Whether sanctions push conflict parties to reach a negotiated settlement and contribute to ending violent conflicts is disputed in the literature. So far, discussions on the effect and success of sanctions have primarily centered around their costs for the target and proper implementation. Building on individual-level experimental insights from political psychology, we argue that the effectiveness of sanctions as a conflict management tool also depends on the conflict context. We focus on intrastate conflicts, suggesting that sanctions have different effects depending on the conflict’s incompatibility. In territorial conflicts closely linked to identities and immaterial values, we expect sanctions to cause a negative backlash that makes the conflict parties less willing to compromise. In government conflicts, however, the additional costs of sanctions could lead the parties to make more far-reaching concessions. We study the impact of sanctions on the outcome of peace negotiations in intrastate conflicts between 1990 and 2012, using a novel measure of conflict parties’ willingness and ability to make concessions. In line with our theoretical argument, our analysis presents evidence for a differential effect of implemented sanctions according to conflict type. The analysis also provides insight into how these effects evolve, indicating that both effects diminish over time.

How does fear of election violence affect electoral participation? We study how fear of election violence affects different forms of political participation important during electoral processes in African democracies. While the literature has focused almost exclusively on the way that election violence impedes voting, we argue that voting is not the only or even the most affected form of participation depressed by fear of violence. Instead, fear of violence is more likely to depress key pre-electoral forms of participation, such as campaign participation and public political deliberation. Empirically, we rely on experimental and observational survey data of almost 3,000 randomly selected respondents in Lusaka, Zambia. We find that respondents report a lower willingness to engage in pre-electoral forms of participation when the hypothetical electoral environment is more violent. When such violence is present, they also assess the physical risk of participating in such activities as higher. Moreover, violence reduces pre-electoral forms of participation more than turnout. We corroborate these survey experimental findings with observational data. Our findings contribute to a fuller appreciation of the way that violence erodes the quality of democracy and exacerbates political inequalities.

Loyalty shifts within state security forces critically impact dissent campaign outcomes and have frequently precipitated regime breakdowns. Existing datasets are overly aggregated, impeding our understanding of the micro-dynamics underpinning individual decisions and coordinated efforts to abandon the regime. To address this gap, we introduce the Disloyalty During Campaigns (DDC) dataset (1970–2013), the first global disaggregated dataset documenting acts of disloyalty by security forces during nonviolent and violent campaigns. DDC records the type of disloyalty, number of participants, ranks, branches, and whether disloyalty originated at upper or lower levels of the security forces. We show that disloyalty occurred in only 13% of campaign-years but in 45% of campaigns, with widespread shifts often originating from individual acts. We also find that disloyalty is positively correlated with campaign success but becomes statistically significant only when participation exceeds 1,000. Coups significantly increase success on their own, while other forms are only effective in combination.

Recent research has explored how militant leaders' backgrounds shape their decision-making while in power. However, existing studies primarily focus on leaders of rebel groups participating in civil wars, overlooking smaller, yet lethal and influential, armed groups that operate outside civil war contexts. To address this gap, we introduce the Jihadist Leaders Dataset (JLD), which provides original, systematic data on the backgrounds and prewar experiences of 237 leaders from 110 jihadist organizations. The dataset covers organizations operating across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East between 1976 and 2023, capturing a broad range of actors that are central to contemporary conflicts. Drawing on Arabic, English, French, German, Turkish, and Urdu sources, we document biographical information on 31 leader-level variables, offering the potential for analyzing how jihadist leaders' prior experiences shape their preferences and the behavior of the groups they command. We detail our data collection procedures and present descriptive statistics before illustrating the JLD's utility through a quantitative analysis of the leader-level determinants of suicide bombings. The JLD advances research on militant leaders, jihadist actors, and the role of individual decision-makers in shaping conflict processes and provides multiple avenues for new research on leader-level explanations of various consequential outcomes in conflict zones, including organizational splintering, tactical choices, and militant alliances.

When do nonviolent revolutions result in stable democratic regimes? Existing scholarship is optimistic about the positive relationship between nonviolent revolutionary transitions and postrevolutionary democracy. However, several regimes established following nonviolent revolutions fail to consolidate into democracy, often being derailed by coups and civil wars. Nevertheless, we know comparatively little about when and why nonviolent revolutions lead to unstable or undemocratic regimes. I theorize that security force defection during nonviolent revolutions undermines stability and democratic consolidation in the regimes that follow. Security force defectors possess distinctive motives, opportunities, and coercive capabilities that equip them to destabilize democracy in the postrevolutionary era. Empirical analysis using global data capturing nonviolent revolutions from 1945 to 2013 reveals that security force defection both significantly increases the likelihood of postrevolutionary coups and civil wars and diminishes the democratic character of postrevolutionary regimes. This article thereby revises the scholarly consensus regarding the benefits of security force defection during nonviolent revolutionary movements.

How do secondary states in the Asia-Pacific enhance their security and strategic autonomy in a networked strategic environment? Conventional studies of balancing, bandwagoning, and hedging often adopt linear frameworks that position secondary states along a spectrum of alignment—whether with the United States, China, or somewhere in between. Yet such approaches overlook how secondary states manage networked interdependence—conditions that both enable and constrain their security and autonomy—by abstracting them from the broader relational structures in which they are embedded. Drawing on the network power perspective, I argue that secondary states actively cultivate and manage security ties to improve their positional standing within regional cooperation networks to reduce vulnerability to coercion and expand relational leverage and access to information and resources. The study identifies 3 key network strategies: (1) vertical diversification with great powers, (2) horizontal diversification with peer secondary states, and (3) bridging disconnected or weakly connected states. Using a unique dataset of Asia-Pacific joint military exercises (JMEs) from 1970 to 2024, constructed for this study andanalyzed through network analysis and descriptive statistics, the findings show that over the past 2 decades, U.S. allies and partners—including those with maritime disputes with China—have expanded JMEs with Beijing while maintaining cooperation with Washington and regional peers. These patterns reveal that secondary states strive to move away from the network's periphery and a shift from a hub-and-spokes system to a more decentralized, networked regional security architecture characterized by reduced structural asymmetry.

Why do noncombatants trapped inside militant organizations both actively participate in and resist insurgent activities? This article explains such turbulent cooperation with frequent shifts in behavior among the often-overlooked category of noncombatant rebels—those who provide the manpower of spying, cooking, and portering in war. Drawing on in-depth interviews with former Boko Haram members and extensive fieldwork in Nigeria, this study argues that turbulent cooperation emerges as a specific manifestation of incomplete socialization within militarized hierarchies. The analysis reveals how organizational realities create competing pressures that disrupt adaptation processes and prevent linear progression toward norm internalization. Specifically, individuals alternate between embracing and resisting militarism as they navigate social mobility opportunities and threats within a spectrum ranging from enslaved to elite positions. While advancement offers protection and resources, it simultaneously introduces new vulnerabilities through escalating demands for violent participation. The findings move beyond conventional assumptions that link recruitment tactics to subsequent participation patterns, demonstrating how socialization processes unfold among noncombatants whose seemingly inconsistent behavior reflects their struggle to survive within a militarized power structure that requires them to continuously adjust to new roles, responsibilities, and rights. This analysis thus provides insights into rebel organization, socialization processes among noncombatants, and strategies of survival in a context that is representative of increasing Islamic extremist contestation in Africa, while offering implications for counterterrorism interventions and post-conflict rehabilitation and reintegration programs.

Do individuals in conflict settings misperceive the extent to which their ingroup supports peace? If so, what drives these misperceptions, and can correcting them build further support for peace? To answer these questions, I conduct survey experiments in South Sudan in the midst of ongoing conflict. I document large misperceptions of ingroup pro-peace attitudes, with the average respondent substantially underestimating support for peace within their group. I also show that underestimation is greatest among individuals who have less access to information. However, providing information about rates of pro-peace ingroup attitudes does not cause individuals to update their perceptions of ingroup attitudes, and it therefore has no impact on individuals’ own attitudes. Exploring mechanisms, I provide evidence that the most likely reason individuals do not update their perceptions of ingroup attitudes is that they do not believe the information they are provided. The findings suggest that it is common for individuals in conflict settings to underestimate the extent to which their ingroup supports peace, but correcting these misperceptions is not straightforward. More generally, the results underscore the difficulty of building pro-peace attitudes in conflict-affected settings through information provision.

Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) is a crucial component of transitions from conflict. DDR starts the demilitarization of politics, a critical first step in reducing the feasibility of political success through violence and preventing conflict recurrence. Existing research on DDR is hampered by the absence of cross-national data. This paper introduces DDR-40, a pioneering global dataset documenting 83 DDR programs with 57 yearly attributes, encompassing 407 program-years (1980–2020). DDR-40 captures detailed program-specific characteristics, including target groups, membership size, group type, cantonment period, budget, implementation scores for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, implementation bodies, and program outcomes. For the duration of every program, the dataset also codes the implementation of other peace agreement provisions, including commitments to amnesty, prisoner release, boundary demarcation, women’s rights, and children’s rights, as well as provisions for various institutional reforms, such as executive, legislative, electoral, constitutional, judicial, and military reform. The paper outlines the dataset structure, provides descriptive statistics, and shows how the data can be used to explain conflict recurrence during DDR.

How can international adversaries and their domestic publics conciliate in the shadow of deep historical grievances? To address this question, we focus substantively on apologies for war atrocities and trace experimentally the effects of different policy counterfactuals. Conducting survey experiments dyadically in both countries, we randomized different forms of war apologies from Japan and official reactions from China. We show that direct apologies have significant positive effects. We also find two distinct sender-receiver gaps: The sender side (Japan) sees the apology signal as significantly more sincere than the receiver side (China) seeing the same signal; but the sender side also significantly underestimates the receiver’s willingness to conciliate. Finally, we trace how the receiver’s official reaction shapes both receiver-side (Chinese) domestic support for conciliation and sender-side (Japanese) public support for apologizing. These findings offer the first dyadic-level experimental evidence on the domestic dynamics of international conciliation between rival states.

Why is discrimination morally wrong, and how does political partisanship shape moral judgments of discrimination? Several theories locate the distinctive moral wrongness of discrimination in its disrespectfulness. However, such theories disagree on whether disrespect derives from the deliberation of the discriminating agent, or from the expressive content of the discriminatory act. In a preregistered vignette-based experiment (N = 1019), we tested the extent to which people are sensitive to deliberation and expressive content in their moral judgments of gender-based workplace discrimination, and whether this sensitivity is moderated by political partisanship. Results suggest that while all participants are sensitive to expressive disrespect, only Independents and Republicans are sensitive to the difference between high and low deliberation-based disrespect.