New Publication in ISQ

This paper by Luis L. Schenoni and co-authors delves into the intriguing historical phenomenon of how states in the Americas have managed to mitigate the escalation of their disputes into full-blown wars, instead keeping conflicts confined to lower levels of severity over the past century. By tracing the trajectory of interstate conflict severity in the region, the study proposes a compelling correlation with the establishment of key norms, particularly the principles of territorial integrity and non-intervention. Central to this analysis is the visionary perspective of Carlos Saavedra Lamas, the recipient of the 1936 Nobel Peace Prize, whose pivotal role in ending the Chaco War underscores the significance of these norms in maintaining peace. According to the paper, since a region-wide agreement on these norms in the juncture of the 1933 Montevideo Conference, peace has crystalized in the Americas, setting an example for the rest of the world.

Decades of political science research have established that territorial disputes and disputes over the legitimacy of governments are some of the major causes of interstate war. If we look at the world today, international conflict continues to be driven fundamentally by intervention and territorial conquest. The War in Ukraine is a clear example. Yet, how were states in the Western Hemisphere able to forbit that type of violence? The Americas were once plagued by interstate warfare, yet in the 1930s underwent a remarkable transformation characterized by the dwindling frequency, duration, and severity of such conflicts. This paper seeks to unravel the enigma behind this shift, focusing on the emergence and consolidation of a unique norm-complex within the region—comprising territorial integrity, non-intervention, and peaceful conflict resolution—which served as a bulwark against the scourge of interstate war. 

Drawing on insights from Latin American entrepreneurship post-independence and the ideals of Pan-Americanism, this study elucidates the gradual crystallization of the norm-complex. The signing of the Saavedra Lamas Treaty in the early 1930s stands as a watershed moment, marking the formal codification of these principles. Through meticulous analysis, the paper elucidates the process by which norm complexes develop, thrive, and ultimately shape the trajectory of interstate relations.  Employing a multifaceted approach encompassing statistical analysis and within-case counterfactuals, the paper delves into the evolution and far-reaching effects of the Latin American norm-complex. By charting the decline of interstate conflict severity alongside the acceptance and institutionalization of these norms, the study offers compelling evidence of their efficacy in fostering regional stability and peace. 

New Publication in International Security

Latin America, which is the most violent region in the world in terms of homicide rates, has increasingly militarized its approach to fighting crime. Is this strategy efficient? Is it sustainable? And what are the costs? In a recent article with International Security, C&C member and UCL faculty Luis L. Schenoni joins forces with the Harold C. and Alice T. Nowlin Regents Professor in Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, Raul L. Madrid, to  analyze how South America went from the most politically violent region in the world in the nineteenth century to a stable one by the turn of the twentieth century.

The data for the analysis comes from the Latin American Revolts Project (LARP), funded in the UK by the British Academy and the UCL Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy. The project identifies revolts in Latin America since 1830 and manually codes them based on primary and secondary historical sources. Prior to its UCL-phase, LARP had identified 1,500 revolts—making it the most complete dataset on political violence in the region for the period 1830-1930—and gathered data on various aspects of these revolts, including their objectives, duration, rebel group size, casualties, and rebel aims. The International Security article focused on the data for South America from 1830 to 1930.

Since Dr. Schenoni’s arrival to UCL, LARP has expanded beyond 1930 and to other regions such as Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean.  LARP now counts two other principal investigators, Paola Galano Toro from ETH Zurich and Guillermo Kreiman from Universidad Carlos III, who met Dr. Schenoni at UCL as a presenter at our annual C&C PhD Workshop and as a visiting doctoral researcher, respectively. Since 2021 they have coordinated large teams of students from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Argentina (where Dr. Schenoni is an Affiliated Professor) to contribute to the expansion of what is expected to become the dataset on political violence in Latin America with the largest historical coverage. The dataset is also expected to become a tour de force in our conceptualization of political violence by introducing and operationalising the novel concept of revolt.

The preliminary analysis of the dataset presented in the International Studies article focuses on South America from 1830 to 1930 and underscores the crucial role of bolstering military and security forces in deterring domestic political violence. Historical data demonstrates that the expansion and professionalization of the military during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries significantly decreased revolts by non-state actors. This decline in revolts correlates strongly with indicators of military strength and professionalization, suggesting that a capable military acts as a deterrent to rebellion. Increases in military strength, such as troop numbers or the establishment of military academies, are associated with a notable decrease in the likelihood of revolts.

However, the sustainability and rationale of militarization strategies are called into question nowadays. While nineteenth-century South American states could afford to invest heavily in their armed forces due to economic growth and international tensions, such conditions are absent today. Maintaining dramatic increases in armed forces may prove challenging without sustained economic growth and external threats. Additionally, contemporary violence in the region is predominantly criminal rather than political, posing different challenges for militaries ill-suited to combating dispersed criminal gangs. Furthermore, current militarization trends risk undermining democracy, as politicized militaries may infringe upon civil rights and contribute to democratic backsliding.  While militarization played a role in transitioning from chaos to order in the nineteenth century, contemporary dynamics necessitate caution in evaluating militaristic strategies. If pursued, prioritizing the professionalization of security forces and ensuring military neutrality in political matters are paramount.

Ultimately, understanding the nineteenth century in Latin America sheds light on the sustainability and risks associated with current militarization trends, advocating for a nuanced approach that carefully considers structural and institutional factors.

6th Conflict & Change PhD Worksop 2024 – Growing the Community

The 6th Conflict & Change PhD Workshop was a great success! 27 students presented their regionally, methodologically, and thematically varied PhD projects at UCL on 11-12 March 2024. Participants came from more than 15 different institutions across London, the UK, Europe, and beyond. The institutions included the London School of Economics and Political Science, Cornell University, Peace Research Institute Oslo, Uppsala University, University of Amsterdam, Hertie School of Governance, University of the Bundeswehr Munich, University of Oxford, University of Kent, University of Cambridge, University College London, among others. We are delighted to see the great interest in the workshop and how much it has established itself as a point for exchange and community building for early career researchers working on conflict and societal change in different disciplines of the social sciences and beyond. This year also marked the first time that former attendees joined the workshop audience as ‘alumni’. In addition to that, many of the participants were first-time attendees, broadening the outreach of the Conflict & Change cluster and the workshop in particular.

The first workshop day was kicked off through an insightful keynote by this year’s keynote speaker Anastasia Shesterinina. Professor Shesterinina, director of the Centre for the Comparative Study of Civil War at the University of York, shared her personal research trajectory with the audience during her  talk on ‘Grappling with human experience in civil war studies: A research trajectory’. Shesterinina reflected on research designs before and during fieldwork, the researcher’s positionality, and ethical considerations throughout the research process. She also underscored the importance of community building and exchange for early career researchers, in particular. We are grateful for her contribution – also as a discussant later on.

The workshop continued with the first panel titled Identity, Locality, and Strategy in Mobilisation. The panel featured presentations on the relationships between groups in contentious movements under repression, the link between online and offline mobilisation in an age of social media and the (growing) importance of large urban centres for diffusion of protest, as well as the paths from riots to escalation and organized violence. Professor Anastasia Shesterinina and Dr. Manuel Vogt engaged with the projects as discussants and provided insightful feedback and suggestions for the next steps.

After the lunch break, the second panel on Rents and Cultural Roots as Tools of Mobilization shed light on additional drivers of institutional and extra-institutional mobilisation. The presentations comprised the investigation of rent distribution and electoral violence in Nigeria, a re-conceptualisation of religious parties, economic drivers behind side-taking during Libya’s wave of mobilisation in 2011, and varying forms of mobilisation of tribes in Iraq. The panellists benefitted greatly from the expertise that Dr. Adam Harris and Professor Phillip Ayoub shared with them as discussants on the panel.

To Control or To Be Controlled? Agency and Its Limits in a (Post)-Conflict Society was the title of the third panel that explored different aspects of rebel governance and return decisions of displaced people. The four papers looked at the role of civilians in rebel governance institutions and the impact this has on conflict, the instrumentalising of marriage rules as an expression of social control, the role of ideology in restraining sexual violence perpetrated by combatants, and the provision of security and its impact on the return of displaced people in South Sudan. Dr. Carl Müller-Crepon, visiting us from the London School of Economics and Political Science, as well as Dr. Johanna Amaya-Panche engaged closely with the projects as discussants.

The last panel of the first day looked at Authoritarianism, Repression and Resistance. Dr. Janina Beiser-McGrath and Professor Zeynep Bulutgil took the time to discuss the projects. The panellists discussed Franco’s authoritarian legacies for Spaniards’ tolerance of the police, the role of civil resistance in increasingly autocratic societies, fake news labels as a form of digital repression, and the impact of inter-ethic ties on the status of political groups in political institutions.

The second day started with a panel on Drivers, Characteristics, and Consequences of Protest and Unrest. Here, three of the panellists shared their ideas and results from surveys and survey experiments that concerned themselves with the effects and drivers of protest and its tactics. The projects looked at the impact of protests on polarization of supporters and opponents of the protesters, the impact of tactics on the approval of protest, and the meaning of international protest for protesting individuals. The fourth presentation, relatedly, looked at the impact of refugees on unrest within the host society. Professor Kristin Bakke and Dr. Luis Schenoni shared their insights and commented on the papers.

The sixth panel of the workshop was titled Building an Inclusive Society? Approaches to Displacement, Education, and Multi-Ethnicity and featured projects that looked at the implications of mass expansion of higher education, the potential effects of daughters and female siblings on the tolerance of gender norms in Africa, the potential of decentralisation policies for conflict mitigation in multi-ethnic states, and the unequal treatment of displaced people and refugees in contexts of humanitarian response. Dr. Marina Duque and Dr. Rod Abouharb served as discussants on the panel.

The last panel of the workshop offered projects that proposed new methodological innovations to tackle long-standing questions. The panel titled Spatial and Territorial Dimensions of Conflict featured presentations that looked at the role of borders for the duration of conflict, the changing elite identities in Alsace-Lorraine, the impact on natural disasters on territorial control, and the collection of new data on climate-related conflict through innovative NLP methods. Professor Nils Metternich and Professor Neil Mitchell offered their reflections on the projects as discussants.

Overall, the workshop was a great success. The participants were highly engaged throughout both days, making for high-quality panels and lots of opportunities for intellectual and personal exchange. We are grateful for the continuing generous support through the Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy without which this event would not be possible. We also thank the Institute of Advanced Studies for providing their space to host our workshop. This year’s workshop was organized by Yilin Su, Michael Jacobs, Giovanni Hollenweger, and Finn Klebe who are all part of the Conflict & Change research cluster and PhD Candidates in the Department of Political Science.