Abstracts

2006. Decentralization: Fueling the Fire or Dampening the Flames of Ethnic Conflict and Secessionism, International Organization, (July): 651-685..

Political decentralization is one of the most commonly used mechanisms to reduce ethnic conflict in the world today. Yet, decentralization is more successful in reducing ethnic conflict in some countries than in others. In this paper, I explore why this occurs. I demonstrate using a statistical analysis of thirty democracies from 1985 to 2000 that decentralization decreases ethnic conflict directly by giving groups control over their own political, social and economic affairs, but that it increases ethnic conflict indirectly by encouraging the growth of regional parties. Regional parties increase ethnic conflict by reinforcing ethnic and regional identities, producing legislation that favors certain groups over others, and mobilizing groups to engage in ethnic conflict.

2007. Political Aftershocks: The Impact of Earthquakes on Intra-state Conflict, Journal of Conflict Resolution 51 (5): 715-743.

Although many scholars, policy makers, and relief organizations suggest that natural disasters bring groups together and dampen conflicts, earthquakes can actually stimulate intrastate conflict by producing scarcities in basic resources, particularly in developing countries where the competition for scarce resources is most intense. Capitalizing on a natural experiment design, this study examines the impact of earthquakes on intrastate conflict through a statistical analysis of 185 countries over the period from 1975 to 2002. The analysis indicates that earthquakes not only increase the likelihood of conflict, but that their effects are greater for higher magnitude earthquakes striking more densely populated areas of countries with lower gross domestic products as well as preexisting conflicts. These results suggest that disaster recovery efforts must pay greater attention to the conflict-producing potential of earthquakes and undertake certain measures, including strengthening security procedures, to prevent this outcome from occurring.

2008. The Origins of Regional Parties, British Journal of Political Science, 38(1): 135-159

In this paper I investigate the origins of regional parties. Traditional explanations of regional parties as products of regionally-based social cleavages cannot fully account for variations in regional party strength both within and across countries. This unexplained variance can be explained, however, by looking at different institutions and one institution in particular, political decentralization. I test my argument using a statistical analysis of thirty-sevedemocracies around the world from 1945 to 2002, which shows that political decentralization increases the strength of regional parties in national legislatures, independent of the strength of regional cleavages, as well as different features of a country’s political system, such as fiscal decentralization, electoral proportionality, presidentialism, cross-regional voting laws, and the sequencing of executive and legislative elections.

2008. Winning Alone: The Electoral Fate of Independent Candidates Worldwide, Journal of Politics (July):XX-XX