Dynamics of Conflict

by Francisco, Ronald A.

• ISBN13: 9780387752419
• ISBN10: 0387752412
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-12-01
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

The mechanisms of protest and revolution have been the subject of theoretical research for over a century, yet the lack of data has hindered the empirical validation of conflicting theories. In this book, the author presents a unique new set of sub-daily data from over thirty countries and seven civil wars and uses them to test two models of conflict, the predator-prey model and the competing species model. The dynamic nature of the data modelling and the novelty of the dataset make this work a unique contribution to the field of conflict research. Dynamics of Conflict will help to re-evaluate existing theories and chart a new course towards the formal and statistical modelling of conflict.

Author Biography

Ronald A. Francisco is a Professor in the DePartment of Political Science at the University of Kansas, where he teaches courses in Comparative Politics, Protest Revolution and the Politics of Western Europe. His research interests are primarily protest and repression. He also maintains a database coded from multiple sources with interval data on protest, coercion and collective action in 28 European countries from 1980 through 1995.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Problem Set	p. 1
Introduction	p. 1
A Summary of Objectives	p. 3
Model and Equilibrium Estimation	p. 4
Model of Choice I: Lotka-Volterra	p. 5
Model of Choice II: The Competing Species Model	p. 6
Model Identification	p. 7
Dynamic Estimation	p. 7
Mathematical Outcomes Arising in Estimation	p. 8
Institutional Theory	p. 9
The Dynamics of Conflict	p. 10
Bibliography	p. 10
The Dynamic Relationship Between Protest and Repression in Democratic Countries	p. 13
Introduction	p. 13
Salient Differences Among Formal Theorists	p. 14
Assumptions	p. 14
Cases	p. 14
The Relationship Between Protest and Repression in Differing Contexts	p. 15
When Does Protest Generate Repression?	p. 15
When Do Protest and Repression Interactively Accelerate Each Other?	p. 15
What Happens When Repression Is Absent?	p. 16
Analytic Results in Democratic Countries	p. 16
Survey of the West European Democracies and Illinois	p. 27
Discussion	p. 30
Bibliography	p. 31
The Dynamics of Protest and Repression in Dictatorships and Democratic Transitions	p. 33
Introduction	p. 33
Cases and the Context of Dictatorship	p. 34
Mobilization Under Dictatorship and Harsh Repression	p. 34
What Happens to Repression When Mobilization Grows to a High Magnitude?	p. 35
Empirical Results on Dictatorship Periods	p. 36
Empirical Results from Transition Periods	p. 43
Conclusion	p. 48
Bibliography	p. 49
Varied Dynamics of Bandwagon Mobilization	p. 51
Introduction	p. 51
Cases	p. 52
Results	p. 53
Discussion	p. 62
Bibliography	p. 64
Dynamics and Stability in Civil Wars	p. 65
Introduction	p. 65
The Cases	p. 67
The Data	p. 69
Models	p. 70
Results	p. 71
Discussion	p. 76
Bibliography	p. 78
Conclusion: Stability in Conflict	p. 81
Stability is the Norm	p. 81
Varieties of Repression in Democracies and Dictatorships	p. 82
Convergence in Estimations	p. 84
Correction of Time-Series Pathologies	p. 84
When Repression is Absent or Rare	p. 84
What Have We Learned?	p. 85
Bibliography	p. 85
Index	p. 87
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