New work on the detrimental impact of war-time militias on post-conflict repression

Sabine Carey and Belén González show in a new study, accepted for publication in Conflict Management and Peace Science, that pro-government militias that carry over from civil war times into the post-conflict period have a detrimental impact on repression in postwar societies. Post-war governments do not very frequently create or align with new irregular armed groups, but if they do, then these new militias target more specifically the opposition but without affecting general levels of repression. The open access article is available here.

Katrin Paula successfully defended her doctoral dissertation

Katrin Paula successfully defended her doctoral dissertation "Micro-Dynamics of Mobilization: Evidence from the German Democratic Republic" on 29 April 20179. She passed her written dissertation and oral defense with the highest possible marks. The examination committee consisted of Sabine Carey, Thomas Gautschi and Tobias Wolbring.

In her dissertation, she tackles the question of how mass movements develop in authoritarian settings, where spaces for civil society are constrained and participating in acts of dissent are associated with high personal risks. She develops novel arguments on how citizens access information about the occurrence of protests and of repression and how this shapes their calculations on whether, and where, to join a protest movement. Generating new data on protests on the municipality-day level, on the impact of focal points and the contents of foreign media reports, her results show that protests in the GDR spread predominantly non-spatially, that protests in larger cities attracted people from smaller nearby communities and that foreign media reports about repression lead to an overall backlash, but deterred protests in the communities in which state repression of protesters was reported in West German TV news. Overall her research provides new insights on the dynamics of protest movements in authoritarian regimes on a highly disaggregated level.

Congratulations, Katrin!

Sabine Carey contributes to a workshop at the German Federal Foreign Office

Prof. Carey was invited to participate in the workshop ‘PREVIEW Prediction and Early Warning Workshop’. It takes place at the German Federal Foreign Office, 29-30 January 2019. She presents an overview of the Pro-Government Militias Database and the new Militias Guidebook, and contributes to discussions on how scientists and political decision makers can better work together to improve early warning processes and outcomes.

Workshop on post-conflict peace and security

From 14-16 November we hosted a workshop on post-conflict intra-state peace and security. At this workshop we discussed early projects, including our initial findings from our surveys in Georgia, Sri Lanka and Nepal. The workshop brought together primarily young scholars from the US, Norway, Sweden, the UK and Germany. Click here for the programme.

Presentation on the impact of pro-government militias on post-war repression

Sabine Carey was presented joint research with Belén González on how pro-government militias (PGMs) affect repression in post-war societies at the workshop on ‘Micro-level perspective on peace’ at the University of Birmingham, 19 September 2018, organised by Martin Ottoman and Felix Haass and at the APSA Annual Convention in Boston. In this paper, they show that PGMs are associated with higher levels of repression after an armed conflict, this deterioration in human rights is driven by militias that already existed in the preceding conflict rather than ones that newly formed in the post-war period.

NEW DATE!! Call for papers: Workshop on Intra-State Peace & Security, 14-16 Nov 2018

We invite paper proposals for a workshop on Intra-State Peace & Security, to be held at the University of Mannheim, now 14-16 November 2018, and organised within the ERC Project RATE No 336019. 

*** The initial date included Thanksgiving. We don't want to exclude our American colleagues, so we changed the date to 14-16 November ***

At this workshop we aim to discuss ongoing research projects on intra-state peace and security, with specific focus on how political violence escalates, de-escalates, or does not escalate despite adverse conditions, such as in post-war societies. We are especially interested in work that assesses the nature and role of state institutions (including security forces) and civil society (particularly the media) in advancing or corrupting peace and the respect for human rights. We invite presentations and papers on questions such as how the role and legitimacy of the security forces and former warring parties changed in post-war settings, how institutions were modified to deal with political dissent and how citizens evaluate and trust political actors in (previously) volatile conditions. 

Limited funding for travel and accommodation is available.

Please email your paper proposals to Sabine Carey by 15 July 2018.