No abstract

More than 5.6 million people have fled Syria since 2011, about half of them children. These children grow up with parents that often suffer from war-related mental health problems. In this study, we assess emotional processing abilities of 6–18 year-old children growing up in families that have fled from Syria and reside in Turkish communities (100 families, 394 individuals). We demonstrate that mothers', but not fathers’, post-traumatic stress (PTS) impacts children's emotional processing abilities. A 4% reduction of mothers' PTS was equivalent to 1 year of development in children, even when controlling for parents’ traumatic experiences. Making a small investment in increased mental health of refugee mothers might have a positive impact on the lives of their children.

Local ceasefire agreements are prevalent in modern civil wars, but we know little about their impact. This study analyzes geo-referenced data on 145 local ceasefire agreements declared during the Syrian Civil War, 2011-2019, exploring their short- and long-term effects on the intensity of armed violence. Drawing on scholarship on gradual confidence-building processes, we theorize the conditions under which local ceasefire agreements may generate trust and reduce conflict intensity. Using interrupted time-series analysis and spatial panel regression, we examine factors relating to the design and strategic context of ceasefire agreements. We find that local ceasefire agreements can trigger both escalation and de-escalation in the short term. De-escalatory outcomes are more likely in the long-term, when ceasefire signatories share a history of previous interaction, and when ceasefires are implemented in a stepwise fashion. We also find evidence of spatial diffusion: local ceasefire agreements in one area reduce conflict intensity in neighboring areas.

In the 2010s, violent Islamist actors have become increasingly involved in intrastate armed conflicts, but little is known about how these conflicts can be resolved. Previous studies have found that negotiations are less likely to be successful in resolving armed conflicts that involve violent Islamists. Ceasefires are another tool of conflict resolution related to negotiation that may be reached before, during, or after the negotiation process. This article investigates the conditions for reaching ceasefire agreements with Islamist armed groups in Syria by expanding the author’s earlier dataset, codifying the data, and using logistic regression analysis to test three main hypotheses. From 2011 to 2021, 141 local ceasefire agreements were reached in 190 distinct locations during the Syrian сivil war, comprising about half of the agreements reached with Islamist armed actors. The finding is that such actors were more receptive to a ceasefire if the drafting of agreements prioritized (a) humanitarian considerations above tactical ones and (b) gradual implementation as opposed to immediate. Long-lasting sieges, fighting exhaustion, and the associated public pressure on combatants may further explain why humanitarian incentives are motivating for agreements. The gradual pace of implementation might be attributed to efforts made to create confidence. In contrast, as anticipated by earlier studies, the involvement of third parties does not significantly explain a relationship to achieve a ceasefire with these armed actors.