Networks in Conflict: Theory and Evidence From the Great War of Africa

Abstract

We study from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective how a network of military alliances and enmities affects the intensity of a conflict. The model combines elements from network theory and from the politico‐economic theory of conflict. We obtain a closed‐form characterization of the Nash equilibrium. Using the equilibrium conditions, we perform an empirical analysis using data on the Second Congo War, a conflict that involves many groups in a complex network of informal alliances and rivalries. The estimates of the fighting externalities are then used to infer the extent to which the conflict intensity can be reduced through (i) dismantling specific fighting groups involved in the conflict; (ii) weapon embargoes; (iii) interventions aimed at pacifying animosity among groups. Finally, with the aid of a random utility model, we study how policy shocks can induce a reshaping of the network structure.

Politician Family Networks and Electoral Outcomes: Evidence from the Philippines

“…3 In particular, networks have been linked to the diffusion of information (Banerjee et al 2013;Alatas et al 2016;Larson and Lewis 2017), conflict outcomes (König et al 2017), and the broader mechanisms of political control (Puga and Trefler 2014;Acemoglu, Reed, and Robinson 2014). More recently, and closely related to our paper, Naidu, Robinson, and Young (2015) study elite networks in Haiti and find that more central families are more likely to support a coup.…”

Insurgency and Small Wars: Estimation of Unobserved Coalition Structures

“…Appendix Figure M.1 reproduces Figure 1 from Jones (2008), a well-reputed study of insurgency in Afghanistan during the period covered by WITS. Maps similar to Appendix Figure M.1 are frequently digitized and employed for spatial conflict analysis, much like the Murdock (1959) ethnic maps are used in studies of ethnicity and conflict (König et al (2017)).…”

“…Some of this recent wave of research has also taken the direction, which we share, of focusing on the network structure of conflict. One such recent example is the work on the complex alliances in the post-Mubutu Congo wars studied by König et al (2017), while Horowitz and Potter (2014) focused on terrorist alliances and effects of attacks. Importantly, both these papers take in their main analysis the organization of groups' alliances and their structure as given, 8 while our work explicitly does not.…”

A Variational Approach to Network Games

“…An important difference with Ballester et al [2006] and Konig et al [2017] is that we do not impose specific functional forms in deriving our results. A key insight from our results is that the role of complementarity and sustitubility is fundamental in determining the existence, uniqueness, and the comparative of statics of a NE.…”

“…In the context of linear-quadratic network games, Ballester et al [2006] allow for mixed interactions among players. Most recently, the paper by Konig et al [2017] exploits this idea to study network of conflicts.…”