Opportunity, Democracy, and the Exchange of Political Violence

Abstract

With more than 12,000 deaths in nine years, a homegrown Maoist insurgency, reinforced by ethnic and socioeconomic cleavages, has resulted in high levels of political violence and human rights violations in Nepal. With fresh district-level data and drawing on theoretical insights from both the conflict and human rights literatures, research that has relied primarily on cross-national comparisons, the authors develop and test hypotheses using a subnational research design. They find an exchange of violence between government and opposition forces that depends on the political and geographical opportunities for violence. Their findings contribute new evidence for the importance of geography but also suggest that democracy and social capital influence the selection of violence by both government and opposition.

Civil conflict, gender-specific fetal loss, and selection: A new test of the Trivers–Willard hypothesis

“…They were also reported to terrorize, loot, abduct, and physically assault civilians (Human Rights Watch (2004); Bohara et al (2006)). On the other hand, government security forces also killed civilians and were accused of torturing, displacing and summarily convicting civilians (Bohara et al 2006). A crucial moment in the conflict was the ending by the Maoists of a short-lived cease-fire in November 2001.…”

“…I hypothesize that civil conflict experienced during pregnancy should 6 Several arguments have been put forward to explain the district variation in the intensity of the insurgency, including geography (Murshed & Gates (2005); Bohara et al (2006); Do & Iyer (2010)), poverty (Murshed & Gates (2005); Do & Iyer (2010)), lack of political participation (Bohara et al 2006), and inter-group inequality (Murshed & Gates (2005); Macours (2011)). Given that these variables are likely to also affect fetal and neonatal health, it is important to control for district heterogeneity in the analysis and check the robustness of findings to potential confounders, as discussed in Sections 4.2 and 7.…”

“…INSEC is an independent, wellregarded, human rights NGO based in Kathmandu and with representatives in each of the 75 Nepalese districts, who monitor human rights violations. Data from INSEC has been extensively used in the media, international agencies and government reports, and in a number of academic studies, including Bohara et al (2006) and Do & Iyer (2010). All conflict exposure variables are expressed in deaths per 1000 district inhabitants as per the last pre-conflict census (1991).…”

What Did the Maoists Ever Do for Us?: Education and Marriage of Women Exposed to Civil Conflict in Nepal

“…In a less well controlled study, Jayaraman et al (2009) (Do and Iyer, 2010). They were also reported to terrorize, loot, abduct, and physically assault civilians (Bohara et al, 2006). On the other hand, government security forces also killed civilians and were accused of using children for spying, torturing, displacing and summarily convicting civilians (Bohara et al, 2006).…”

“…Other important aims were stated to be: land redistribution and equality for all castes, language groups, and women. Several arguments have been put forward to explain the district variation in the intensity of the insurgency, including geography (Murshed and Gates, 2005;Bohara et al, 2006;Do and Iyer, 2010), poverty (Murshed and Gates, 2004;Do and Iyer, 2010), lack of political participation (Bohara et al, 2006), and inter-group inequality (Murshed and Gates, 2005;Macours 2011). But very little is known so far of the impact of the conflict, both at the aggregate and gender-differentiated levels.…”