Sub-national Analysis of Conflict

With more than 10,000 deaths in eight years, a Maoist insurgency, reinforced by ethnic cleavages, has resulted in substantial levels of political violence 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, we develop and test hypotheses using a sub-national research design. We find support for a model of strategic interaction between government and opposition that depends on the political and geographical opportunities for violence.

 

Our findings contribute new evidence for the importance of geography but also of democracy and social capital in their effects on the levels of violence used by both government and opposition.