{"title":"Does Fiscal Decentralization Mitigate Domestic Terrorism?","authors":"Mohammad Arzaghi, Khusrav Gaibulloev","doi":"10.1515/peps-2024-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2024-0018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Many countries have embarked on decentralization as a way to mitigate separation tendencies. Even though decentralization could satisfy some separation tendencies, the central government might be unable or unwilling to award the localities the level of decentralization they require to stay in the union. This mismatch may give rise to domestic violence and internal conflict. We propose a simple two-stage model that combines the decentralization and domestic terrorism literature in a single structural model, which can be readily tested using existing data in the disciplines. As long as the actual decentralization level meets the unobserved desired value by the localities, there will be a high likelihood of observing a zero incidence of domestic terrorism. Otherwise, the incidents happen regularly with mitigating effects from decentralization. Our model also accounts for the left-censoring of the terrorism data at zero. We examine our model using 5-year interval panel data of more than 60 countries based on the information for 1970–2019. Our results indicate a strong negative and statistically significant relationship between fiscal decentralization and domestic terrorism events. One percent increase in fiscal decentralization is associated with a two to three percent decline in domestic terrorism incidents. The coefficients of the selection model and domestic terrorism model generally conform to the literature.","PeriodicalId":509287,"journal":{"name":"Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy","volume":"43 15","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141644835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"UN Peacekeeping Forces and Peace Negotiations in Africa","authors":"Mohamed Niaré, Ousmane Mariko","doi":"10.1515/peps-2024-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2024-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The aim of this article is to identify the factors underlying the success of peace negotiations in Africa, with particular emphasis on the role of UN peacekeepers. We analyze African Peace Processes (APP) data over the period 1989–2019 using the binary logistic model. Our results show that the deployment of UN peacekeepers is associated with the success of mediation efforts, both in intra-state and non-state conflicts. On the other hand, the presence of peacekeepers is detrimental to the success of bilateral negotiations. These results thus highlight that the ambiguity surrounding the effectiveness of UN forces in the peaceful management of conflicts depends on the presence or absence of a mediator. Consequently, political decision-makers should combine the deployment of peacekeeping forces with mediation initiatives to achieve peaceful conflict management. On the other hand, this should not be envisaged within the framework of bilateral negotiations, at the risk of producing opposite effects.","PeriodicalId":509287,"journal":{"name":"Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy","volume":" 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141674025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Military Expenditure – Economic Growth Nexus Revisited: Evidence from the United Kingdom","authors":"Robert Hanson, Joo Young Jeon","doi":"10.1515/peps-2023-0059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2023-0059","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The relationship between government defence expenditure and economic growth is a debated topic. This study uses UK data for the period of 1960–2012 and applies two of the most prevailing theories used within the literature, the ‘Feder-Ram’ and the ‘augmented Solow’ models, to assess this question. We utilise traditional model specifications, alongside extensively altered versions of both models, enabling a comprehensive comparison between them. The alterations to the models include re-evaluating how core variables are expressed, inclusion of measures of conflict, the impact of recession, etc. The results show that the augmented Solow model outperforms the Feder-Ram model, and we provide some explanations for this result. In addition, our results suggest that military expenditure has a positive effect on economic growth within the UK, implying that the decision to reduce defence spending may have been detrimental to the UK economy.","PeriodicalId":509287,"journal":{"name":"Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy","volume":"41 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141110889","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Indra de Soysa, Henning Finseraas, K. Vadlamannati
{"title":"Group Grievances, Opportunity, and the Onset of Civil War: Some Theory and Tests of Competing Mechanisms, 1990–2017","authors":"Indra de Soysa, Henning Finseraas, K. Vadlamannati","doi":"10.1515/peps-2023-0053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2023-0053","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Recent scholarship claims that group grievances due to political exclusion and discrimination drive civil wars. The grievance perspective suggests that socio-psychological factors allow groups to overcome collective action problems. We argue that the grievance perspective (over)focuses on the ends and not means, which are critical to explain how groups survive state sanction, allowing contention to escalate to civil war. We suggest that inclusive economic governance reduces investment in state-evading infrastructures for quotidian economic reasons, leading to the buildup of rebellion-specific capital. Physical and human infrastructures of state evasion form the logistical bases for survival against state sanction. Our analyses show that group-grievance-generating political factors are poorer predictors of civil war compared with economic freedoms measured as free-market friendly policies and the private ownership of economies, which should reduce economic rents accruing to state-evading shadow markets. Our results are robust to several alternative models, data, and estimating method. Theory that ignores the means explain the main causes of costly violence only partially, or mistake symptom for cause. Freedom and inclusiveness, which should reduce grievances, are intrinsically valuable, but they are hard to obtain when violence is waged successfully for more narrower ends.","PeriodicalId":509287,"journal":{"name":"Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy","volume":"56 39","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140357232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why Americans Support Strict Counterterrorism Measures: Examining the Relationship between Concern about Terrorism and Public Support for Counterterrorism","authors":"Sungil Han, Wukki Kim, Quinn Gordon","doi":"10.1515/peps-2023-0056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2023-0056","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 After 9/11, contemporary debates on security often place civil liberties and security at opposite ends of the same spectrum, requiring the loss of one for the maintenance of the other. In addition, public concerns about terrorism determine or at least color public perception about government counterterrorism activities. Thus, the current study empirically examines factors influencing the public’s perception of government activities that may infringe upon individual rights, focusing on the effects of concern about terrorism. For this study we use data collected in World Value Survey (WVS) pertaining to respondents from the U.S. The results of a series of regression analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) indicate that public concern about terrorism is positively associated with support for counterterrorism activities. Moreover, other factors including satisfaction with democracy, community membership and trust in the government are found to play an important role in explaining public support for counterterrorism activities.","PeriodicalId":509287,"journal":{"name":"Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy","volume":"97 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140377315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conflict Under Incapacitation and Revenge: A Game-Theoretic Exploration","authors":"Puja Mukherjee","doi":"10.1515/peps-2023-0058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2023-0058","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In real life, winning a conflict sometimes does not end the conflict. Revenge motivations can stay and provide momentum to the conflict, thus leading to further escalation of the conflict. This is known as the value effect or vengeance effect of revenge. However, the presence of revenge can lead to de-escalation of the conflict out of self-deterrence and sometimes retaliation out of revenge is not possible if the combatant is incapacitated. Hence, the impact of revenge on the level of violence is a priori not clear. This paper is an attempt to answer that question. Using a two-period game of conflict this paper tries to show how desire and capabilities of the combatants to exact revenge can influence the intensity of the conflict. This paper shows the following: how the strategies of the combatants are influenced by the value effect of revenge, self-deterrence and incapacitation of the combatants; how the stronger combatant is in a favourable position in the conflict and can prevent its opponent from going into second period conflict out of revenge; when the combatants are equally strong the intensity of the conflict starts falling with time. It also lays out some real-life conflicts and existing empirical work to support the results.","PeriodicalId":509287,"journal":{"name":"Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy","volume":"67 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140424333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Analyzing the Tripartite Relationship Among Public Debt, Economic Growth, and Political Risks: A Panel VAR Approach","authors":"Abderrazek Ben Hamouda","doi":"10.1515/peps-2023-0054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2023-0054","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study examines the triangular relationship between public debt, economic growth, and political risks, shedding light on the complex underlying dynamics of these factors. Using a Panel Vector Autoregressive (PVAR) model, we analyze this relationship from multiple angles across 117 countries. The study considers the impact of different political regimes and income levels, recognizing the importance of diverse economic and political contexts in shaping these interactions. The results reveal varied responses to public debt based on the political regime, highlighting that authoritarian systems, imperfect democracies, and full democracies exhibit distinct reactions. Additionally, the study underscores the influence of income levels on the relationship between public debt and economic growth. A balanced and comprehensive approach to public debt management is recommended, with an emphasis on political stability, transparency in political institutions, and economic diversification. Policymakers are advised to consider the duration of shocks to promote sustainable economic growth and fiscal health.","PeriodicalId":509287,"journal":{"name":"Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy","volume":"93 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139817015","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Analyzing the Tripartite Relationship Among Public Debt, Economic Growth, and Political Risks: A Panel VAR Approach","authors":"Abderrazek Ben Hamouda","doi":"10.1515/peps-2023-0054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2023-0054","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study examines the triangular relationship between public debt, economic growth, and political risks, shedding light on the complex underlying dynamics of these factors. Using a Panel Vector Autoregressive (PVAR) model, we analyze this relationship from multiple angles across 117 countries. The study considers the impact of different political regimes and income levels, recognizing the importance of diverse economic and political contexts in shaping these interactions. The results reveal varied responses to public debt based on the political regime, highlighting that authoritarian systems, imperfect democracies, and full democracies exhibit distinct reactions. Additionally, the study underscores the influence of income levels on the relationship between public debt and economic growth. A balanced and comprehensive approach to public debt management is recommended, with an emphasis on political stability, transparency in political institutions, and economic diversification. Policymakers are advised to consider the duration of shocks to promote sustainable economic growth and fiscal health.","PeriodicalId":509287,"journal":{"name":"Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy","volume":"132 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139876708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rationality of the Terrorist Group and Government’s Policy: A Game Theoretic Approach","authors":"Aishwarya Harichandan","doi":"10.1515/peps-2023-0030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2023-0030","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The two ideas of the rationality of terrorist organisations and the costly leader game are used in this paper to construct a game theoretic model. It is an addition to the literature on terrorism and leader-follower games, in which the government and a terrorist organisation are the two players. Terrorist group can be rational or irrational. In case it is rational, it does the cost-benefit analysis and is open to negotiation. Only in this case, the government chooses to not spend on counter-terrorist measures. The irrational group has lexicographic preferences, which means that it prefers a successful attack to attract attention and recruits at the beginning or finish of its operation. Consequently, it is assumed that the irrational group will always attack. the irrational terrorist organisation has the option of either choosing not to mimic the rational group or choosing to do so at a psychological cost. Although the irrational group dislikes imitation. It seeks to duplicate the rational group so that the government withdraws and cuts back on spending on counter-terrorism. A costly leader model is set up in the paper, where the government can incur a cost to gather information about the type of terrorist group. In this framework, the paper provides policy prescriptions concerning counter-terrorist measures that the government should take in case the type of terrorist group being rational or irrational is unknown and it highlights the importance of intelligence.","PeriodicalId":509287,"journal":{"name":"Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy","volume":"118 14","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139596669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Two Against One: Deterrence in the Triad","authors":"F. Zagare","doi":"10.1515/peps-2023-0050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2023-0050","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay explores a deterrence relationship between one defender and two challengers that are interconnected game-theoretically but are otherwise acting independently. In the double deterrence game model, the primary challenger makes the first move, defender, the second, and the secondary challenger makes its move only after the defender and the primary challenger have made their choices. In other words, the threat of the secondary challenger is both latent and contingent. There are four types of defenders, and three types of the two challengers. These preference assumptions define 36 distinct strategic environments, or games. These games are analyzed under both complete and incomplete information. The results are highly sensitive to the specific combination of player types. Deterrence is most likely to succeed when a defender’s threat is highly credible, and to fail when it is low. The secondary challenger is most likely to have an impact on play only at intermediate levels of the defender’s and the primary challenger’s credibility. Assuming a rising challenger, or a declining defender, or both, a danger zone will exist just prior to, or immediately after, the primary challenger has achieved parity with the defender, that is, when a balance of capabilities exists. The principal aim of a defender of the status quo facing two challengers acting independently should be on preventing a challenge by its primary opponent. This conclusion is robust no matter what configuration of player types one assumes.","PeriodicalId":509287,"journal":{"name":"Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy","volume":"8 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139124785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}