A Dynamic Model of the Spread of Intrastate War

Year 2020, Volume: 9 Issue: 1, 23 - 59, 20.12.2019

Ali Fisunoğlu

https://doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.616008

Abstract

The spread of intrastate war has
gained increasing prominence, especially in the recent past. This paper studies
the spread of intrastate war as a result of another intrastate war in a
neighboring country using a system dynamics modeling approach. The model
employed is a modification of the SIR, a spread of disease model taken from
epidemiology. Revising the SIR model with relevant political and economic
variables, the model seeks to explain the mechanism through which an intrastate
conflict is spread from an "infected" country to a
"susceptible" country. Although diffusion and contagion of civil wars
have been widely examined in the past, a dynamic modeling approach has not been
adequately used in this area. Consistent with the existing literature, the results
of the model suggest that refugees are a means to carry the conflict disease
from the initial country by disturbing economic and social dynamics of the host
whereas political capacity acts as the immune system, reducing the likelihood
of conflict contagion. The results of the simulations, obtained using
theoretical parameters, are mainly consistent with the expectations.

Keywords

Intrastate conflict, refugees, state capacity, diffusion of war, system dynamics models

References

• Altmann, Michael. “Susceptible-Infected-Removed Epidemic Models with Dynamic Partnerships.” Journal of Mathematical Biology 33, no. 6 (1995): 661–75.
• Barro, Robert J., and Xavier Sala-i Martin. “Converge.” Journal of Political Economy 100, no. 2 (1992): 223–51.
• Benson, Michelle, and Jacek Kugler. “Power Parity, Democracy and the Severity of Internal Violence.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 42, no. 2 (1998): 196–209.
• Bosker, Maarten, and Joppe de Ree. “Ethnicity and the Spread of Civil War.” Journal of Development Economics 108 (2014): 206–21.
• Braithwaite, Alex. “Location, Location, Location… Identifying Hot spots of International Conflict.” International Interactions 31, no. 3 (2007): 251–73.
• ———. “Resisting Infection: How State Capacity Conditions Conflict Contagion.” Journal of Peace Research 47, no. 3 (2010): 311–19.
• Brannan, James R., and William E. Boyce. Differential Equations: An Introduction to Modern Methods and Applications. 3rd ed. New York: Wiley, 2015.
• Buhaug, Halvard, and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch. “Contagion or Confusion? Why Conflicts Cluster in Space.” International Studies Quarterly 52, no. 2 (2008): 215–33.
• Cederman, Lars–Erik, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, and Halvard Buhaug. Inequality, Grievances, and Civil War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
• Danneman, Nathan, and Emily Hencken Ritter. “Contagious Rebellion and Preemptive Repression.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 58, no. 2 (2014): 254–79.
• Fearon, James D. “Commitment Problems and the Spread of Ethnic Conflict.” In The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, edited by David A. Lake and Donald S. Rothchild, 107–26. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
• Fearon, James D., and David D. Laitin. “Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War.” The American Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (2003): 75–90.
• Feenstra, Robert C., Robert Inklaar and Marcel P. Timmer. “The Next Generation of the Penn World Table.” American Economic Review 105, no. 10 (2015): 3150–82.
• Forsberg, Erika. “Diffusion in the Study of Civil Wars: A Cautionary Tale.” International Studies Review 16, no. 2 (2014): 188–98.
• Hegre, Havard. “The Duration and Termination of Civil War.” Journal of Peace Research 41, no. 3 (2004): 243–52.
• Kadera, Kelly M. “Transmission, Barriers, and Constraints: A Dynamic Model of the Spread of War.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 42, no. 3 (1998): 367–87.
• Kermack, William Ogilvy, and Anderson Gray McKendrick. “A Contribution to the Mathematical Theory of Epidemics.” Proceedings of the Royal Society A.: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 115 no. 772 (1927): 700–21.
• Konaev, Margarita, and Kirstin J. H. Brathwaite. “Dangerous Neighborhoods: State Behavior and the Spread of Ethnic Conflict.” Conflict Management and Peace Science Forthcoming (2019): 1–22.
• Kugler, Jacek, and Ronald L. Tammen. The Performance of Nations. Boulder: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012.
• Kuran, Timur. “Ethnic Dissimilation and International Diffusion.” The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, edited by David A. Lake and Donald S. Rothchild, 35–60. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
• Marshall, Monty G. Major Episodes of Political Violence: 1946-2016. Maryland: Center for Systemic Peace, 2017.
• Marshall, Monty G., Keith Jaggers and Ted R. Gurr. Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2016. Maryland: Center for Systemic Peace, 2017.
• Murdoch, James C., and Todd Sandler. “Economic Growth, Civil Wars, and Spatial Spillovers.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 46, no. 1 (2002): 91–110.
• Phillips, Brian J. “Civil War, Spillover, and Neighbors’ Military Spending.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 32, no. 4 (2015): 425–42.
• Rustad, Siri Aas, et al. “All Conflict is Local: Modeling Sub-National Variation in Civil Conflict Risk.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 28, no. 1 (2011): 15–40.
• Salehyan, Idean, and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch. “Refugees and the Spread of Civil War.” International Organization 60, no. 2 (2006): 335–66.
• The World Bank. World Development Indicators. 2018. Accessed May 20, 2018. http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators.
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Population Statistics. n.d. Accessed May 20, 2018. http://popstats.unhcr.org/en/overview.
• Weaver, Mary Anne. Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003.