Insurgency, Border Contiguity, and Social Conflict in Neighbor Countries

Abstract

This study investigates how an insurgency in one state can intensify social conflict in a bordering state, focusing on the 2015 Burkina Faso insurgency and its impacts on northern Ghana. Building on past research, we theorize four pathways that can link insurgency to social conflict across the border. We use a mixed-methods approach, combining synthetic control models, fixed-effects panel data analyses, and extensive fieldwork across multiple communities, and find clear support for two pathways: insurgents using Ghana as a place for obtaining resources and diverted security forces creating vacuums exploited by bandits. The findings show that research and policy should consider more the interaction across multiple types of violence and varied geopolitical spaces in other susceptible world regions.