Details
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 103052 |
| Journal | Journal of development economics |
| Volume | 162 |
| Early online date | 18 Jan 2023 |
| Publication status | Published - May 2023 |
Abstract
We show that the proliferation of armed groups increases the amount of organized political violence. The natural death of a tribal leader provides quasi-experimental variation in the number of armed groups across districts in Pakistan. Employing event study designs and IV-regressions allows us to isolate the effect of the number of armed groups on political violence from locational fundamentals of conflict, e.g., local financing and recruiting opportunities or government capacity. In line with the idea that armed groups compete for resources and supporters, we estimate semi-elasticities of an additional armed group on political violence ranging from 50 to 60%. Introducing a novel proxy for government counter-insurgency efforts enables us to show that this increase is driven by insurgency groups and not the state. Moreover, we show that groups splitting-up compensate for their capacity loss by switching to non-capital intensive attacks.
Keywords
- Armed groups, Competition, Conflict, Double-counting, Political violence, Terrorism
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Sciences(all)
- Development
- Economics, Econometrics and Finance(all)
- Economics and Econometrics
Sustainable Development Goals
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In: Journal of development economics, Vol. 162, 103052, 05.2023.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Armed groups
T2 - Competition and political violence
AU - Gassebner, Martin
AU - Schaudt, Paul
AU - Wong, Melvin H.L.
PY - 2023/5
Y1 - 2023/5
N2 - We show that the proliferation of armed groups increases the amount of organized political violence. The natural death of a tribal leader provides quasi-experimental variation in the number of armed groups across districts in Pakistan. Employing event study designs and IV-regressions allows us to isolate the effect of the number of armed groups on political violence from locational fundamentals of conflict, e.g., local financing and recruiting opportunities or government capacity. In line with the idea that armed groups compete for resources and supporters, we estimate semi-elasticities of an additional armed group on political violence ranging from 50 to 60%. Introducing a novel proxy for government counter-insurgency efforts enables us to show that this increase is driven by insurgency groups and not the state. Moreover, we show that groups splitting-up compensate for their capacity loss by switching to non-capital intensive attacks.
AB - We show that the proliferation of armed groups increases the amount of organized political violence. The natural death of a tribal leader provides quasi-experimental variation in the number of armed groups across districts in Pakistan. Employing event study designs and IV-regressions allows us to isolate the effect of the number of armed groups on political violence from locational fundamentals of conflict, e.g., local financing and recruiting opportunities or government capacity. In line with the idea that armed groups compete for resources and supporters, we estimate semi-elasticities of an additional armed group on political violence ranging from 50 to 60%. Introducing a novel proxy for government counter-insurgency efforts enables us to show that this increase is driven by insurgency groups and not the state. Moreover, we show that groups splitting-up compensate for their capacity loss by switching to non-capital intensive attacks.
KW - Armed groups
KW - Competition
KW - Conflict
KW - Double-counting
KW - Political violence
KW - Terrorism
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85147264728&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103052
DO - 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103052
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85147264728
VL - 162
JO - Journal of development economics
JF - Journal of development economics
SN - 0304-3878
M1 - 103052
ER -