Good Example Of Quantitative Methods Article Review

The impact of coups d’e´tat on civil war duration

The purpose of the paper is to consider and estimate how coups d’e´tat influence the duration civil war conflicts because most of the previous articles on the same topic tend to omit coupes, due to recognizing them as a special type of conflict. The author’s hypothesis is that coups indeed have an impact of shocks that are peace-inducing, mostly by working through the mechanism that is credible. The article examines the successful and beneficial influence of coups on civil war duration 1950 to 2009.
Therefore the author of the article intends to continue vein research by concentrating on the influence that coups d’état can made during the civil wars. He researchers whether scholars should deal with coups while classes if civil war duration and in what way the most successful coups can impact civil war duration as well.
According to Thyne C (2015) “coups are dramatic event that can occur during civil wars. Coups may also provide the initial spark to a civil war” (p.2). He also states that they are not the same as civil wars regardless of coups’ long-term consequences and bloodiness.
The process of bargaining between the government and the opposition can be altered by dramatic coups events, thus the final results suggested a wide range of different possibilities that coups can facilitative to alleviate the commitment issues and the information that eventually plague bargaining process.
In conclusion I would like to add that the empirical results were shown to support this point. The issue whether coups should reduce civil wars by solving commitment problems or information was studied in deep. An eventual analysis it was suggested that coups mostly work by solving problems of commitment that become the most conspicuous in wars later. The study included recommendations from both the literatures on civil wars and coups because as assumed before these terms are totally different.
It was concluded that civil conflict context is a fruitful area that requires more study; therefore coups can have not only negative but also positive political outcomes. Undoubtedly coups have negative effects among which is democratization spurring and eventual harm to fledgling democracies.
It was found that the President Nixon spurred the coup against the President of Guatemala. This action was eventually beneficial for the United States because its conclusion was a negative backlash against US economic interests and democracy. Therefore in order to understand coups correctly as a tool used in foreign policy further work should occur. Concluding Thyne C. (2015) states that “I argue that continuing civil wars are unique situations in which the shocks provided by coups can help bring an end to violence” (p.17).

Domestic institutions, leader tenure and the duration of civil war

Some civil conflicts finish sooner than others, thus take much less time for horrible consequences. The article addresses and discusses the extant theory whether factors that are exogenous, which are third parties and resources, can be a reason to exacerbation of the commitment problem encountered belligerents.
Accordingly the authors mainly focus on explanations of the civil conflict duration and reasons of it. They raise a hypothesis that the tenure of a state’s leader has an impact on duration of a conflict. Therefore it is assumed that leaders that are long-tenured have a predictable reputation of a policy. Specifically, this reason lead to the opposition groups which decided not to bargain peacefully but to fight the state’s leader. A robust data support was found.
It was estimated that state leaders will form a wide range of policies and thus take different actions that clearly proves any assumption that view the state as unitary and static actor.
Thus it is possible to distinct policy reputations to be maintained and developed under their control. Such reputations have two different sides they can either hinder or facilitate conflict onset, maintenance of trade relations and finally agreement formation.
Therefore factors that are leader-specific have a great impact on the process of bargaining between the rebels and state leader thus finally can influence on the civil conflict duration. This article mostly argues the previous article’s conclusions and assumptions.
Unlike to Thyne’s (2012) hypothesis, the authors assume that extended leader tenure is actually a reason to the increase in the duration of civil conflicts because the reason that rebels fight against the state is exactly because the current state leader has no will to accommodate thus react on demands of the rebels. Therefore this particular situation spurs rebels to keep on fighting with only one demand which is removing the state leader.
The other suggestion that authors made is that it is possible to control, reverse and moderate effect of tenure due to the presence of strong and robust political institutions which make it hard to reverse policies that were enacted thus break the law and also limit the ability of the state leader to act unilaterally and authoritarian. According to the article these mechanisms facilitates in keeping under control any settlement that can be reached.
Thus allowing and showing rebels that it is possible to negotiate during the civil war and moreover almost any deal is possible to be reached and thus is like to be persisted. It was also proved that there are mechanisms existed today that keep and control a disliked state leader when reaching any deal with the rebels.
Uzonyi G. & Well M. (2015) state that “ these hypotheses are confirmed through a Cox proportional hazard model combining conflict data from the Uppsala/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset (ACD) and leader tenure data from the Archigos database” (p. 2).
Concluding the article, state leaders obviously vary in their skill to generate credibility in their bargains that have a goal to finish the civil conflict. Nevertheless, whether the rebels will believe the state leaders’ commitments depends on the institutions and contexts under which such support is made and whether the rebels will believe the credibility established.

On malaria and the duration of civil War

It is widely believed that distance from capital cities and other geographic factors for instance rugged terrain prolong civil conflicts duration by enabling groups such as rebels to resist a complete defeat. The author of the article discusses reasons which have an impact and thus can prolong civil conflicts. It is prevalence of malaria that is actually boosts defensive capabilities of rebels hence enhances duration of civil war.
thereby ensuring that the costs of malaria will often be higher among government troop deployments” (p. 1).
Secondly it was estimated that the government troops are more likely to be prone to spreading and contracting malaria because of being rotated in and out of conflict zones all the time hence having a higher exposure rate of the immune absence. Finally civil conflicts can also be prolonged by malaria indirectly for instance by facilitating to reach a socio-geographic environment that is conductive to insurgence.
According to the article these three complementary factors boost rebel troop’s skills to prolong the duration of civil wars and eventually to resist defeat by government troops. The author came to the following conclusion by examining and analyzing the duration of civil conflicts and thus found robust commitment for a prolonging effect of malaria on civil wars.
A theoretical argument is developed in the article which suggests that malaria prevalence indeed has influence on prolonging civil conflicts. Particularly the author theorized that its prevalence affects the capabilities of defense of rebel troops. Accordingly malaria when present is anticipated to reduce rebel troops abilities so the eventually avoid total defeat which leads to prolonging the duration of civil conflict.
In conclusion it was established that geographic malaria prevalence enhances the duration of civil conflicts significantly especially for those civil conflicts in which government troops are much stronger than rebel troops. The researchers have found that future and actually present civil conflicts are prone to be ameliorated because of the eradication of malaria which by the way requires high societal costs. It is clear from the article that it is of paramount importance to take malaria into a serious account because it would help to improve our understanding and knowledge on many historical cases which are for instance the FARC rebellion in Colombia and the War between the United States and Vietnam in addition there are other countries across the world with both successful and unsuccessful independence movements. The results suggested that governments encountered rebel groups in regions where malaria is widely spread will be most successful in fast finishing these rebels troops when more diffuse is more embedded and utilized by them.

Sustaining the peace after ethnic civil wars

According to the article it was found that humanitarian consequences, such as genocide, displacement and a lot of deaths and the intensity of the conflict do seem to have a great impact on the duration of post-conflict peace. The authors make the following point that according to their findings the way ethnic groups communicate with each other after a conflict the level of violence during the conflict is much less important than the fact of them interacting. The possible consequence of ethnic wars is a co-existence of both ethnic and peace. It was argued in the article that ethnic groups have an opportunity to exist together in one country following the end of an ethnic conflict.
It was estimated that repressive state policies not only depress the chances for sustaining the aftermath of peace but also increase the possibility of initial conflict onset. Civil wars can reinforce political ethnic identities and deepen local tensions of ethnic groups. Therefore the fear of ethnic tensions can be alleviated not only by institutions that lay groundwork for peaceful coexistence but also by the government that provides with specifically aimed and careful policies.
It is clear from the article that policies which put in place institutional guarantees for participation that is political and which avoid discrimination as well can eventually help to diminish the occur of a new conflict. Mostly this is possible because such policies contribute to de-politicize ethnic tensions. Also on the other side when governmental policies do discriminate ethnic groups members who participated in the civil conflict, possibilities for the longer peace reduces moreover the risk of another conflict to occur enhances.
In conclusion the authors make a point, according to the previous findings of their research, that it is possible to peace exist between ethnic groups even after particularly violent civil conflicts. According to their analysis this is actually what usually happens after the conflict finishes. It was also found that both economic and political discrimination are the strongest factors which decide whether the peace will be prolonged for a long time or not. Concluding and considering all the facts state policies that are of the discriminatory character against exclusionary institutions and aggrieved ethnic groups enhance the risk of conflict to happen again.

Does Warfare Matter? Severity, Duration, and Outcomes of Civic Wars

It matters whether a civil conflict is fought as a symmetric nonconventional, irregular or conventional war because the technologies of rebellion influence the final aftermath, duration and severity of a conflict. It was estimated that the irregular wars last much longer that all other types of wars, in the same time those that are conventional used to be more severe, lethal and robust in terms of lethality on battlefield. Civil conflicts are changing constantly because not only are they more likely to finish with the settlement between armed rebels and governments but also are becoming deadlier and shorter on the battlefield and moreover more challenging for local institutions.
Analysis conducted during the researches confirmed according to Balcells L. & Kalyvas S.N. (2014) “the relevance of technologies of rebellion the relevance of technologies of rebellion as an omitted variable that could be gainfully incorporated into the study of civil conflicts” (p.1411). The rebellion technologies capture two vital dimensions of civil conflicts which are the particular way of interaction between rebels and government and the relative military capacity of rebel groups and states. Both of these dimensions not only contribute to a combination of constraints and resources but also reflect in the rebel groups’ social profile.
Our understanding of a few dependent variables of the literature on civil conflicts is improved because of rebellion technology. These variables are battlefield severity, conflict aftermath, civilian victimization and duration.
Concluding technologies of rebellion play a vital role because they also supply a valuable but new angle from which to approach civil wars. Moreover these technologies also provide with expectation of the possibility of the new evolution of civil war to occur in the foreseeable future.
Accordingly civil conflicts are more likely to finish with at least some kind of compromise between the rebellions and government. The micro and macro research programs should also be analyzed for further theoretical development.
Finally states and societies are affected by civil conflicts in several ways. Conflicts which are irregular contribute to reinforce ultimately the places or even countries they invade. Thus irregular warfare is one of many reasons on severity, duration and final outcome of civil conflicts all over the world. Balcells L. & Kalyvas S.N. (2014) also state that “irregular conflicts are most likely the ‘‘dirtiest’’ civil conflicts of all, causing endless humanitarian damage and targeting civilians” (p.1407).
It was also found that conventional conflicts tend to be lethal and much shorter on the battlefield comparing to conflicts that are irregular. Balcells L. & Kalyvas S.N. (2014) emphasize that “the narrowly opportunistic motivations that some researchers have emphasized as a necessary component in the formation of all armed groups may vary systematically with particular technologies of rebellion” (p.1393).
Also, it is clear that irregular conflicts tend to be dependent on the attitude of locals. The researches carried out show that irregular wars last significantly longer than other types. Therefore it was explored that rebellion technologies have a great impact on the civil conflict patterns which are macro-level. Eventually, irregular wars are more likely to contribute to higher levels of victimization of civilians.

References

Thyne C. (2015). The impact of coups d’e´tat on civil war duration,1-25;
Uzonyi G. & Well M. (2015). Domestic institutions, leader tenure and the duration of civil war,1-17;
Bagozzi B.E. (2014). On malaria and the duration of civil War, 1-27;
Gurses M. &Rost N. (2013). Sustaining the peace after ethnic civil wars , 469-491;
Balcells L. & Kalyvas S.N. (2014). Does Warfare Matter? Severity, Duration, and Outcomes of Civic Wars, 1390-1418.