• Ernesto Dal Bó and Pedro Dal Bó, “Workers, Warriors, and Criminals: Social Conflict in General Equilibrium,” Journal of the European Economic Association 9, no. 4 (2011): 646–677.
• Raúl Sánchez De La Sierra, “On the Origins of the State: Stationary Bandits and Taxation in Eastern Congo,” Journal of Political Economy 128, no. 1 (2020): 32–74.
• Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian, “US Food Aid and Civil Conflict,” American Economic Review 104, no. 6 (2014): 1630–66.
• Nicolas Berman et al., “This Mine Is Mine! How Minerals Fuel Conflicts in Africa,” American Economic Review 107, no. 6 (2017): 1564–1610.

Recommended

• Revisiting the Effect of Food Aid on Conflict: A Methodological Caution
• Michael Ross, “How Do Natural Resources Influence Civil War? Evidence from Thirteen Cases,” International Organization 58, no. 1 (2004): 35–67.
• Jean-Paul Azam and Anke Hoeffler, “Violence Against Civilians in Civil Wars: Looting or Terror?” Journal of Peace Research 39, no. 4 (2002): 461–485.

Week 4 – Apr 19 : Rebel groups as organizations

Required

• The introduction in Jeremy M. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
• Chapter 3 in Ana Arjona, Rebelocracy (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
• David A. Siegel, “When Does Repression Work?: Collective Action in Social Networks,” Journal of Politics 73, no. 4 (2011): 993–1010.
• Laia Balcells, Chong Chen, and Costantino Pischedda, “Do Birds of a Feather Flock Together? Rebel Constituencies and Civil War Alliances,” International Studies Quarterly 66, no. 1 (2022).

Recommended

• Jacob N Shapiro and David A. Siegel, “Moral Hazard, Discipline, and the Management of Terrorist Organizations,” World Politics 64, no. 1 (2012): 39–78.
• Paul Staniland, “Organizing Insurgency: Networks, Resources, and Rebellion in South Asia,” International Security 37, no. 1 (2012): 142–177.
• Sarah Elizabeth Parkinson, “Organizing Rebellion: Rethinking High-Risk Mobilization and Social Networks in War,” American Political Science Review 107, no. 3 (2013): 418–432.
• Henning Tamm, “Rebel Leaders, Internal Rivals, and External Resources: How State Sponsors Affect Insurgent Cohesion,” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 4 (2016): 599–610.

Week 5 – Apr 26 : Dynamics of violence in civil wars

Required

• Introduction, chapter 6, and chapter 7 in Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
• Livia Isabella Schubiger, “State Violence and Wartime Civilian Agency: Evidence from Peru,” Journal of Politics (2019).
• Katherine Sawyer, Kanisha D. Bond, and Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, “Rebel Leader Ascension and Wartime Sexual Violence,” The Journal of Politics 83, no. 1 (2021): 396–400.
• Sabine C. Carey and Neil J. Mitchell, “Progovernment Militias,” Annual Review of Political Science 20 (2017): 127–147.

Recommended

• Francisco Gutiérrez-Sanı́n and Jenniffer Vargas, “Agrarian Elite Participation in Colombia’s Civil War,” Journal of Agrarian Change 17, no. 4 (2017): 739–748.
• Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson, and Rafael J. Santos, “The Monopoly of Violence: Evidence from Colombia,” Journal of the European Economic Association 11, no. S1 (2013): 5–44.
• Michael Albertus, “Land Reform and Civil Conflict: Theory and Evidence from Peru,” American Journal of Political Science 64, no. 2 (2020): 256–274.
• Dara Kay Cohen, “Explaining Rape During Civil War: Cross-National Evidence (1980–2009),” American Political Science Review 107, no. 3 (2013): 461–477.
• Luke N. Condra et al., “The Logic of Insurgent Electoral Violence,” American Economic Review 108, no. 11 (2018): 3199–3231.

Week 6 – May 3 : Civil war duration and termination

Required

• Michaela Mattes and Burcu Savun, “Information, Agreement Design, and the Durability of Civil War Settlements,” American Journal of Political Science 54, no. 2 (2010): 511–524.
• David E. Cunningham, “Veto Players and Civil War Duration,” American Journal of Political Science 50, no. 4 (2006): 875–892.
• Monica Duffy Toft, “Ending Civil Wars: A Case for Rebel Victory?” International Security 34, no. 4 (2010): 7–36.
• Devorah Manekin, Guy Grossman, and Tamar Mitts, “Contested Ground: Disentangling Material and Symbolic Attachment to Disputed Territory,” Political Science Research and Methods (2017).
• Rob Williams et al., “A Latent Variable Approach to Measuring and Explaining Peace Agreement Strength,” Political Science Research and Methods 9, no. 1 (2021): 89–105.

Recommended

• cunningham:2011?
• Chaim Kaufmann, “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars,” International Security 20, no. 4 (1996): 136–175.
• Barry R. Posen, “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict,” in Ethnic Conflict and International Security, ed. Michael E. Brown (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

Week 7 – May 10 : Wartime displacement

⭐Second review due: Friday, May 17th

Required

• Abbey Steele, “Electing Displacement: Political Cleansing in Apartado, Colombia,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 55, no. 3 (May 2011): 423–445.
• Lachlan McNamee, “Mass Resettlement and Political Violence: Evidence from Rwanda,” World Politics 70, no. 4 (2018): 595–644.
• Adam G. Lichtenheld, “Explaining Population Displacement Strategies in Civil Wars: A Cross-National Analysis,” International Organization 74, no. 2 (2020): 253–294.
• Yang-Yang Zhou and Andrew Shaver, “Reexamining the Effect of Refugees on Civil Conflict: A Global Subnational Analysis,” American Political Science Review 115, no. 4 (2021): 1175–1196.
• Yuri M. Zhukov, “Population Resettlement in War: Theory and Evidence from Soviet Archives,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, no. 7 (2015): 1155–1185.

Week 8 – May 17 : Peacekeeping and peacebuilding

Required

• Barbara F. Walter, Lise Morje Howard, and V. Page Fortna, “The Extraordinary Relationship Between Peacekeeping and Peace,” British Journal of Political Science 51, no. 4 (2021): 1705–1722.
• Aila M. Matanock, “Bullets for Ballots: Electoral Participation Provisions and Enduring Peace After Civil Conflict,” International Security 41, no. 4 (2017): 93–132.
• David E. Cunningham, “Preventing Civil War: How the Potential for International Intervention Can Deter Conflict Outset,” World Politics 68, no. 2 (2016): 307–340.
• Bernd Beber et al., “Peacekeeping, Compliance with International Norms, and Transactional Sex in Monrovia, Liberia,” International Organization 71, no. 1 (2017): 1–30.
• Scott Wolford, “The Problem of Shared Victory: War-Winning Coalitions and Postwar Peace,” Journal of Politics 79, no. 2 (2017): 702–716.

Recommended

Week 9 – May 24 : Political and social consequences of war

⭐ DRAFT/OUTLINE RESEARCH PROPOSALS DUE 5/27 BY MIDNIGHT

• Michal Bauer et al., “Can War Foster Cooperation?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 30, no. 3 (2016): 249–74.
• Chad Hazlett, “Angry or Weary? How Violence Impacts Attitudes Toward Peace Among Darfurian Refugees,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 64, no. 5 (2020): 844–870.
• Rafael Ch et al., “Endogenous Taxation in Ongoing Internal Conflict: The Case of Colombia,” American Political Science Review 112, no. 4 (2018): 996–1015.
• Corinne Bara, “Legacies of Violence: Conflict-Specific Capital and the Postconflict Diffusion of Civil War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 62, no. 9 (2018): 1991–2016.
• Noam Lupu and Leonid Peisakhin, “The Legacy of Political Violence Across Generations,” American Journal of Political Science 61, no. 4 (2017): 836–851.

Week 10 – May 31 : Presentations

⭐ FINAL PROPOSAL DUE JUNE 7th BY MIDNIGHT

Resources

Final research design rubric

12 pages MAX, double-spaced.

1. Introduction (2 pages)
   1. Motivate why we should care about the question you want to answer (e.g., because of its real-world impact, as a gap in the literature)
   2. BRIEFLY preview what the project will do (I will argue that X) and how it will do it (I will collect XYZ data)
2. Literature review (2 pages)
   1. Briefly describe what we already know about your topic
   2. Highlight what is unknown or what gap your project will fill
3. Theory + hypotheses (3 pages)
   1. Big note: theory != literature review
   2. Need an argument about a causal process
   3. Think about who the actors are in your story, what they want, and how their interactions produce different outcomes
4. Research design (3-4 pages)
   1. Data
      1. Where will the data come from? What is the unit of analysis (e.g., country-year)?
      2. How will you measure the outcome variable(s)? Treatment variable(s)?
      3. Identification strategy — how will you (try to) identify the effect of X on Y? If prediction, how will you select what variables to include in the model?
      4. Modeling strategy — how will you model the relationship?
5. Conclusion (1)
   1. What will your project teach us? Or what area of policy or real-world relevance might your project touch on?
   2. Where else might you go from here? What other questions will you or an interested reader want to answer next?

Exercises

• The instrumental variable simulation from class