Subject to Change: A Computational Strategy for Quantifying Transformation in Armed Conflict Actors

"Subject to Change: A Computational Strategy for Quantifying Transformation in Armed Conflict Actors"

by Margaret J. Foster (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

Abstract:

"I introduce a strategy to measure periods of transformation and change in the operation of non-state armed militant groups. By computationally modeling news reports describing the activities attributed to specific armed conflict actors and aggregating the results into an actor-specific yearly scale, the manuscript contributes a measure that has historically been missing from large-N scholarship on the dynamics of substate conflict and non-state armed groups. I introduce the measurement strategy, evaluate the face validity of the resulting measure with reference to four groups chosen to represent a diversity of possible trajectories, and demonstrate scalability to a corpus of 258 militant groups with more than 10 violent events from 1989-2020. I evaluate face validity and discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the measurement strategy on a suite of armed conflict actors: al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a militant group at the intersection of global, regional, and local conflicts; Abu Sayyaf, which frequently straddles the insurgent-criminal line; and the United Liberation Front of Asom, a non-Islamist militant group with significant operational shifts; and and the Lord’s Resistance Army, a militant group with stable framing. I conclude by using the measure to extend an analysis of the impacts of uncertainty on conflict termination."

Discussants:

Christopher Blair (University of Pennsylvania)

Christopher Fariss (University of Michigan)

Vito D'Orazio (University of Texas at Dallas)

OPSC Coordinator:

Cassy Dorff (Vanderbilt University)