Does emergency rule help counterinsurgents? Testing the hearts and minds theories

Avery Lord — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 21:53:00 +0000

Does emergency rule help counterinsurgents? Testing the hearts and minds theories Avery Lord Mon, 06/15/2026 - 15:53

By: Aysegul Aydin, Marie Gray

Abstract:

Is popular support necessary to win counterinsurgency wars? We argue that countries that adopt extralegal frameworks to defeat insurgencies are less likely to win counterinsurgency wars because although greater civilian control helps cut insurgent logistics, it complicates the process of winning hearts and minds among civilians. We test this argument with new data on emergency rule in the post-1918 period. We find that the timing of emergency declarations matters: Counterinsurgents that delay the declaration of such regulations signal their desperation to sift through civilian populations and find insurgents without legal ramifications, reducing civilian support, and decreasing their chances of winning.

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Between a rock and a hard place: do civil war governments make protectionist trade policy?

Avery Lord — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 21:50:17 +0000

Between a rock and a hard place: do civil war governments make protectionist trade policy? Avery Lord Mon, 06/15/2026 - 15:50

Between a rock and a hard place: do civil war governments make protectionist trade policy?

By: Aysegul Aydin

Abstract:

Resource-based models of civil war heavily emphasize natural resources to explain onset and intensity but make no mention of whether civil war governments craft trade policies to control the same resources in wartimes. I investigate the economic logic that drives wartime trade policies in raw minerals and primary agriculture commodities. Analysis of an extensive database of trade restrictions in the agricultural sector between 2005 and 2014 shows that when governments face competing societal demands as in civil war, they prioritize consumers over producers by adopting export measures in agriculture. These results hold when we account for negative agricultural shocks, underscoring the centrality of food security to governments’ logic of survival in civil wars. I also find that null effects of civil wars on raw minerals suggesting that governments are unwilling or unable to change trade policy in the mining sector.

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