Articles

419 Items

Hezbollah supporters distribute sweets to passersby, as they celebrate the fall of the Syrian town of Qusair to forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah fighters, in Bazzalieh village, Lebanon, near the Lebanese-Syrian border, Wednesday, June 5, 2013.

AP Photo/Hussein Malla

Journal Article - International Security

Foreign Intervention and Internal Displacement: Urban Politics in Postwar Beirut

| Winter 2023/24

Dozens of in-depth interviews in Lebanon after its civil war show how wartime displacement transformed localities in ways that transcend religious identity. With more than 80,000 people displaced from southern Lebanon because of fighting since October 7, 2023, the Israel-Gaza war is likely to strengthen Hezbollah’s grip when the displaced populations return and in localities in south Lebanon where displaced populations settle. 

Journal Article - International Security

Reining in Rebellion: The Decline of Political Violence in South America, 1830–1929

    Authors:
  • Raúl L. Madrid
  • Luis L. Schenoni
| Winter 2023/24

After a century of rebellion, South America experienced a rapid decline in revolts in the early 1900s. Historical narratives and an analysis of a comprehensive new dataset show that the decrease stemmed in large part from the expansion and professionalization of the region’s militaries, which were driven by an export boom and the threat of interstate conflict. 

 Protesters on demonstration bus interacting with police and pedestrians during 918 Shenyang Anti-Japan Demonstration, September 18, 2012.

Wikimedia Commons

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

To Punish or Protect? Local Leaders and Economic Coercion in China

| Fall 2023

During foreign policy disputes involving China and some of its most important commercial partners, why do local leaders punish or protect foreign commercial actors? The decision comes down to the political incentives facing each local leader. Understanding this variation is important because how local leaders treat foreign businesses can influence the overall effectiveness of the Chinese government’s economic coercion against foreign states. 

"Speaking of Leaks," cartoon, Independent, January 29, 1917.

Wikimedia Commons

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

"Wars without Gun Smoke": Global Supply Chains, Power Transitions, and Economic Statecraft

    Authors:
  • Ling S. Chen
  • Miles M. Evers
| Fall 2023

Power transitions affect a state’s ability to exercise economic statecraft. As a dominating and a rising power approach parity, they face structural incentives to decouple their economies. This decoupling affects business-state relations: high-value businesses within the dominant power tend to oppose their state’s economic statecraft because of its costs to them, whereas low-value businesses within the rising power tend to cooperate because they gain from it. 

Flowers bloom around graves of World War I soldiers prior to a foundation laying ceremony at Loos British Cemetery in Loos-en-Gohelle, France, Thursday, May 4, 2023.

AP Photo/Michel Spingler)

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Peril of Peaking Powers: Economic Slowdowns and Implications for China’s Next Decade

| Summer 2023

Peaking great powers facing a slowdown in growth are likely to try to violently shake up the world. These findings amend classic theories of great power conflict. They help explain some of the most consequential geopolitical events in modern history. And they have ominous implications for contemporary Chinese foreign policy. 

Gate of Tianjin Free-Trade Zone. A brightly lit arch over a nighttime roadway. A brightly lit pillar appears in the background.

Wikimedia Commons

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Collective Resilience: Deterring China’s Weaponization of Economic Interdependence

    Author:
  • Victor Cha
| Summer 2023

China leverages its market in a form of “predatory liberalism” that weaponizes the networks of interdependence created by globalization. ne response to China’s bullying would be for its targets to form an alliance to retaliate against China’s high-dependence trade should Beijing act against any alliance members. 

Women who have been internally displaced selling charcoal on a market in Al Fashir, capital of the Sudanese state of North Dafur, February 18, 2015.

Wikimedia Commons

Journal Article - International Security

Rise or Recede? How Climate Disasters Affect Armed Conflict Intensity

    Author:
  • Tobias Ide
| Spring 2023

Climate disasters shape the trajectory of internal conflicts in states highly vulnerable to changes in conflict dynamics. Conflict after a climate disaster escalates when the disaster induces shifts in relative power that enable one side to increase its military efforts. But when one actor is weakened by the disaster and the other lacks the capability to exploit that weakness, conflict intensity declines.

An old man walks past a gutted car in downtown Kabul, Thursday, June 25, 1992.

AP Photo/B.K. Bangash

Journal Article - International Security

Dealers and Brokers in Civil Wars: Why States Delegate Rebel Support to Conduit Countries

    Authors:
  • Niklas Karlén
  • Vladimir Rauta
| Spring 2023

State support to non-state armed groups outside a state’s own territory is commonly seen as a direct relationship between a state sponsor and a rebel group. But powerful states can use a third state—a dealer or broker—as a conduit for military and other support. States that fail to identify an alignment of interests with these intermediary dealers and brokers face strategic failure.