Credible Commitments and Post-Conflict Refugee Return: A Statistical and Network Analysis

I examine determinants of refugee return after conflicts. I argue that institutional constraints placed on the executive provide a credible commitment that signals to refugees that the conditions required for durable return will be created. This results in increased return flows for refugees. Further, when credible commitments are stronger in the country of origin than in the country of asylum, the level of return increases. Finally, I find that specific commitments made to refugees in the peace agreement do not lead to increased return because they are not credible without institutional constraints. Using data on returnees that has only recently been made available, along with network analysis and an original coding of the provisions in refugee agreements, statistical results are found to support this theory. An examination of cases in Djibouti, Sierra Leone, and Liberia provides additional support for this argument.

Balancing Belligerents or Feeding the Beast: Transforming Conflict Traps

Since the end of the Cold War, recurring civil conflicts have been the dominant form of violent armed conflict in the world, accounting for 70% of conflicts active between 2000-2013. Duration and intensity of episodes within recurring conflicts in Africa exhibit four behaviors characteristic of archetypal dynamic system structures. The overarching questions asked in this study are whether these patterns are robustly correlated with fundamental concepts of resiliency in dynamic systems that scale from micro-to macro levels; are they consistent with theoretical risk factors and causal mechanisms; and what are the policy implications. Econometric analysis and dynamic systems modeling of 36 conflicts in Africa between 1989 -2014 are combined with process tracing in a case study of Somalia to evaluate correlations between state characteristics, peace operations and foreign aid on the likelihood of observed conflict patterns, test hypothesized causal mechanisms across scales, and develop policy recommendations for increasing human security while decreasing resiliency of belligerents. Findings are that observed conflict patterns scale from micro to macro levels; are strongly correlated with state characteristics that proxy a mix of cooperative (e.g., gender equality) and coercive (e.g., security forces) conflict-balancing mechanisms; and are weakly correlated with UN and regional peace operations and humanitarian aid. Interactions between peace operations and aid interventions that effect conflict persistence at micro levels are not seen in macro level analysis, due to interdependent, micro-level feedback mechanisms, sequencing, and lagged effects. This study finds that the dynamic system structures associated with observed conflict patterns contain tipping points between balancing mechanisms at the interface of micro-macro level interactions that are determined as much by factors related to how intervention policies are designed and implemented, as what they are. Policy implications are that reducing risk of conflict persistence requires that peace operations and aid interventions (1) simultaneously increase transparency, promote inclusivity (with emphasis on gender equality), and empower local civilian involvement in accountability measures at the local levels; (2) build bridges to horizontally and vertically integrate across levels; and (3) pave pathways towards conflict transformation mechanisms and justice that scale from the individual, to community, regional, and national levels.

States' Responding Behavior in Conflict: Asymmetric Response and Strategic Conflict Avoidance

State responses to external threats and aggression are studied with focus on two different rationales: (1) to make credible deterrent threats to avoid being exploited, and (2) to minimize the risk of escalation to unwanted war. Given external aggression, the target state's responding behavior has three possibilities: concession (under-response), reciprocation, and escalation. This study focuses on the first two possibilities and investigates how the strategic nature of crisis interaction can explain the intentional choice of concession or avoidance of retaliation. I build a two-level bargaining model that accounts for the domestic bargaining situation between the leader and the challenger for each state. The model's equilibrium shows that the responding behavior is determined not only by inter-state level variables (e.g. balance of power between two states, or cost of war that each state is supposed to pay), but also the domestic variables of both states. Next, the strategic interaction is rationally explained by the model: as the responding state believes that the initiating state has strong domestic challenges and, hence, the aggression is believed to be initiated for domestic political purposes (a rally-around-the-flag effect), the response tends to decrease. The concession is also predicted if the target state leader has strong bargaining power against her domestic challengers \emph{and} she believes that the initiating leader suffers from weak domestic standing. To test the model's prediction, I conduct a lab experiment and case studies. The experimental result shows that under an incentivized bargaining situation, individual actors are observed to react to hostile action as the model predicts: if the opponent is believed to suffer from internally driven difficulties, the subject will not punish hostile behavior of the other player as severely as she would without such a belief. The experiment also provides supporting evidence for the choice of concession: when the player finds herself in a favorable situation while the other has disadvantages, the player is more likely to make concessions in the controlled dictator game. Two cases are examined to discuss how the model can explain the choice of either reciprocation or concession. From personal interviews and fieldwork in South Korea, I find that South Korea's reciprocating behavior during the 2010 Yeonpyeong Island incident is explained by a combination of `low domestic power of initiating leader (Kim Jong-il)' and `low domestic power of responding leader (Lee Myung-bak).' On the other hand, the case of EC-121 is understood as a non-response or concession outcome. Declassified documents show that Nixon and his key advisors interpreted the attack as a result of North Korea's domestic political instabilities (low domestic power of initiating leader) and that Nixon did not have difficulties at domestic politics during the first few months of his presidency (high domestic power of responding leader).

Experimentally Testing the Effect of Parent-Adolescent Conflict on HIV Risk, and Investigation of a Neurobiological Moderator of This Effect

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a condition in which immune cells become destroyed such that the body may become unable to fight off infections. Engaging in risk-taking behaviors (e.g., substance use) puts people at heightened risk for HIV infection, with mid-to-late adolescents at increasing risk (Leigh & Stall, 1993). Environmental and neurological reasons have been suggested for increased risk-taking among adolescents. First, family-level precursors such as parent-adolescent conflict have been significantly associated with and may pose risk for engaging in substance use and risk-taking (Duncan, Duncan, Biglan, & Ary, 1998). Thus, parent-adolescent conflict may be an important proximal influence on HIV risk behaviors (Lester et al., 2010; Rowe, Wang, Greenbaum, & Liddle, 2008). Yet, the temporal relation between parent-adolescent conflict and adolescent HIV risk-taking behaviors is still unknown. Second, at-risk adolescents may carry a neurobiological predisposition for engaging in trait-like expressions of disinhibited behavior and other risk-taking behaviors (Iacono, Malone, & McGue, 2008). When exposed to interpersonally stressful situations, their likelihood of engagement in HIV risk behaviors may increase. To investigate the role of parent-adolescent conflict in adolescent HIV risk-taking behaviors, 49 adolescents ages 14-17 and their parent were randomly assigned to complete a standardized discussion task to discuss a control topic or a conflict topic. Immediately after the discussion, adolescents completed a laboratory risk-taking measure. In a follow-up visit, eligible adolescents underwent electrophysiological (EEG) recording while completing a task designed to assess the presence of a neurobiological marker for behavioral disinhibition which I hypothesized would moderate the links between conflict and risk-taking. First, findings indicated that during the discussion task, adolescents in the conflict condition evidenced a significantly greater psychophysiological stress response relative to adolescents in the control condition. Second, a neurobiological marker of behavioral disinhibition moderated the relation between discussion condition and adolescent risk-taking, such that adolescents evidencing relatively high levels of a neurobiological marker related to sensation-seeking evidenced greater levels of risk-taking following the conflict condition, relative to the control condition. Lastly, I observed no significant relation between parent-adolescent conflict, the neurobiological marker of behavioral disinhibition and adolescent engagement in real-world risk-taking behavior.

Crises and Crisis Generations: International Conflict and Military Participation in Politics

Why do states facing high levels of international threat sometimes have militaries that are heavily involved in politics and at other times relatively apolitical, professional militaries? I argue that the answer to this puzzle lies in a state's history of 'acute' international crises rather than its 'chronic' threat environment. Major international crises lead to professionalization and de-politicization of militaries in both the short- and long-term. International crises underscore the need for the military to defend the state and highlight military deficiencies in this regard. Accordingly, major international crises lead to military professionalization and withdrawal from politics in order to increase military effectiveness. This effect persists years, and decades, later due to generational shifts in the officer corps. As the "Crisis Generation" of officers become generals, they bring with them a preference for professionalization and de-politicization. They guide the military towards abstention from politics. I test this theory using a new global dataset on military officers in national governing bodies from 1964-2008 and find strong support for the theory. Major international crises lead to two waves of military withdrawal from government, years apart. Further statistical analysis finds that this effect is most strongly felt in the non-security areas of governing, while in some cases, international crises may lead to militaries increasing their involvement in security policy-making. Further, international crises that end poorly for a state — i.e., defeats or stalemates — are found to drive more rapid waves of military withdrawal from government. The statistical analysis is supported by a case illustration of civil-military relations in the People's Republic of China, which demonstrates that the crisis of the Korean War (1950-53) led to two waves of military professionalization and de-politicization, decades apart. The first occurred immediately after the war. The second wave, occurring in the 1980s, involved wholesale military withdrawal from governing bodies, which was made possible by the ascent of the "Crisis Generation" of officers in the military, who had served as junior officers in the Korean War, decades prior.