Mobilization and Modus Operandi of Rebel Groups

Understanding the characteristics of rebel groups is crucial to comprehensive analyses of civil wars and effective peace-building policies. In order to devise better peace settlement strategies in different contexts, this project will first gather systematic information about the characteristics of rebel groups (mobilization and recruitment characteristics, organizational structure, and modus operandi) for cross-case comparisons. We will then flesh out the trends discovered in the comparative analysis through case analyses of conflict ridden regions. 

Project leader: Scott Gates

The project is funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Beliefs & Bloodshed: Understanding Religion and Intrastate Conflict

Dissertation Advisers: Ola Listhaug (NTNU/CSCW) and Scott Gates (PRIO)

This dissertation improves our understanding of the origins and dynamics of intrastate conflict by exploring the role (if any) played by religion. Specifically, under what circumstances and exactly how does religion matter for intrastate conflict? Despite the popular assumption that religion is critical for understanding contemporary conflicts, but research on the religion-conflict nexus is theoretically and empirically underdeveloped, and the empirical findings inconsistent. To bridge this divide, this dissertation develops an improved conceptualization and theoretical framework for understanding how, when, and why religion matters for conflict. The dissertation presents new data on religious dimensions of conflict and religious repression, and studies the religion–conflict nexus through different methodological lenses, integrating lessons from carefully selected cases into rigorous tests. The main findings to be drawn are that (1) religious diversity does not in itself translate into intrastate conflict, but repressive contexts can make religion an organizing principle and motive for rebellion which can escalate to civil war, and (2) religious conflicts or conflicts involving Islam are not more violent than other conflicts in terms of battle deaths. However, intrastate conflicts involving a religious dimension, and involving Muslim conflict parties in particular, seem to constitute a growing share of contemporary conflicts. The research conducted in this dissertation is therefore important for generating policies to deal with this challenge.

Submitted 31 October 2009

Defended 19 March 2010


Climate Change and Conflict: Some Plausible Scenarios
WG3 CSCW Environmental Factors in Civil War

Human-induced climate change is one of the most drastic neo-Malthusian scenarios. The suggested causal chains presented in the literature from climate change to social consequences like conflict is long and fraught with uncertainties. Therefore they are hard to evaluate. One of the more widely-described scenarios is from global warming to sea-level rise to extensive migration to conflict, but even for this scenario every link is contested. Climate change has so many potential consequences for the physical environment that we could expect a large number of potential paths to conflict. This paper summarizes some of the points found in reviewing the literature on environmental security and conflict, and presents some scenarios in which climate change can have an effect on violent conflict. In addition, some paths to improved and increased knowledge on this topic are suggested.