Related papers: Step by Step to Peace in Syria
The phenomenon of radicalization is investigated within a mixed population composed of core and sensitive subpopulations. The latest includes first to third generation immigrants. Respective ways of life may be partially incompatible. In…
The recent social unrest across the Middle East and North Africa has deposed dictators who had ruled for decades. While the events have been hailed as an "Arab Spring" by those who hope that repressive autocracies will be replaced by…
The conflicts between armed groups often go on for years. The classical model of such conflicts accounts for the number of participants and for the technology level of the equipment of the groups. Below we extend this model in order to…
We investigate the role of global mixing in epidemic processes. We first construct a simplified model of the SIR epidemic using a realistic population distribution. Using this model, we examine possible mechanisms for destruction of spatial…
Legal systems shape not only the recognition of migrants and refugees but also the pace and stability of their integration. Refugees often shift between multiple legal classifications, a process we refer to as the "legal journey". This…
Acts of political violence in the continental United States have increased dramatically in the last decade. For this rise in political violence, we are interested in where and when such incidents occur: how are the locations and times of…
Although very large wars remain an enduring threat in global politics, we lack a clear understanding of how some wars become large and costly, while most do not. There are three possibilities: large conflicts start with and maintain intense…
The risk of conflict is exasperated by a multitude of internal and external factors. Current multivariate analysis paints diverse causal risk profiles that vary with time. However, these profiles evolve and a universal model to understand…
Many modern areas have not learned their lessons and often hope for the wisdom of later generations, resulting in them only possessing modern technology and difficult to iterate ancient civilizations. At present, there is no way to tell how…
Social and political polarization is a significant source of conflict and poor governance in many societies. Thus, understanding its causes has become a priority of scholars across many disciplines. Here we demonstrate that shifts in…
Geographic borders are not only essential for the effective functioning of government, the distribution of administrative responsibilities and the allocation of public resources, they also influence the interregional flow of information,…
The relevance of the topic is dictated by the fact that in recent decades, the threat to international security emanating from terrorism has increased many times. Terrorist organizations have become full-fledged subjects of politics on a…
Support for extremist entities - whether from the far right, or far left - often manages to survive globally online despite significant external pressure, and may ultimately inspire violent acts by individuals having no obvious prior…
Recent terrorist attacks carried out on behalf of ISIS on American and European soil by lone wolf attackers or sleeper cells remind us of the importance of understanding the dynamics of radicalization mediated by social media communication…
Who joins extremist movements? Answering this question poses considerable methodological challenges. Survey techniques are infeasible and selective samples provide no counterfactual. Recruits can be assigned to contextual units, but this is…
The rapid spread of radical ideologies in recent years has led to a worldwide string of terrorist attacks. Understanding how extremist tendencies germinate, develop, and drive individuals to action is important from a cultural standpoint,…
Selection on the level of loosely associated groups has been suggested as a route towards the evolution of cooperation between individuals and the subsequent formation of higher-level biological entities. Such group selection explanations…
This paper examines a government's strategic resource allocation choices when facing an opposing group whose military power is uncertain. We investigate how this uncertainty affects the government's decision to divide resources in a way…
Conflict fatalities tend to follow heavy-tailed statistical distributions. A 2005 fusion-fission theory predicts mathematically that for armed groups operating in dynamically evolving clusters within a given conflict, the number of…
Human conflict is often attributed to threats against material conditions and symbolic values, yet it remains unclear how they interact and which dominates. Progress is limited by weak causal control, ethical constraints, and scarce…