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59 J. Conflict Resol. 1101 (2015)
Geography, Outcome, and Casualties: A Unified Model of Insurgency

handle is hein.journals/jcfltr59 and id is 1081 raw text is: 





Article


                                                           journal of Conflict Resolution
                                                           2015, Vol. 59(6) 1101-1128
                                                               @ The Author(s) 2014
Geography, O                utcom       e,                    Reprints and permission:
                                                      sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
and      Casualties:                                    DOI: 10. 1177/00220027 13520534
                                                                    jcr.sagepub.comn
A Unified Model                                                      OSAGE

of   Insurgency


Sebastian Schutte'





Abstract
This study introduces a theoretical model of how insurgency develops as a function
of reactive mobilization. The theory extends a classic distance-decay model by incor-
porating Kalyvas' typology of violence. It implies that geographic conditions crucially
determine the accuracy of applied violence and thereby its public perception, which
in turn determines the actors' ability to mobilize. As a first test of these effects,
I propose a new  geographic indicator that expresses the spatial accessibility of a
country's population for both central governments and peripheral insurgent move-
ments. Two  empirical implications of the theory are tested with a large-N data set on
outcomes  and casualties in insurgencies. The new indicator is significantly associated
with both military outcomes and the number of casualties in insurgencies since I970
and strengthens statistical predictions.


Keywords
insurgency, civil war, GIS, violence


The bloody stalemate in Afghanistan, a highly volatile security situation in Iraq, and
the different fates of the uprisings of the Arab Spring remind us that civil war out-
comes  and severities are difficult to predict. Most civil conflicts in the post-World
War  II era share a common  type of warfare: insurgency (Fall 1965; Fearon and


'Center for Comparative and International Studies, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Corresponding Author:
Sebastian Schutte, Center for Comparative and International Studies, ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
Email: schuttes@ethz.ch

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