Kickoff to conflict: a sequence analysis of intra-state conflict-preceding event structures.

ABSTRACT: While many studies have suggested or assumed that the periods preceding the onset of intra-state conflict are similar across time and space, few have empirically tested this proposition. Using the Integrated Crisis Early Warning System's domestic event data in Asia from 1998-2010, we subject this proposition to empirical analysis. We code the similarity of government-rebel interactions in sequences preceding the onset of intra-state conflict to those preceding further periods of peace using three different metrics: Euclidean, Levenshtein, and mutual information. These scores are then used as predictors in a bivariate logistic regression to forecast whether we are likely to observe conflict in neither, one, or both of the states. We find that our model accurately classifies cases where both

SUBMITTER: D'Orazio V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4424002 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature