Bridging Economics and International Relations to Understand State Capacity and War in Sub-Saharan Africa
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Roberto Ricciuti
Abstract
This paper explores the role of state capacity in affecting the probability of being attacked by another country. We measure state capacity as the effectiveness of state sovereignty over its territory (from the Variety of Democracy dataset) and focus on high intensity episodes of Militarized Interstate Disputes (MID). The analysis is performed through a logit model, investigating 42 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1954–2010. The paper shows that higher levels of state capacity increase the probability of suffering from external attacks. This result may appear counterintuitive, since countries having full control of their own territory are expected to be stronger, therefore suggesting that a would-be invader may be defeated. However, our result is consistent with balance-of-power theories in international relations, where countries that perceive a threat set up a process of balancing that could ultimately tend towards an armed conflict.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the participant of the 17th Tinbergen Conference for comments and feedbacks on the paper. Of course, the usual caveats apply.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction to the Proceedings of the 17th Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference
- On the Proper Use of Game-Theoretic Models in Conflict Studies
- Ornithology and Varieties of Conflict: A Personal Retrospective on Conflict Forecasting
- Conflict Fragmentation Index
- Income and Armed Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach
- Land-Use Change and Communal Conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Bridging Economics and International Relations to Understand State Capacity and War in Sub-Saharan Africa
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- A Perfect Match? Are Dogmatic Belief Systems Simply a Reconciliation of Cognitive and Emotional Human Needs?
- Urban Protests, Coups d’état and Post-Coup Regime Change
- Nonviolent Resistance and Peaceful Turnover of Power
- Political Cycles in Military Deployment
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction to the Proceedings of the 17th Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference
- On the Proper Use of Game-Theoretic Models in Conflict Studies
- Ornithology and Varieties of Conflict: A Personal Retrospective on Conflict Forecasting
- Conflict Fragmentation Index
- Income and Armed Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach
- Land-Use Change and Communal Conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Bridging Economics and International Relations to Understand State Capacity and War in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Political Regimes and Government’s Reaction to Terrorism. A Simple Model
- A Perfect Match? Are Dogmatic Belief Systems Simply a Reconciliation of Cognitive and Emotional Human Needs?
- Urban Protests, Coups d’état and Post-Coup Regime Change
- Nonviolent Resistance and Peaceful Turnover of Power
- Political Cycles in Military Deployment
- Buying Friends? The Importance of Economic Flows in Assembling the Iraq War Coalition
