Data Projects
Foundations of Rebel Group Emergence (FORGE) Dataset
(with Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham)
This data project examines the roots of rebellion by considering the characteristics and activities of "parent" organizations from which rebel groups emerged, as well as details about these rebel groups at the onset of conflict including their "birth" date, founding location, goals, ideology, and ethnic/religious foundations. We have collected information for all rebel organizations included in the Non-State Actor Dataset, which covers UCDP intrastate conflicts between 1946 and 2011. You can read more about FORGE and download the data here.
Anatomy of Resistance Campaigns (ARC) Dataset
(with Charles Butcher)
This project focuses on the connections between and organizational/compositional characteristics of actors involved in maximalist anti-government campaigns as well as the formal social organizations (political parties and movements, trade unions, religious groups, student organizations, etc.) that mobilize alongside those rebel groups and comprise nonviolent movements. You can read more about ARC and access the data (via Dataverse) here.
(with Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham)
This data project examines the roots of rebellion by considering the characteristics and activities of "parent" organizations from which rebel groups emerged, as well as details about these rebel groups at the onset of conflict including their "birth" date, founding location, goals, ideology, and ethnic/religious foundations. We have collected information for all rebel organizations included in the Non-State Actor Dataset, which covers UCDP intrastate conflicts between 1946 and 2011. You can read more about FORGE and download the data here.
Anatomy of Resistance Campaigns (ARC) Dataset
(with Charles Butcher)
This project focuses on the connections between and organizational/compositional characteristics of actors involved in maximalist anti-government campaigns as well as the formal social organizations (political parties and movements, trade unions, religious groups, student organizations, etc.) that mobilize alongside those rebel groups and comprise nonviolent movements. You can read more about ARC and access the data (via Dataverse) here.
PUBLICATIONS
Braithwaite, Jessica Maves and Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham. 2020. "When Organizations Rebel: Introducing the Foundations of Rebel Group Emergence (FORGE) Dataset." International Studies Quarterly, 64(1): 183-193.
Abstract: Scholars have spent decades investigating various sources of rebellion, from societal and institutional explanations to individual motivations to take up arms against one’s government. One element of the civil war process that has gone largely unstudied from a systematic perspective is the role pre-existing organizations in society play in forming rebel groups, principally due to a lack of comparable data on the origins of these armed actors across conflicts. In an effort to fill this gap, we present the Foundations of Rebel Group Emergence (FORGE) dataset, which offers information on the “parent” organizations and the founding processes that gave rise to rebel groups active between 1946 and 2011 in intrastate conflicts included in the Uppsala Conflict Data Program’s Armed Conflict Database. The new information on rebel foundations introduced in this research note should help scholars to reconsider and newly explore a variety of conditions before, during, and after civil wars including rebel-civilian interactions, structures of rebel organizations, bargaining processes with the government, participation in post-war governance, and more.
Replication Data for Braithwaite & Cunningham (2020)
Supplemental Material for Braithwaite & Cunningham (2020)
Braithwaite, Jessica Maves and Amanda A. Licht. 2020. "The Effect of Civil Society Organizations and Democracy Aid on Civil War Onset." Journal of Conflict Resolution, 64(6): 1095-1120.
Abstract: A growing literature identifies both situations where aid promotes peace and those where aid encourages civil violence. Specifically, research shows lower probability of conflict onset in democratizing states receiving high levels of democracy assistance. However, theorizing has overlooked important actors that have agency in spending such aid: civil society organizations (CSOs). We posit that the status of civil society within recipient states conditions the effect of democracy aid inflows on conflict probability. Using an instrumental variables approach to account for endogeneity between aid allocation and conflict propensity, we find that democracy aid is destabilizing when directed to environments where CSOs are weak and poorly connected to the regime, and thus are less willing and able to seek change through peaceful means. When civil society is stronger and more institutionalized, however, larger democracy aid flows pose less threat.
Replication Data available via Dataverse (here)
Alex Braithwaite and Jessica Maves Braithwaite. "Restricting Opposition in Elections and Terrorist Violence." Forthcoming at Terrorism and Political Violence.
Abstract: We offer a novel argument to explain how the use of terrorist violence is affected by the quality of elections. Opposition actors often decide whether and how to participate in elections. Governments influence these decisions by controlling who can contest elections and, by doing so, they influence the access to public support that opponents stand to gain from participating or fighting. "Unrestricted" elections, without participatory restrictions, represent an opportunity for moderation in politics. This moderation threatens the raison d'etre of violent extremists. Accordingly, extremists are likely to look to use violence to spoil good elections. "Restricted" elections, where opponents are excluded, undermine public support to the opposition as a whole, thereby reducing the likelihood that they are able to resort to terrorism. A series of negative binomial regression models provide support for these dual logics. Robustness checks demonstrate the validity of the findings using bivariate probit regression.
Ryckman, Kirssa Cline and Jessica Maves Braithwaite. 2020. "Changing Horses in Midstream: Leadership Changes and Negotiations in Civil Wars." Conflict Management and Peace Science, 37(1): 83-105.
Abstract: We examine the impact of governmental leadership changes on the civil war peace process. In line with the literature on leadership changes and interstate war, we argue that transitions can help overcome lags in the rational updating process, leading to negotiations and termination through negotiated settlements. However, while studies of interstate relations emphasize the role of "outsider" changes that produce new winning coalitions, we argue that due to the critical nature of credible commitment problems within the civil war peace process, only "insider" changes can generate the benefits of leadership change while mitigating uncertainty generated by leadership turnover. Using existing and original data on changes in governmental leadership, we find support for our expectations. Leadership changes can produce conditions favorable to negotiations and settlements, but only changes from inside the existing regime should be encouraged to avoid prolonging the conflict.
Replication Data for Ryckman & Braithwaite (2020)
Dorff, Cassy and Jessica Maves Braithwaite. 2018 "Fear of Nonviolent Organizing in Mexico's Criminal Conflict." Journal of Global Security Studies, 3(3): 271-284.
Abstract: What drives perceptions of fear regarding nonviolent mobilization? We investigate whether this fear is more acute in certain segments of society, or whether such concerns are randomly distributed across the population. We anticipate that civilians living in proximity to armed resistance groups are especially afraid of being targeted if they organize nonviolently against insecurity in their community. Using original survey data from Mexico in early 2014, we examine civilian perceptions of risk associated with nonviolent action. Quantitative analyses provide support for our expectation that civilians living in close proximity to armed vigilante groups are more fearful of participating in nonviolent action. This suggests that organizers of civil resistance in Mexico (and similar conflict environments) would do well to consider the challenges poised by civilian vigilantism when seeking to mobilize civilians and selecting specific nonviolent strategies for high-risk constituencies.
Replication Data for Dorff & Braithwaite (2018)
Supplemental Material for Dorff & Braithwaite (2018)
Liendo, Nicolás and Jessica Maves Braithwaite. 2018. "Determinants of Colombian Attitudes Toward the Peace Process." Conflict Management and Peace Science, 35(6): 622-636.
Abstract: A critical element that is often overlooked when studying negotiations in civil wars is popular support for the peace process itself. This is particularly important when agreements are subject to ratification by the broader population, as was the case in the Colombian conflict with the FARC. Using survey data from 2014, we find that attitudes toward this peace process were driven by political preferences rather than conflict experiences. Some demographic traits (education, religion, and rural residency) were also important. Notably, these determinants of support for talks with the FARC map closely onto voting patterns in the October 2016 plebiscite.
Blog post at Political Violence at a Glance
Blog post at Asuntos Del Sur (in Spanish)
Replication Data for Liendo & Braithwaite (2018)
Supplemental Material for Liendo & Braithwaite (2018)
Chu, Tiffany and Jessica Maves Braithwaite. 2018. "The Effect of Sexual Violence on Negotiated Outcomes in Civil Conflicts." Conflict Management and Peace Science, 35(3): 233-247.
Abstract: Combatants used sexual violence in approximately half of all civil conflicts since 1989. We expect that when groups resort to sexual violence they are organizationally vulnerable, unlikely to win, and as such they are inclined to salvage something from the conflict by way of a settlement. Using quantitative analysis of data on civil conflicts in the post-Cold War period, we find that a higher prevalence of sexual violence perpetrated by government forces precipitates negotiated outcomes. This is particularly true in contexts where both government and rebel forces utilize comparable levels of wartime rape and other forms of sexual abuse.
Replication Data for Chu & Braithwaite (2018)
Supplemental Material for Chu & Braithwaite (2018)
Braithwaite, Jessica Maves and Jun Koga Sudduth. 2016. "Military Purges and Civil Conflict Recurrence." Research and Politics, 3(1) DOI: 10.1177/2053168016630730.
Abstract: Literature on coup-proofing often suggests that such activities reduce military effectiveness, which could provide an environment ripe for civil conflict. However, if coup-proofing is dangerous, why do leaders engage in these strategies? We argue that a specific type of coup-proofing - purges - deters domestic unrest by demonstrating the strength of the regime via the removal of powerful but undesirable individuals from office. The strategic and intentional nature of purges signals to opponents that the regime is capable of not only identifying its enemies but also eliminating these threats. We use original data on military purges in non-democracies from 1969-2003 to assess quantitatively how this type of coup-proofing activity affects the likelihood of civil conflict recurrence. We find support for our expectation that purges of high-ranking military officials do in fact help prevent further civil conflict. Purges appear to provide real benefits to dictators seeking to preserve stability, at least in post-conflict environments.
Replication Data for Braithwaite & Koga (2016)
Supplemental Material for Braithwaite & Koga (2016)
Braithwaite, Alex, Jessica Maves Braithwaite, and Jeffrey Kucik. 2015. "The Conditioning Effect of Protest History on the Emulation of Nonviolent Conflict." Journal of Peace Research, 52(6): 697-711.
Abstract: Violent domestic conflicts spread between countries via spillover effects and the desire to emulate events abroad. Herein, we extend this emulation logic to the potential for the contagion of nonviolent conflicts. The spread of predominantly nonviolent pro-democracy mobilizations across the globe in the mid-to-late 1980s, the wave of protests in former Soviet states during the Color revolutions in the 2000s, and the eruption of nonviolent movements across the Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring in the early 2010s each suggest that the observation of collective action abroad encourages a desire to emulate amongst potential challengers to domestic autocrats. However, the need to emulate varies. Potential challengers with a recent history of protest at home are less dependent (than are those without similar experience) upon foreign exemplars to mobilize the participants and generate the resources required to make emulation practicable. By contrast, where the domestic experience of protest is absent, opposition movements are more reliant upon emulation of foreign exemplars. We test the implications of this logic using a series of multivariate logistic regression analyses. Our tests employ data on nonviolent civil resistance mobilizations that occurred across the global population of autocratic states between 1946 and 2006. These tests, along with post-estimation analysis provide evidence consistent with our conditional logic of emulation.
Replication Data for Braithwaite, Braithwaite, & Kucik (2015)
Braithwaite, Alex, Jeffrey Kucik, and Jessica Maves. 2014. "The Costs of Domestic Political Unrest. International Studies Quarterly 58(3): 489-500.
Abstract: Does domestic political unrest deter foreign direct investment (FDI)? And what are the longer term impacts of unrest upon the market? Most theories suggest that investors are deterred by unrest. However, empirical research returns only marginal support. We argue that these mixed results stem from the conflation of the distinct tactics and outcomes of political unrest. Violent forms of unrest increase uncertainty and risk. By comparison, nonviolent forms of unrest are shown to more frequently achieve their goals and increase the prospects for democratic change and market stability. In addition, investors avoid markets where campaigns have ended in failure, defined as the campaign not achieving their stated political aims. Failed campaigns often precipitate a cycle of unrest that create greater uncertainty over the long-term stability of a state. We find strong evidence in favor of our propositions, even after taking political motivation and non-random selection into account.
Replication Data for Braithwaite, Kucik, & Maves (2014)
Maves, Jessica and Alex Braithwaite. 2013. "Autocratic Institutions and Civil Conflict Contagion." Journal of Politics 75(2): 478-490.
Abstract: We offer an account of civil conflict contagion in which we argue that in peaceful neighborhoods autocracies that provide an opportunity for legal participation in domestic politics — via elected legislatures — are able to offset violent demands for change from domestic opposition groups. We add, however, the expectation that these openings in the political institutions of the country are insufficient to appease renewed opposition demands in autocracies located in conflict-ridden neighborhoods. We suggest that this is because of the threat of externalities from nearby conflicts, as well as the likelihood that domestic opposition groups will emulate violent examples set overseas. Thus, conflict contagion affects autocracies with legislatures that reside in neighborhoods with ongoing civil conflicts. We test this claim via multivariate probit analyses in which conflict onset is a function of institutional design at the country level and conflict within the neighborhood. These analyses offer support for our test hypotheses.
Replication Data for Maves & Braithwaite (2013)
Supplemental Material for Maves & Braithwaite (2013)
Abstract: Scholars have spent decades investigating various sources of rebellion, from societal and institutional explanations to individual motivations to take up arms against one’s government. One element of the civil war process that has gone largely unstudied from a systematic perspective is the role pre-existing organizations in society play in forming rebel groups, principally due to a lack of comparable data on the origins of these armed actors across conflicts. In an effort to fill this gap, we present the Foundations of Rebel Group Emergence (FORGE) dataset, which offers information on the “parent” organizations and the founding processes that gave rise to rebel groups active between 1946 and 2011 in intrastate conflicts included in the Uppsala Conflict Data Program’s Armed Conflict Database. The new information on rebel foundations introduced in this research note should help scholars to reconsider and newly explore a variety of conditions before, during, and after civil wars including rebel-civilian interactions, structures of rebel organizations, bargaining processes with the government, participation in post-war governance, and more.
Replication Data for Braithwaite & Cunningham (2020)
Supplemental Material for Braithwaite & Cunningham (2020)
Braithwaite, Jessica Maves and Amanda A. Licht. 2020. "The Effect of Civil Society Organizations and Democracy Aid on Civil War Onset." Journal of Conflict Resolution, 64(6): 1095-1120.
Abstract: A growing literature identifies both situations where aid promotes peace and those where aid encourages civil violence. Specifically, research shows lower probability of conflict onset in democratizing states receiving high levels of democracy assistance. However, theorizing has overlooked important actors that have agency in spending such aid: civil society organizations (CSOs). We posit that the status of civil society within recipient states conditions the effect of democracy aid inflows on conflict probability. Using an instrumental variables approach to account for endogeneity between aid allocation and conflict propensity, we find that democracy aid is destabilizing when directed to environments where CSOs are weak and poorly connected to the regime, and thus are less willing and able to seek change through peaceful means. When civil society is stronger and more institutionalized, however, larger democracy aid flows pose less threat.
Replication Data available via Dataverse (here)
Alex Braithwaite and Jessica Maves Braithwaite. "Restricting Opposition in Elections and Terrorist Violence." Forthcoming at Terrorism and Political Violence.
Abstract: We offer a novel argument to explain how the use of terrorist violence is affected by the quality of elections. Opposition actors often decide whether and how to participate in elections. Governments influence these decisions by controlling who can contest elections and, by doing so, they influence the access to public support that opponents stand to gain from participating or fighting. "Unrestricted" elections, without participatory restrictions, represent an opportunity for moderation in politics. This moderation threatens the raison d'etre of violent extremists. Accordingly, extremists are likely to look to use violence to spoil good elections. "Restricted" elections, where opponents are excluded, undermine public support to the opposition as a whole, thereby reducing the likelihood that they are able to resort to terrorism. A series of negative binomial regression models provide support for these dual logics. Robustness checks demonstrate the validity of the findings using bivariate probit regression.
Ryckman, Kirssa Cline and Jessica Maves Braithwaite. 2020. "Changing Horses in Midstream: Leadership Changes and Negotiations in Civil Wars." Conflict Management and Peace Science, 37(1): 83-105.
Abstract: We examine the impact of governmental leadership changes on the civil war peace process. In line with the literature on leadership changes and interstate war, we argue that transitions can help overcome lags in the rational updating process, leading to negotiations and termination through negotiated settlements. However, while studies of interstate relations emphasize the role of "outsider" changes that produce new winning coalitions, we argue that due to the critical nature of credible commitment problems within the civil war peace process, only "insider" changes can generate the benefits of leadership change while mitigating uncertainty generated by leadership turnover. Using existing and original data on changes in governmental leadership, we find support for our expectations. Leadership changes can produce conditions favorable to negotiations and settlements, but only changes from inside the existing regime should be encouraged to avoid prolonging the conflict.
Replication Data for Ryckman & Braithwaite (2020)
Dorff, Cassy and Jessica Maves Braithwaite. 2018 "Fear of Nonviolent Organizing in Mexico's Criminal Conflict." Journal of Global Security Studies, 3(3): 271-284.
Abstract: What drives perceptions of fear regarding nonviolent mobilization? We investigate whether this fear is more acute in certain segments of society, or whether such concerns are randomly distributed across the population. We anticipate that civilians living in proximity to armed resistance groups are especially afraid of being targeted if they organize nonviolently against insecurity in their community. Using original survey data from Mexico in early 2014, we examine civilian perceptions of risk associated with nonviolent action. Quantitative analyses provide support for our expectation that civilians living in close proximity to armed vigilante groups are more fearful of participating in nonviolent action. This suggests that organizers of civil resistance in Mexico (and similar conflict environments) would do well to consider the challenges poised by civilian vigilantism when seeking to mobilize civilians and selecting specific nonviolent strategies for high-risk constituencies.
Replication Data for Dorff & Braithwaite (2018)
Supplemental Material for Dorff & Braithwaite (2018)
Liendo, Nicolás and Jessica Maves Braithwaite. 2018. "Determinants of Colombian Attitudes Toward the Peace Process." Conflict Management and Peace Science, 35(6): 622-636.
Abstract: A critical element that is often overlooked when studying negotiations in civil wars is popular support for the peace process itself. This is particularly important when agreements are subject to ratification by the broader population, as was the case in the Colombian conflict with the FARC. Using survey data from 2014, we find that attitudes toward this peace process were driven by political preferences rather than conflict experiences. Some demographic traits (education, religion, and rural residency) were also important. Notably, these determinants of support for talks with the FARC map closely onto voting patterns in the October 2016 plebiscite.
Blog post at Political Violence at a Glance
Blog post at Asuntos Del Sur (in Spanish)
Replication Data for Liendo & Braithwaite (2018)
Supplemental Material for Liendo & Braithwaite (2018)
Chu, Tiffany and Jessica Maves Braithwaite. 2018. "The Effect of Sexual Violence on Negotiated Outcomes in Civil Conflicts." Conflict Management and Peace Science, 35(3): 233-247.
Abstract: Combatants used sexual violence in approximately half of all civil conflicts since 1989. We expect that when groups resort to sexual violence they are organizationally vulnerable, unlikely to win, and as such they are inclined to salvage something from the conflict by way of a settlement. Using quantitative analysis of data on civil conflicts in the post-Cold War period, we find that a higher prevalence of sexual violence perpetrated by government forces precipitates negotiated outcomes. This is particularly true in contexts where both government and rebel forces utilize comparable levels of wartime rape and other forms of sexual abuse.
Replication Data for Chu & Braithwaite (2018)
Supplemental Material for Chu & Braithwaite (2018)
Braithwaite, Jessica Maves and Jun Koga Sudduth. 2016. "Military Purges and Civil Conflict Recurrence." Research and Politics, 3(1) DOI: 10.1177/2053168016630730.
Abstract: Literature on coup-proofing often suggests that such activities reduce military effectiveness, which could provide an environment ripe for civil conflict. However, if coup-proofing is dangerous, why do leaders engage in these strategies? We argue that a specific type of coup-proofing - purges - deters domestic unrest by demonstrating the strength of the regime via the removal of powerful but undesirable individuals from office. The strategic and intentional nature of purges signals to opponents that the regime is capable of not only identifying its enemies but also eliminating these threats. We use original data on military purges in non-democracies from 1969-2003 to assess quantitatively how this type of coup-proofing activity affects the likelihood of civil conflict recurrence. We find support for our expectation that purges of high-ranking military officials do in fact help prevent further civil conflict. Purges appear to provide real benefits to dictators seeking to preserve stability, at least in post-conflict environments.
Replication Data for Braithwaite & Koga (2016)
Supplemental Material for Braithwaite & Koga (2016)
Braithwaite, Alex, Jessica Maves Braithwaite, and Jeffrey Kucik. 2015. "The Conditioning Effect of Protest History on the Emulation of Nonviolent Conflict." Journal of Peace Research, 52(6): 697-711.
Abstract: Violent domestic conflicts spread between countries via spillover effects and the desire to emulate events abroad. Herein, we extend this emulation logic to the potential for the contagion of nonviolent conflicts. The spread of predominantly nonviolent pro-democracy mobilizations across the globe in the mid-to-late 1980s, the wave of protests in former Soviet states during the Color revolutions in the 2000s, and the eruption of nonviolent movements across the Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring in the early 2010s each suggest that the observation of collective action abroad encourages a desire to emulate amongst potential challengers to domestic autocrats. However, the need to emulate varies. Potential challengers with a recent history of protest at home are less dependent (than are those without similar experience) upon foreign exemplars to mobilize the participants and generate the resources required to make emulation practicable. By contrast, where the domestic experience of protest is absent, opposition movements are more reliant upon emulation of foreign exemplars. We test the implications of this logic using a series of multivariate logistic regression analyses. Our tests employ data on nonviolent civil resistance mobilizations that occurred across the global population of autocratic states between 1946 and 2006. These tests, along with post-estimation analysis provide evidence consistent with our conditional logic of emulation.
Replication Data for Braithwaite, Braithwaite, & Kucik (2015)
Braithwaite, Alex, Jeffrey Kucik, and Jessica Maves. 2014. "The Costs of Domestic Political Unrest. International Studies Quarterly 58(3): 489-500.
Abstract: Does domestic political unrest deter foreign direct investment (FDI)? And what are the longer term impacts of unrest upon the market? Most theories suggest that investors are deterred by unrest. However, empirical research returns only marginal support. We argue that these mixed results stem from the conflation of the distinct tactics and outcomes of political unrest. Violent forms of unrest increase uncertainty and risk. By comparison, nonviolent forms of unrest are shown to more frequently achieve their goals and increase the prospects for democratic change and market stability. In addition, investors avoid markets where campaigns have ended in failure, defined as the campaign not achieving their stated political aims. Failed campaigns often precipitate a cycle of unrest that create greater uncertainty over the long-term stability of a state. We find strong evidence in favor of our propositions, even after taking political motivation and non-random selection into account.
Replication Data for Braithwaite, Kucik, & Maves (2014)
Maves, Jessica and Alex Braithwaite. 2013. "Autocratic Institutions and Civil Conflict Contagion." Journal of Politics 75(2): 478-490.
Abstract: We offer an account of civil conflict contagion in which we argue that in peaceful neighborhoods autocracies that provide an opportunity for legal participation in domestic politics — via elected legislatures — are able to offset violent demands for change from domestic opposition groups. We add, however, the expectation that these openings in the political institutions of the country are insufficient to appease renewed opposition demands in autocracies located in conflict-ridden neighborhoods. We suggest that this is because of the threat of externalities from nearby conflicts, as well as the likelihood that domestic opposition groups will emulate violent examples set overseas. Thus, conflict contagion affects autocracies with legislatures that reside in neighborhoods with ongoing civil conflicts. We test this claim via multivariate probit analyses in which conflict onset is a function of institutional design at the country level and conflict within the neighborhood. These analyses offer support for our test hypotheses.
Replication Data for Maves & Braithwaite (2013)
Supplemental Material for Maves & Braithwaite (2013)
selected Working papers
Feel free to email me if you'd like a copy of any manuscript mentioned below.
"Tactics of Resistance and Post-Conflict Judicial Independence"
(with Joseph Cox and Margaret Farry)
Abstract: Cross-national evidence suggests that nonviolent resistance is more effective at promoting post-campaign democracy as compared to violent resistance. We explore whether this advantage extends to post-conflict judicial systems. Courts have been shown to be important for promoting and protecting economic development and political rights, yet they have been largely ignored in quantitative studies of post-conflict democratization. We posit that leaders who hold power after domestic unrest will be more inclined to use independent courts as a mechanism to prevent future campaigns—but will do so primarily when fearing a significant mobilization threat and when expecting legal action to be an acceptable channel for dispute resolution by dissidents. As such, we anticipate that levels of judicial independence should be higher following nonviolent conflicts as compared to violent efforts. Large-N analyses of global data on violent and nonviolent anti-government campaigns provide support for our expectations. We find that latent judicial independence is higher following nonviolent campaigns than violent ones, and that this distinction holds across the decade following campaign termination. Furthermore, a campaign’s outcome does not matter—post-conflict judicial independence appears to be associated with tactics, not success.
"Durability Not Diversity: Uncovering the Organizational Roots of Democratization" (with Jonathan Pinckney and Charles Butcher)
Abstract: We refine and test theoretical mechanisms linking mass mobilization to democratization by focusing on variation in the organizations that participate in collective dissent. Specifically, we investigate the effects of organizational diversity and durability on the likelihood of democratization. Using new data on maximalist claims-making organizations that engaged in resistance events in Africa from 1990-2015, we find little evidence that organizational diversity on its own improves democratization, which we link to what we call the "diversity dilemma." While greater movement diversity may increase democratic preferences, it undermines movement capacity to realize these preferences by increasing collective action problems and reducing a movement's ability to make credible commitments. In contrast, the participation of durable organizations such as trade unions and religious organizations significantly increases longer-term democratization prospects, which we argue reflects their enduring pro-democratic preferences and ability to credibly threaten re-mobilization during a transition. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of democratization and mass mobilization.
"Tactics of Resistance and Post-Conflict Judicial Independence"
(with Joseph Cox and Margaret Farry)
Abstract: Cross-national evidence suggests that nonviolent resistance is more effective at promoting post-campaign democracy as compared to violent resistance. We explore whether this advantage extends to post-conflict judicial systems. Courts have been shown to be important for promoting and protecting economic development and political rights, yet they have been largely ignored in quantitative studies of post-conflict democratization. We posit that leaders who hold power after domestic unrest will be more inclined to use independent courts as a mechanism to prevent future campaigns—but will do so primarily when fearing a significant mobilization threat and when expecting legal action to be an acceptable channel for dispute resolution by dissidents. As such, we anticipate that levels of judicial independence should be higher following nonviolent conflicts as compared to violent efforts. Large-N analyses of global data on violent and nonviolent anti-government campaigns provide support for our expectations. We find that latent judicial independence is higher following nonviolent campaigns than violent ones, and that this distinction holds across the decade following campaign termination. Furthermore, a campaign’s outcome does not matter—post-conflict judicial independence appears to be associated with tactics, not success.
"Durability Not Diversity: Uncovering the Organizational Roots of Democratization" (with Jonathan Pinckney and Charles Butcher)
Abstract: We refine and test theoretical mechanisms linking mass mobilization to democratization by focusing on variation in the organizations that participate in collective dissent. Specifically, we investigate the effects of organizational diversity and durability on the likelihood of democratization. Using new data on maximalist claims-making organizations that engaged in resistance events in Africa from 1990-2015, we find little evidence that organizational diversity on its own improves democratization, which we link to what we call the "diversity dilemma." While greater movement diversity may increase democratic preferences, it undermines movement capacity to realize these preferences by increasing collective action problems and reducing a movement's ability to make credible commitments. In contrast, the participation of durable organizations such as trade unions and religious organizations significantly increases longer-term democratization prospects, which we argue reflects their enduring pro-democratic preferences and ability to credibly threaten re-mobilization during a transition. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of democratization and mass mobilization.
