Conflict termination, signals of state weakness and violent urban social disorder in the developing world

ABSTRACT

Warfare often spills over into contentious mobilisation in cities. However, violent urban social disorder is not simply a reflection of broader conflict dynamics. In this article, I argue that armed conflict creates openings for contention in cities when it gives a signal of state weakness. Regime opponents will utilise the favorable political opportunity structure created by the state’s defeat in war to make demands through collective mobilisation and violence. In this case, capital cities and major urban areas witness more violent social disorder events such as riots and armed attacks as broader conflicts cease. I test this argument using monthly event data on urban social disorder in 98 cities in the developing world from 1960 to 2012. I find that conflict termination is associated with more frequent lethal urban disorder events, but only when it results in defeat for the incumbent government. Other types of conflict outcome are not significantly correlated with violent urban disorder. These findings suggest that contention in cities follows a different logic from that of warfare, in some cases increasing as broader armed conflicts subside.

KEYWORDS:

• Conflict and security
• mobilisation
• revolution
• conflict termination
• urban violence
• postwar violence

Notes

1. Davenport et al., “Consequences of Contention”; Mcadam et al., “Dynamics of Contention” and Tarrow, War, States & Contention.

2. Beall, Goodfellow and Rodgers, “Cities and Conflict”; Esser, “The City as Arena, Hub and Prey”; Moser and McIlwane, “New Frontiers”; Muggah, “Manifesto for the Fragile City” and Thomson, Buhaug, Rosvold et al., “Elections and Urban Political Mobilization”.

3. Slater, “Ordering Power” and Tilly, Coercion and Capital.

4. Berdal and Suhrke, “The Peace In Between”; Boyle, “Violence After War”; Buhaug and Urdal, “An Urbanization Bomb?”; Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War”; Gerwarth, The Vanquished and Kier and Krebs, In War’s Wake.

5. These figures are monthly means for 98 cities from 1960 to 2012 calculated from the Urban Social Disorder 2.0 dataset. See below for more information on data.

6. Urdal and Hoelscher, “Explaining Urban Social Disorder”; Fox and Bell, “Urban Geography and Protest Mobilization”; Buhaug and Urdal, “An Urbanization Bomb?”; Hendrix and Haggard, “Global Food Prices”; Smith, “Feeding Unrest”; Thomson, Food and Power and Thomson, Buhaug, Rosvold et al., “Elections and Urban Political Mobilization”.

7. Buhaug and Urdal, “An Urbanization Bomb?”.

8. Kuran, “Sparks and Prarie Fires”; Mcadam et al., “Dynamics of Contention” and Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution.

9. Berdal and Suhrke, “The Peace In Between” and Boyle, “Violence After War.”

10. Kuran, “Sparks and Prarie Fires” and Boyle, “Violence After War”, 8.

11. Kier and Krebs, In War’s Wake; Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions and Tarrow, War, States & Contention.

12. See above 9.

13. See, for example, Kreutz, “How and When Armed Conflicts End” and Mason, Gurses, Brandt et al., “When Civil Wars Recur.”

14. See, for example, Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution; Kuran, “Sparks and Prairie Fires”; Goldstone, “Towards a Fourth Generation” and Thomson, “Grievances, Mobilization and Mass Opposition.”

15. See, for example, Goldstone, “The New Population Bomb”; Staniland, “Cities on Fire”; Moncada, “The Politics of Urban Violence”; Beall, Goodfellow and Rodgers, “Cities and Conflict” and Adamson, “Spaces of Global Security.”

16. Esser, “The City as Arena, Hub and Prey.”

17. Van Baalen and Hoglund, “So, the Killings Continued.”

18. Bateson, “Order and Violence in Postwar Guatemala.”

19. Urdal and Hoelscher, “Explaining Urban Social Disorder”; Fox and Bell, “Urban Geography and Protest Mobilization”; Buhaug and Urdal, “An Urbanization Bomb?”; Hendrix and Haggard, “Global Food Prices”; Smith, “Feeding Unrest” and Thomson, Food and Power.

20. See above 7.

21. Raleigh, “Urban Violence Patterns Across African States”.

22. This discussion is based on Thomson, Buhaug, Rosvold et al., “Elections and Urban Political Mobilization”.

23. Tarrow, War, States & Contention and Staniland, “Cities on Fire.”

24. See, for example, Cederman, Weidmann and Gleditsch, “Horizontal Inequalities,” and Thomson, “Grievances, Mobilization and Mass Opposition.”

25. Pfaff and Kim, “Exit Voice Dynamics.”

26. Davenport, “State Repression.”

27. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action.

28. Opp and Gern, “Dissident Groups, Personal Networks.”

29. Kuran, “Sparks and Prairie Fires” and Lohmann, “The Dynamics of Informational Cascades.”

30. Opp and Gern, “Dissident Groups, Personal Networks.”

31. Thomson, “Grievances, Mobilization and Mass Opposition.”

32. Lohmann, “The Dynamics of Informational Cascades.”

33. See above 29.

34. Urdal and Hoelscher, “Explaining Urban Social Disorder” and Thomson, Buhaug, Rosvold et al., “Elections and Urban Political Mobilization.”

35. Kreutz, “How and When Armed Conflicts End.”

36. Hyde and Marinov, “Which Elections Can Be Lost?” and Marshall, Gurr and Jaggers, “Polity IV Project.”

37. Gleditsch, “Expanded Trade and GDP Data.”

38. United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.

39. Readers will note that the AIC measure of model fit is slightly worse for models including the separate variables for conflict outcome type. This is unsurprising, given that most of these variables are insignificantly correlated with urban social disorder in the model, and these models involve estimating three extra parameters versus the models including ongoing conflict. Nonetheless, the difference in the AIC measure is negligible and the probability that Model 1.7 minimises information loss compared to Model 1.1 is 0.68.

Additional information

Funding

I would like to thank Ivan Gusic, Kristine Höglund, Emma Elfversson, Annekatrin Deglow and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. All remaining errors are my own.

Notes on contributors

Henry Thomson

Henry Thomson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Politics & Global Studies at Arizona State University. His research focuses on the political economy of mobilisation and repression under authoritarian and democratising regimes. His is the author of Food and Power: Regime Type, Agricultural Policy and Political Stability (Cambridge University Press, 2019).