2015
Vol 10, No 2 (2015)
In addition to a four-article symposium on Afghanistan, this issue contains three stand-alone articles. The first two, respectively by Charles H. Anderton and by Sebastian Ille and Dina Mansour, both construct evoluationary game theory models to study the social evolution of violence and potential levers for intervention and the creation of peaceful environments. The third, by Uih Ran Lee, discusses the creation and application of a new dataset on the intentional targeting of civilians in war. The symposium on field research in Afghanistan is introduced by guest editor Travers B. Child and contains articles by (1) Daniel Karrel, (2) Greg Adams, (3) Jan Koehler, Kristof Gosztonyi, Keith Child, and Basir Feda, and (4) James Weir and Hekmatullah Azamy.
Vol 10, No 1 (2015)
In addition to a four-article symposium on Nigeria, this issue contains three stand-alone articles. The first, by Jerry Hionis, is a theoretical piece considering the role of geographic distance in a contest between two warlords. The second, by Belah Fallal and Yousef Daoud, is on the effect of Israel's occupation on the Palestinian labor market. The third, by Matthew McCaffrey, studies aspects of war and peace economics in classic Chinese military writings. The symposium on conflict and peace in Nigeria starts with a political economy piece by Michael Nwankpa on Boko Haram. This is followed by Kostadis Papaioannou and Angus Dalrymple-Smith with a historical piece on the role of political order in affecting development outcomes today. Finally, a team of researchers around Topher McDougal, contributes two articles, one on the potential microeconomic benefits of peace in Nigeria's Middle Belt states; the other on the macroeconomic benefits for the country as a whole.
2014
Vol 9, No 2 (2014)
This issue contains several case studies. Travers B. Child writes on the relative lack of effectiveness of U.S. reconstruction spending in Afghanistan. Topher McDougal and Lars Almquist write on an agricultural cooperative in civil-war afflicted Burundi. Omer Goksecus, Claire Finnegan, and Huseyin Cakal write on beekeepers in northern Cyprus. And Jeremy Seekings and Kai Thaler write on violence in Cape Town. In addition, Oliver Cover and Saad Mustafa report on a study of Transparency International's anti-corruption index in the defense and security sector.
Vol 9, No 1 (2014)
This issue contains a 6-article symposium on violence and peace in India. When India is considered at all, it is predominantly with respect to its neighbors, especially Bangladesh, Pakistan, and China. Violence within India rarely reaches even an academic audience. The symposium is introduced by guest editor Rupayan Gupta. Our authors are Gaurav Khanna, Laura Zimmermann, Saurabh Singhal, Sofia Amaral, Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay, Samrat Bhattacharya, Rudra Sensarma, Kuhuk Bhushan, Prakarsh Singh, Nilanjana Sengupta, Dolon Ganguly, Rikhil Bhavnani, and Saumitra Jha. In addition, Javier Alcantar-Toledo and Yannis Venieris write on general equilibrium modeling of social conflict, and Linda Bilmes examines the likely legacy costs of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
2013
Vol 8, No 2 (2013)
William Bunting writes on litigated conflict over fundamental, constitutional rights. Boris Gershman studies envy and finds that it may serve both conflict-enhancing as well as conflict-mitigating functions. The issue contains two articles on Nepal. Shikha Silwal provides a spatial-temporal analysis of the country's civil war and Smita Ramnarain offers a case study on the political economy of peacebuilding. Finally, Guro Lien discusses the political economy of security sector reform (SSR).
Vol 8, No 1 (2013)
In this issue J. Paul Dunne and Nan Tian survey the voluminous literature on military expenditure and economic growth. Expanded data series and more powerful econometric techniques begin to point to a gradual convergence of findings. Piotr Lis writes on armed confict, terrorism, and the allocation of foreign aid. Ron Smith examines the effects of the global recession on the defense industry. Jurgen Brauer studies on the demand and supply of commercial firearms in the United States.
2012
Vol 7, No 2 (2012)
Tiffany Chou opens this issue of EPSJ with a piece on Afghanistan: Does development assistance reduce violence there? She finds that overall developing spending has no clear effect on mitigating rebel attacks. Based on Rwandan household-level data, Kade Finnoff examines the prevalence and correlates of intimate partner violence and links her findings to female employment and pre- and post-genocide data. Prakarsh Singh brings us to the Punjab, in India, examining the relation among crime, insurgency, and agricultural labor markets. More abtract pieces include Olaf de Groot detaling the many channels, and the difficulty, of estimating the cost of military engagments. Finally, Rupayan Gupta merges aspects of alliance theory with bargaining theory and mechanism design to think about the optimal design of transboundary security institutions.
Vol 7, No 1 (2012)
In this issue Ron Smith and Ali Tasiran quantitatively study the onset of peace after war. Sam Perlo-Freeman and Jennifer Brauner write on the link in Algeria between natural resource rents and levels of military expenditure. J. Paul Dunne and Jurgen Brauer mine new data to re-examine the impact of the 9/11 attack on the global airline industry. The issue also contains the final installment of our trilogy on the Austrian school's views on war and peace, this piece here by William Anderson, Scott Kjar, and James Yohe. (Parts I and II were published in vol. 5, no. 1 and vol. 6, no. 1, respectively.)
2011
Vol 6, No 2 (2011)
Sterling Huang and David Throsby write on quantitative political, economic, and social determinants of peace. Vincenzo Bove studies the theory of supply and demand for peacekeeping. Alvaro Riascos and Juan Vargas review the quantitative literature on violence and economic growth in Colombia. Zachary Tambudzai examines determinants of military expenditure in Zimbabwe. Steve Pickering questions the supposed "bellicosity" of mountain people. John Gilbert, Krit Linananda, Tanigawa Takahiko, Edward Tower, and Alongkorn Tuncharoenlarp study the deadweight cost of war with an illustrative computable general equilibrium (CGE) model.
Vol 6, No 1 (2011)
This issue contains articles by Keisuke Nakao and Sun-Ki Chai on criminal conflict and collective punishment and a two-part article by David Zetland on intra-organizational conflict. He uses the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California as his case study. Meanwhile, Christopher Westley, William Anderson, and Scott Kjar write on the Austrian School once again, this time on Mises, Hayek, and war. Part I of the Austrian School series was published in vol. 5, no. 1, and Part III is planned for vol. 7, no. 1.
2010
Vol 5, No 2 (2010)
In this issue, Christine Batruch writes on Lundin Petroleum's experience in East Africa; Wayne Nafziger re-examines Nigeria's long history of violence; Anouk Rigterink surveys the literature on natural resource-related conflict; Achim Wennmann studies wealth sharing and peace; Gilles Carbonnier writes on market incentives and regulation in extractive industries in fragile states; and Geoff Harris considers how to improve military expenditure decisionmaking in sub-Saharan Africa.
Vol 5, No 1 (2010)
The issue contains articles by Scott Kjar and William Anderson on war and the Austrian School; Peter M. Li on military alliances; Alexandre Debs on economic theories of dictatorship; Joel Potter and John Scott on issues in third-party intervention and the role of destruction in conflict; Yang-Ming Chang, Shane Sanders, and Bhavneet Walia on conflict persistence and third-party intervention; C. Jill Stowe, Kate Krause, and Janie Chermak on preferences for privacy and security; and Neil Cooper on voluntarism, regulation, and supervision.
2009
Vol 4, No 2 (2009)
The issue contains two symposia, one on applied game theory with contributions by Fungisai Nota on southern Africa, Lisa Carson and Raymond Dacey on third players in traditional deterrence games, and Partha Gangopadhyay on intolerance, social conflict, and multiple equilibria games. The second symposium studies Southeast Asian maritime security, with contributions from Richard Bitzinger, James Manikom, Sam Bateman, and Brendan Howe.
Vol 4, No 1 (2009)
This issue contains two symposia, one on defense innovation and one on the economics of conflict, with a focus on theory and micro-level evidence. In the first, Renaud Bellais studies defense innovation and venture capital, Sylvain Daffix and Yves Jacquin consider European defense R&D within a national innovation systems framework, and Peter Hall and Andrew James consider the structure of defense innovation and industry in the U.K. In the second symposium, guest edited with an introduction by Philip Verwimp, Mansoob Murshed considers social contracts, greed, and grievance, Zulfan Tadjoeddin and Anis Chowdhury consider violence in Indonesia, Ana Maria Ibanez, looks at forced displacement in Colombia, and Steven Spittaels and Filip Hilgert use conflict mapping to analyze the situation in the DR Congo. In addition, in four stand-alone articles, Christopher Warburton considers war and exchange rate valuation, Steve Chan reviews the democratic peace thesis, Steve Townsend writes on petropolitics, and Ronan Bar-El, Kobi Kagan, and Asher Tishler examine issues of long and short term military planning.
2008
Vol 3, No 2 (2008)
This issue contains a symposium on the Palestinian economy, a vital aspect of the conflict with Israel that gets relatively little attention and one that clearly deserves more. The issue also contains four stand alone articles. In the first, Siddharta Mitra considers the relation between poverty and terrorism, developing an analytical model and using case studies to show the link between the two; then Raul Caruso and Andrea Locatelli apply insights of contest theory to al-Qaeda's recruitment process, Pavel A. Yakovlev considers what factors affect casualties in civil as well as interstate wars and Nadege Sheehan assesses potential structures that would best produce effective U.N. peacekeeping. In the symposium, guest editor Sam Perlo-Freeman provides an introduction setting the scene and summarizing the insights contained in the articles. Aamer S. Abu-Qarn provides a valuable context setting review of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Atif Kubursi and Fadle Naqib consider the interaction between the Palestinian and Israeli states, and the costs and benefits to each. The decline of the economy is further considered by Osama Hamed with an analysis of the de-development of the Palestinian economy. Jennifer C. Olmsted considers an important but much neglected topic, the impact of the violence on the nature of employment in Palestine, with particular emphasis on the damaging effects on women's employment. Numan Kanafani and Samia Al-Botmeh discuss the growing food insecurity and malnutrition in Palestine. Finally, Basel Saleh looks at the economic causes that explain much of the governance problems in Palestine and the fragility of the state.
Vol 3, No 1 (2008)
This issue contains a symposium on the British Military Industrial Complex (MIC), together with two stand-alone papers on Middle East cooperation, by Raphael Bar-El and Miko Malul and small arms proliferation in Asia by Stefanie Koorey, Stefan Markowski, Peter Hall, and Jurgen Brauer. The British MIC symposium brings together economists and noneconomists to consider a range of issues in arms production and governance, raising issues that deserve further research by economists. David Edgerton, argues for a political economy understanding of the important role that military industry has played in the U.K., while Keith Hartley considers the present relationship between the U.K. and European defense industrial bases and likely future conflicts. Nicolas Gilby provides evidence of past corruption in British arms deals, using documents recently made available through a Freedom of Information Act filing, while Anna Stavrianakis details the problems with the present system of arms export licences. U.K. dependence on the U.S. for nuclear weapons is forcefully shown by Dan Plesch, while Chris Langley analyses the continuing militarization of the U.K.'s universities. Jonathan Feldman provides a case study of one aspect of BAE Systems' past attempts at conversion to argue that the initiative failed for internal political reasons rather than for technical ones. Finally, Derek Braddon considers the changing ownership patterns of British arms producers and their implications for governance. Overall, the articles give a wide-ranging analysis of the British MIC and make clear the importance of continued research on a sector that is undergoing considerable change with important implications for future economic, political, and military security.
2007
Vol 2, No 2 (2007)
This issue contains three symposia covering important security concerns in the modern world. The first, a symposium on water conflict and economics, provides an overview of this topical issue as well as a range of case studies. The studies are written by Frederic Pryor, David Phillips, Marwah Daoudy, Rebecca Adler, Marius Claassen, Linda Godfrey, Anthony Turton, Alyssa Neir, Michael Campana, Marko Keskinen, Mira Kakonen, Prom Tola, and Olli Varis. The second is a symposium on trade and conflict and again provides an overview of the issues and literature together with a number of case studies. Our authors are Solomon Polacheck, Enrique Pumar, Prasad Bhattacharya, Dimitrios Thomakos, Archontis Pantsios, and Saumitra Jha. The third symposium is on insurgency, occupation, and reconstruction and extends the journal's coverage of these issues. The authors are Christopher Coyne and Rupayan Gupta.
Vol 2, No 1 (2007)
This issue of EPSJ opens with a symposium consisting of six articles on the organization of force in the modern world. The first three deal with the issue of the induction of youth into a state's armed service, either by conscription or by joining a volunteer, market-wage paid force. The other three articles concern various aspects of the increasing trend toward privatization and internationalization of violent conflict, including how post-9/11 terrorist organizations finance themselves. In this issue, we also present three excellent overview articles. The first surveys accomplishments and challenges of research in defense economics, the second discusses recent developments in Russian military expenditure, and the third provides a very well-done, succinct summary of the academic literature on the economics of terrorism.
2006
Vol 1, No 2 (2006)
The second issue of the EPS Journal takes up the theme of economic aspects of peacemaking and peacekeeping. Economics Nobel-Laureate Lawrence R. Klein reviews the arguments for, and the likely cost of, a standing United Nations peacekeeping force. Lloyd J. Dumas argues that minimizing economic stress also helps minimize the potential for violent conflict, and Dietrich Fischer reviews the cost of war as against the cost of war-prevention. But for all the good reasons of why peace is cheaper than war, war nonetheless recurs. Jurgen Brauer examines why there seems to be so little peace - if it were so cheap to obtain - and studies the conditions under which states appear willing to intervene in trouble spots around the world. Bassam Yousif, Guy Lamb, J. Paul Dunne, and Ross Fetterly present a set of country studies - on Iraq, Namibia, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Canada. The Canadian piece is of particular value as there is virtually no literature that tries, as Fetterly does, to compute the cost of providing peacekeeping services. The other country studies offer valuable comparative lessons of what does, and does not, work in post-violence reconstruction. The final two articles look at the business side of things. Bob French has written a forceful account of what it takes to clean up land mine pollution, and John T. Marlin examines what consumer campaigns might do, and have done, to rattle the market for gold jewelry and to compel gold-mining companies to adopt behaviors that might reduce conflict.
Vol 1, No 1 (2006)
The inaugural issue of EPSJ - conflict or development? - has a regional focus on Africa. Joseph Stiglitz discusses the role of information in conflict and draws a fascinating analogy between civil strife and a labor strike. Paul Collier and Neil Cooper take different positions on the prospects for reforming war economies, and E. Wayne Nafziger gives details of the evolution of humanitarian emergencies. In the two country studies, Tilman Bruck examines the destruction and reconstruction of Mozambique, and Manuel Ennes Ferreira discusses the civil war in Angola. J. Paul Dunne tells the story of South Africa's defense contractor Denel from its origins under apartheid until today, and David Gold describes the context and history of the current actions against "conflict diamonds."