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When and where do states coercively alter their internal demography? We build a theory that predicts under what conditions states alter the demographic “facts on the ground” by resettling and expelling ethno-national populations. We predict that, under particular scope conditions, states will employ demographic engineering to shore up control over (1) nonnatural frontiers, and (2) areas populated by ethnic minorities who are co-ethnics with elites in a hostile power. We then substantiate our predictions using new subnational data from both China and the USSR. Causally identifying the spatially differential effect of international conflict on demographic engineering via a difference-in-differences design, we find that the Sino-Soviet split (1959–1982) led to a disproportionate increase in the expulsion of ethnic Russians and resettlement of ethnic Han in Chinese border areas lacking a natural border with the USSR, and that resettlement was targeted at areas populated by ethnic Russians. On the Soviet side, we similarly find that the Sino-Soviet split led to a significant increase in expulsion of Chinese and the resettlement of Russians in border areas, and that resettlement was targeted at areas populated by more Chinese. We develop the nascent field of political demography by advancing our theoretical and empirical understanding of when, where, and to whom states seek to effect demographic change. By demonstrating that both ethnic group concentration and dispersion across borders are endogenous to international conflict, our results complicate a large and influential literature linking ethnic demography to conflict.

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This article identifies indirect and direct colonial rule as causal factors in shaping support for democracy by exploiting a within-country natural experiment in Namibia. Throughout the colonial era, northern Namibia was indirectly ruled through a system of appointed indigenous traditional elites whereas colonial authorities directly ruled southern Namibia. This variation originally stems from where the progressive extension of direct German control was stopped after a rinderpest epidemic in the 1890s, and, thus, constitutes plausibly exogenous within-country variation in the form of colonial rule. Using this spatial discontinuity, we find that individuals in indirectly ruled areas are less likely to support democracy and turnout at elections. We explore potential mechanisms and find suggestive evidence that the greater influence of traditional leaders in indirectly ruled areas has socialized individuals to accept nonelectoral bases of political authority.

This article examines the relationship between mass resettlement and political conflict. The author theorizes that states can use mass resettlement to extend control over contested frontiers. Settlers whose land rights are politically contested will disproportionately participate in violence to defend the incumbent regime. The theory is tested using data on resettlement and violence in postcolonial Rwanda. The author shows that the Hutu revolutionary regime resettled some 450,000 Hutus after independence to frontier and Tutsi-dominated areas to defend itself against external Tutsi militias. The author contends that the invasion of the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in the 1990s threatened the Hutu settler population because the RPF sought the repatriation of Tutsis onto redistributed land and that consequent land insecurity incentivized violence against Tutsis in 1994. The article identifies the positive effect of resettlement on locality violence during the genocide via a geographic regression discontinuity design. A process tracing of one notoriously violent resettled commune supports the theorized causal sequence. In light of these findings, the author suggests that research should refocus on the way that conflict shapes ethnic demography and that, to understand participation in state-sponsored violence, scholars should attend to the threat posed by regime change to individual livelihoods.