Process matters: Conflict and cooperation in sequential government-dissident interactions

Security Studies

Volumn 15, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 563-599

  Shellman, Stephen ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA   (United States)

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EID: 34547552215     PISSN: 09636412     EISSN: 15561852     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09636410601184603     Document Type: Article

References (164)

1. Charles Tilly, "Models and Realities of Popular Collective Action" (working paper no. 10, Center for Studies of Social Change, New School for Social Research, New York), 1.
2. Christopher K. Butler, Scott Gates, and Michele Leiby, "Social Networks & Rebellion" (paper, Conference on Disaggregating the Study of Civil War and Transnational Violence, Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California, San Diego, 7-8 March 2005), 3, http://weber.ucsd.edu/~kgledits/ igcc/dscwtv/bgl igcc2005.pdf. These authors concern themselves with peace and war as opposed to hostility and cooperation, but their general point is very much applicable.
3. Roger Bakeman and John M. Gottman, Observing Interaction: An Introduction to Sequential Analysis, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)
4. John M. Gottman, James D. Murray, Catherine Swanson, Rebecca Tyson, and Kristin R. Swanson, The Mathematics of Marriage (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).
5. For an example of scholarly work that uses the conflict-cooperation process literature to model refugee migration, see Stephen M. Shellman and Brandon M. Stewart, "Political Persecution or Economic Deprivation? A Time-Series Analysis of Haitian Migration to the United States," in Conflict Management & Peace Science (New York: Routledge, forthcoming). In a subsequent study, they develop an early warning model of refugee migration.
6. See Stephen M. Shellman and Brandon M. Stewart, "Predicting Risk Factors Associated with Forced Migration: An Early Warning Model of Haitian Flight," Civil Wars (New York: Routledge, forthcoming).
7. James D. Fearon and David Laitin, "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (2003): 75-90
8. Nicholas C. Sambanis and Annalisa Zinn, "From Protest to Violence: An Analysis of Conflict Escalation with an Application to Self-Determination Movements" (unpublished manuscript, Yale University, December 2005)
9. Christian Davenport, David A. Armstrong, and Mark I. Lichbach, "From Mountains to Movements: Dissent, Repression, and Escalation to Civil War" (unpublished manuscript, University of Maryland).
10. Note that "external" refers to threats external to a leader's coalition, not to his or her state or country.
11. Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (New York: Random House, 1978), 6.
12. Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970)
13. Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution
14. Mark Lichbach, "Deterrence or Escalation? The Puzzle of Aggregate Studies of Repression and Dissent,"Journal of Conflict Resolution 31 (1987): 267.
15. On how government behavior impacts dissident behavior, see Susan Eckstein, "Revolutions and the Restructuring of National Economies: The Latin American Experience," Comparative Politics 17 (1965):473- 94
16. Ted Robert Gurr, "Psychological Factors in Civil Violence," World Politics 20 (1968): 245-78
17. Gurr, Why Men Rebel
18. David Snyder and Charles Tilly, "Hardship and Collective Violence in France: 1830- 1960," American Sociological Review 37 (1972): 520-32
19. Douglas A. Hibbs, Jr., Mass Political Violence , A Cross-National Causal Analysis (New York: Wiley, 1973)
20. Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution
21. Mark Lichbach, "Deterrence or Escalation?"
22. Dean Hoover and David Kowalski, "Dynamic Models of Dissent and Repression," Journal of Conflict Resolution 35 (1992): 150-82
23. Marc. V. Simon, "Hawks, Doves, and Civil Conflict Dynamics: A Strategic Action-Action Model," International Interactions 19 (1994): 213-39
24. Marwan Khawaja, "Repression and Popular Collective Action: Evidence from the West-Bank," Sociological Forum 8 (1993): 47-71
25. Johan L. Olivier, "Causes of Ethnic Collective Action in the Pretoria-Witwatersrand Triangle, 1970-1984," South African Sociological Review 2 (1990): 89-108
26. Johan L. Olivier, "State Repression and Collective Action in South Africa, 1970-1984," South African Journal of Sociology 22 (1991):109-17
27. Susan Olzak. The Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992)
28. Karen Rasler, "Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution," American Sociological Review, 61 (1996): 132-52
29. Will H. Moore, "Repression and Dissent: Substitution, Context, and Timing," American Journal of Political Science 43, no. 3 (1998): 851-73. On how dissident behavior impacts government behavior,
30. see Conway W. Henderson, "Conditions Affecting the Use of Political Repression," Social Science Quarterly 74 (1991): 322-33
31. Steven C. Poe and C. Neal Tate, "Repression of Human Rights to Personal Integrity in the 1980s," American Political Science Review 88 (1994): 853-72
32. Christian Davenport, "Multi-Dimensional Threat Perception and State Repression: An Inquiry into Why States Apply Negative Sanctions," American Journal of Political Science 38, no. 3 (1995): 683-713
33. Christian Davenport, "Understanding Covert Repressive Action: The Case of the U.S. Government Against the Republic of New Africa," Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 1 (2005): 120-40
34. James DeNardo, Power in Numbers - (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985)
35. Will H. Moore, "The Repression of Dissent: A Substitution Model of Government Coercion," Journal of Conflict Resolution 44 (2000): 107-27. Though each scholar may define the same terms in different ways, most of them concur with Tilly that the terms "repression," "dissent," "hostility," or "conflict" imply that one actor imposes costs on another actor. While repression would exude images of governments imposing costs on dissidents (curfews, decrees, quelling protests, infringement on citizens' human rights, etc.), dissent would reflect images of dissident groups, like students or armed rebel groups, imposing costs on the government (protests, riots, ambushes, bombings, etc.). I use "conflict" and "hostility" interchangeably to represent the imposition of costs on one actor by another, while the terms "repression" and "dissent" are actor-specific. Much like hostility imposes costs on actors, cooperation lowers an opponent's costs (time, energy, resources, etc.). The words "facilitation," "accommodation," and "cooperation" are used interchangeably to denote lowering one's opponent's costs. Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution.
36. Snyder and Tilly, "Hardship and Collective Violence in France"
37. Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution
38. Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982)
39. Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
40. Mark I. Lichbach, The Rebel's Dilemma (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995).
41. Matthew Krain, Repression and Accommodation in Post-Revolutionary States (New York: St. Martin's, 2000), 106.
42. Gurr, Why Men Rebel.
43. Eckstein, "Revolutions and the Restructuring of National Economies"
44. Gurr, "Psychological Factors in Civil Violence"
45. Ted Robert Gurr and Raymond Duvall, "Civil Conflict in the 1960s: A Reciprocal Theoretical System with Parameter Estimates," Comparative Political Studies 6 (1973): 135-69
46. Hibbs, Mass Political Violence.
47. Margaret Levi, Of Rule and Revenue (Berkley: University of California Press, 1989), 32.
48. Hoover and Kowalski, "Dynamic Models of Dissent and Repression," 637.
49. Lichbach, "Deterrence or Escalation?"
50. Moore, "Repression and Dissent Substitution, Context, and Timing."
51. Moore, "The Repression of Dissent: A Substitution Model," 120.
52. Moore, "Repression and Dissent Substitution, Context and Timing."
53. Moore, "The Repression of Dissent: A Substitution Model."
54. Ronald A. Francisco, "The Relationship between Coercion and Protest: An Empirical Evaluation in Three Coercive States," Journal of Conflict Resolution 39 (1995): 263-82
55. Ronald A. Francisco, "Coercion and Protest: An Empirical Test in Two Democratic States," American Journal of Political Science 40 (1996): 1179-204.
56. Edward N. Muller and Karl-Dieter Opp, "Rational Choice and Rebellious Collective Behavior," American Political Science Review 80 (1986): 871-87.
57. Dennis Chong, Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 116-25.
58. Anthony Oberschall, "Rational Choice in Collective Protests," Rationality and Society 6 (1994): 79-100.
59. Krain, Repression and Accommodation in Post-Revolutionary States, 106
60. Peter K. Eisenger, "The Conditions of Protest Behavior in American Cities," American Political Science Review 67 (1973): 27-28.
61. Rasler, "Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution."
62. Krain, Repression and Accommodation in Post-Revolutionary States, 110.
63. Lichbach, "Deterrence or Escalation?" 271.
64. "Attempts to resolve the ... indeterminacy in the relationship between government coercion and opposition activities." Lichbach, "Deterrence or Escalation?" 267. Here I examine the reciprocal effects of dissident behavior on government behavior as well as examine cooperation in addition to violence and nonviolence. I should note, however, that Lichbach highly influences my thinking along with Ames, Bates, Bueno de Mesquita et al., Levi, and Moore. See Barry Ames, Political Survival: Politicians and Public Policy in Latin America (Berkley: University of California Press, 1987)
65. Robert H. Bates, Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981)
66. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, James D. Morrow, Randolph M. Siverson, and Alastair Smith, "An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace," American Political Science Review 93, no. 4 (1999): 791-808
67. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D. Morrow, The Logic of Political Survival (Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 2003)
68. Levi, Of Rule and Revenue
69. Moore, "Repression and Dissent Substitution, Context, and Timing"
70. Moore, "The Repression of Dissent: A Substitution Model."
71. Lichbach, "Deterrence or Escalation?" 271.
72. Barbara Geddes, "Uses and Limitations of Rational Choice," in Latin America in Comparative Perspective, ed. Peter Smith (Boulder: Westview, 1995).
73. James D. Morrow, Game Theory for Political Scientists (Princeton: PUP, 1994), 8.
74. See BBC News, "World anger after Hamas killing," 22 March 2004, http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ world/middle east/3559469.stm; "Yassin killing ignites fury," 22 March 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/ 1/hi/world/middle east/3556589.stm; "Hamas vows revenge," 22 March 2004, http:// news.bbc.co.uk/ 1/hi/ world/middle east/3557445.stm.
75. It is also useful to discuss the model's limitations. Specifically, it does not address the factors which provoke the initiation of the conflict. Furthermore, it cannot explain third-party intervention or directly examine the interaction of multiple groups and the government. Each of these questions is interesting and should be explored in separate studies, especially if this parsimonious model performs well.
76. Lewis F. Richardson, Arms and Insecurity (Pittsburgh: Boxwood Press and Quadrangle Books, 1960).
77. Similarly, the impulse response functions simulated using the results from a Vector Autoregression (VAR) model illustrate a positive or negative response to a shock in the system.
78. Ames, Political Survival, 8.
79. See Mark Irving Lichbach, "An Economic Theory of Governability," Public Choice 44 (1984): 307- 37
80. Lichbach, "Deterrence or Escalation?"
81. Moore, "Repression and Dissent Substitution, Context, and Timing"
82. Moore, "The Repression of Dissent: A Substitution Model." Many scholars make similar assumptions about dissident leaders (Lichbach, Chong, Gates) and government leaders (Ames, Bates, Levi). This may seem overly simplistic and unrealistic, but remember that the theory intends to highlight particular causal mechanisms. Besides, we observe many dissident groups in the world that operate under an umbrella organization controlled by a leader. For example, Abdul Rashid Dostam led an alliance made up of ex-government forces against the Taliban. Many case studies also discuss the presence of dissident alliances or social movement organizations (Popkin, McCarthy, and Zald). These empirical realities give reason to invoke the "single dissident group with a single leader" assumption. We can explore the utility of dividing the dissidents into two or more populations with different leaders in future studies. Lichbach, "Deterrence or Escalation?"
83. Chong, Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement
84. Scott Gates, "Recruitment and Allegiance: The Microfoundations of Rebellion," Journal of Conflict Resolution 46, no. 1 (2002): 111-30
85. Ames, Political Survival
86. Bates, Markets and States in Tropical Africa
87. Levi, Of Rule and Revenue
88. Samuel Popkin, The Rational Peasant (San Diego: University of California Press, 1979)
89. John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, The Trend of Social Movements in America (New Jersey: General Learning Press, 1973).
90. I use the words "tactics" and "actions" synonymously to avoid repetition.
91. Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution, 55.
92. Kelly M. Kadera, The Power-Conflict Story: A Dynamic Model of Interstate Rivalry, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 52, 58-59.
93. These examples refer to possibilities at about the same absolute level of cooperation or hostility, but in terms of costs, the cooperative tactics are cheaper than the hostile ones. Also note that the cost refers to the cost associated with taking the action itself, not the potential backlash effects of the opponent or the leader's coalition. Those costs are measured by opponent costs and coalition audience costs, which I discuss below.
94. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and David Lalman, War and Reason (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). Levi also contends that "coercion is expensive."
95. Levi, Of Rule and Revenue, 32.
96. Ames, Political Survival, 4. While the assumption is often invoked in studies of political office holders (Bueno de Mesquita et al., Ames; Bates; Geddes), other scholars similarly assume that dissident leaders are tenure-maximizers (Chong; Hampton; Kirk).
97. Barbara Geddes, Politician's Dilemma: Building State Capacity in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994)
98. Jean Hampton, "Free- Rider Problems in the Production of Collective Goods," Economics and Philosophy 3 (1987): 245-73
99. R. M. Kirk, "Political Terrorism and the Size of Government: A Positive Institutional Analysis of Violent Political Activity," Public Choice 40, no. 1 (1983): 41-52.
100. Ames, Political Survival, 4.
101. Bueno de Mesquita et al., "An Institutional Explanation," 793.
102. Ibid., 8.
103. Ames similarly contends that in crisis situations, survival preferences dominate substantive preferences completely. Ames, Political Survival 8.
104. See, for example, Michael Colaresi, "When Doves Cry: International Rivalry, Unreciprocated Cooperation, and Leadership Turnover," American Journal of Political Science 48, no. 3 (2004): 555-70
105. Will H. Moore and David J. Lanoue, "Domestic Politics and U.S. Foreign Policy: A Study of Cold War Conflict Behavior," Journal of Politics 65, no. 2 (2003): 376-96.
106. See Giacomo Chiozza and H.E. Goemans, "International Conflict and the Tenure of Leaders: Is War Still Ex Post Inefficient?" American Journal of Political Science 48, no. 3 (2004): 604-19
107. Colaresi, "When Doves Cry"
108. James D. Fearon, "Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes," American Political Science Review 88, no. 3 (1994): 577-92
109. Lichbach, The Rebel's Dilemma, 66-67
110. Maurice Jackson, Eleanora Peterson, James Bull, Sverre Monsen, and Patricia Richard, "The Failure of an Incipient Social Movement," Pacific Sociological Review 3 (Spring 1960): 40. All discuss how success or failure affects dissident groups.
111. Lichbach, The Rebel's Dilemma, 66.
112. Colaresi, "When Doves Cry." Note that L applies to both government and dissident leaders. scfr O represents the dissidents for a government leader, and scfr O refers to the government for a dissident leader.
113. This is similar to how Colaresi measures foreign policy success or failure in the rivalry literature.
114. Lichbach, The Rebel's Dilemma, 67.
115. Paul K. Huth, Standing Your Ground: Territorial Disputes and International Conflict (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996).
116. Colaresi, "When Doves Cry," 556.
117. For example, Ariel Sharon's recent disengagement plan from Gaza was protested by right-wing Likud members who threatened to quit the coalition. He ultimately had to revise the plan and fire two ministers before the plan passed. In the meantime, he reinstated the policy of targeted killings of known militants (Hamas leaders Yasin and Rantisi). Sharon tactically responded to his coalition's disapproval to maintain the support of his hawk coalition by adjusting his plan and enacting tactics pleasing to his hard-line constituents. In contrast, Ehud Barak was criticized for being a bad negotiator and giving up too much territory during his term. He had campaigned on not giving up Jerusalem, but following the election, he made concessions on that very issue. He was criticized for his overcooperation as public opinion at the time reflected a preference for someone more hawkish. After Barak failed to reconcile his behavior toward the Palestinians and his winning coalition's desires, he lost the election to Sharon.
118. This argument parallels aspects of the rational expectations argument, but in places it predicts different dynamics than an error correction process would predict. Stephen M. Shellman, "Taking Turns: A Theory and Model of Government-Dissident Interactions" (Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State University, 2003), http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/ etd-11152003-004651/unrestricted/FinalDissertation. 11.25.03.singlespaced.pdf.
119. Charles Lewis Taylor and David A. Jodice, World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators, 3rd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983).
120. Lichbach, "An Economic Theory of Governability," 309.
121. Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution.
122. Lichbach, "An Economic Theory of Governability," 278.
123. In quantitative terms, the scale ranges from -10 to +10, where hostility ranges from -10 to 0 and cooperation ranges from 0 to +10.
124. See Jack Hirshleifer and Juan C. M. Coll, "What Strategies Can Support the Evolutionary Emergence of Cooperation?" Journal of Conflict Resolution 32 (June 1988): 367-98
125. Joshua S. Goldstein and John R. Freeman, "[s U.S. s]-Soviet-Chinese Relations: Routine Reciprocity, or Rational Expectations?" American Political Science Review 85, no. 1 (1991): 17-36.
126. Note that in each context, one actor succeeds and the other fails. For example, in contexts 1-3, the dissident leader succeeds, while the government leader fails. In contrast, in contexts 4-6, the dissident leader fails, while the government leader succeeds.
127. For survey research, see E. Muller, "A Test of a Partial Theory of Potential for Political Violence," American Political Science Review 66 (1972): 947
128. Bert Klandermans, "Mobilization and Participation," American Sociological Review 49 (1984): 592.
129. See also, Gurr, Why Men Rebel, 221-23.
130. See James DeNardo, Power in Numbers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985)
131. Chong, Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement.
132. There is no incentive to increase their hostility levels.
133. Joshua S. Goldstein and John R. Freeman, Three-Way Street: Strategic Reciprocity in World Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990)
134. Goldstein and Freeman, "U.S.-Soviet-Chinese Relations."
135. Jarol B. Manheim and Richard C. Rich, Empirical Political Analysis: Research Methods in Political Science (White Plains, NY: Longman, 1995), 253.
136. Adam Przeworski and Henry Teune, The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry (New York: Wiley, 1970), 35.
137. Joshua S. Goldstein, "A Conflict-Cooperation Scale for WEIS Events Data," Journal of Conflict Resolution 36 (1992): 369.
138. Goldstein, "A Conflict-Cooperation Scale."
139. Ibid., 370.
140. Though there are many exceptions in the comparative politics literature, the IR projects include: Cooperation and Peace Data Bank - COPDAB, World Events Interaction Survey - WEIS, Integrated Data for Events Analysis - IDEA, Protocol for the Assessment of Nonviolent Direct Action - PANDA, Intranational Political Interactions Project - IPI.
141. The G-to-G actions are dropped as are the D-to-D actions.
142. See University of Kansas, Kansas Event Data Project, http://web.ku.edu/ keds.
143. See Charles McClelland, "World Event/Interaction Survey (WEIS) Project, 1966-1978," ICPSR no. 5211 (Ann Arbor: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, 1999), http://webapp.icpsr.umich.edu/ cocoon/ICPSR-STUDY/05211.xml.
144. Goldstein, "A Conflict-Cooperation Scale."
145. For information on the PANDA project, see Harvard University, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, http:// www.wcfia.harvard.edu/ponsacs/research/PANDA IDEA.htm.
146. For WEIS codes and adaptations PANDA, see University of Kansas, Kansas Event Data Project, http://web.ku.edu/keds/data.html.
147. William J. Dixon, "The Discrete Sequential Analysis of Dynamic International Behavior," Quality and Quantity 22 (1988): 239-54.
148. Stephen M. Shellman, "Measuring the Intensity of Intranational Political Events Data: Two Interval- Like Scales," International Interactions 33, no. 2 (2004): 109-41
149. Stephen M. Shellman, "Time Series Intervals and Statistical Inference: The Effects of Temporal Aggregation on Event Data Analysis," Political Analysis 12, no. 1 (2004): 97-104.
150. See Renee Marlin-Bennett, Alan Rosenblatt, and Jianxin Wang, "The Visible Hand: The United States, Japan, and the Management of Trade Disputes," International Interactions 17 (1991): 191-213
151. Moore, "The Repression of Dissent: A Substitution Model."
152. Marlin-Bennet et al., "The Visible Hand," 202-03.
153. I prefer the mean because it keeps inferences on a meaningful scale. Totaling values obscures the meaning of coefficient estimates: A "total" score of -27 on the -10 to +10 scale is difficult to interpret.
154. The result is a recursive sequential model and thus does not require an instrumental variables approach or unique identifier to estimate it. In other words, there is no contemporaneous endogenous correlation.
155. Note that there may be situations in which both actors' previous levels of behavior match each other. When this occurs, the contexts are coded as successful ones. For example, when the dissident leader matches the government leader's level of hostility, this scenario is coded as C1 for the dissident leader and C4 for the government leader. This rarely occurs and such rare events are consistent with my theory that relative position matters.
156. Here, I make no argument about the functional form of the relationships between previous behavior and current behavior. On the issue of modeling the additive and interactive effects of the three independent variables (and their functional forms), see Stephen M. Shellman, "Taking Turns."
157. Note that C1 for the dissidents is different from C1 for the government in that the model is sequential as depicted in Figure 2 and equations 3.1 and 3.2.
158. See Gary King and Langche Zeng, "Logistic Regression in Rare Events Data," Political Analysis, 9, no. 2 (Spring 2001): 137-63. I implement the rare event logit routine written for Stata described in Tomz, King, and Zeng. The reported results are consistent with and do not differ much from the results obtained using a vanilla logit routine.
159. Michael Tomz, Gary King, and Langche Zeng, "ReLogit: Rare Events Logistic Regression," Journal of Statistical Software 8, no. 2 (2003).
160. A discussion of the diagnostic tests is reported in an online appendix, http://smshel. myweb.uga.edu/Research/Publications/ TakingTacticalTurns.OnlineAppendix.pdf.
161. Note that the asterisk tells which coefficients are significant, not which bars.
162. Note when an actor moves from more hostility to less hostility, the direction is positive, not negative.
163. Note that neither is statistically significant, yet this implies that there is no difference between the amount of change produced by C5 and C6. C6 is negative and statistically significant.
164. Francisco, "Coercion and Protest," 1179.