Justin Conrad | University of North Carolina at Charlotte (original) (raw)

Books by Justin Conrad

Gambling and War: Risk, Reward, and Chance in International Conflict brings readers a war college... more Gambling and War: Risk, Reward, and Chance in International Conflict brings readers a war college course taught at a Las Vegas casino. To succeed in poker, it is not enough to simply anticipate the actions of other players and try to outsmart them. A successful player must also understand and appreciate the role of randomness. Additionally, players must confront the reality that all human beings are prone to errors in judgment, which cause them to make suboptimal choices under many circumstances. Taken together, these challenges make poker a fascinating and highly unpredictable game, much like the dynamics of international conflict. Any comprehensive analysis of why wars occur and how they are fought must consider a variety of factors including strategy, human error, and dumb luck.

Gambling and War applies lessons learned from poker, blackjack, roulette, and other games of chance to the study of international conflict. Drawing on scholarly insights from a variety of fields, including probability, statistics, political science, psychology, and economics, the book offers thoughts on how we can better manage and prevent international conflict, the costliest game of all.

Peer-Reviewed Publications by Justin Conrad

British Journal of Political Science, 2015

Why do challengers attack some states that have allies, while avoiding conflict with others? This... more Why do challengers attack some states that have allies, while avoiding conflict with others? This paper builds upon previous research by arguing that parity in the observable capabilities of opposing states and their allies generates greater uncertainty and miscalculations on the part of challengers, leading to a higher probability of conflict. Unlike previous research, however, I argue that military alliances among democracies are better able to overcome this uncertainty, making power distributions largely irrelevant. The results demonstrate that uncertainty generated at power parity is mitigated when a target state's allies are more democratic, resulting in no overall change in the probability of conflict. This study therefore emphasizes that the effectiveness of military alliances lies not necessarily in their aggregation of power, but in their ability to coordinate their power and communicate this coordination to potential challengers.

In theory, terrorism is a political communication strategy for groups to convey their grievances ... more In theory, terrorism is a political communication strategy for groups to convey their grievances and the costs of ignoring them. In practice, though, terrorist groups take responsibility for just a small portion of their attacks. Rather than getting credit for the violence, terrorist leaders generally deny their operatives committed it. This theoretical and empirical disconnect may explain why scholars have ignored the subject of unclaimed attacks despite the fact that they are the norm. With a mixed-methods research design, our study helps to fill this lacuna by proposing and testing a new theory to help account for variation in which attacks are claimed.

What explains the use of military conscription? Using a new dataset of more than 100 countries ov... more What explains the use of military conscription? Using a new dataset of more than 100 countries over a period of 200 years, we examine the determinants of a state’s decision to implement a military draft. We argue that the decision to use conscription is largely dependent on historical factors. Specifically, we contend that former British colonies are less likely to use conscription as a means of military recruitment because of an anti-conscription precedent set during the English Civil War. We find that former British colonies are far less likely to opt for conscription, even after controlling for counter arguments relating to a state’s colonial legacy. We also examine a number of existing explanations for the use of conscripts, using the data to arbitrate previous debates. We find that democracies are less likely to implement the draft, while states involved in an interstate war or interstate rivalry are more likely to do so.

The Journal of Politics, 2015

A wide range of literature on ethnic conflict and terrorism has argued that domestic competition ... more A wide range of literature on ethnic conflict and terrorism has argued that domestic competition increases the likelihood that a political organization will use violence in an effort to distinguish itself. Known as "outbidding," empirical evidence for such a phenomenon has thus far been limited. The bulk of the empirical analysis, however, has focused on the effect of domestic competition on the quantity of violence. This study instead argues that competition should have an observable effect on the quality of violence, as organizations seek to differentiate their "brand" from others. Using information on the tactics and targets of terrorist attacks, the results suggest that an increase in the competitiveness of a political market leads to more severe or "shocking" types of attacks.

International Organization, 2014

Existing literature on contentious political movements has generally focused on domestic politica... more Existing literature on contentious political movements has generally focused on domestic political activity. Using the new Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior-Middle East dataset (MAROB-ME), which contains organization-level data for 104 ethnopolitical organizations in the Middle East and North Africa, we analyze the decision of both violent and nonviolent organizations to engage in political activity transnationally. Among the results, we find that diaspora support is associated with transnational non-violent protest, while foreign state support and domestic repression increase the use of transnational violence. The most robust finding, however, is that participation in the domestic electoral process consistently reduces the likelihood that an organization will engage in any political activity abroad.

International Studies Quarterly, 2014

ABSTRACT Conventional wisdom suggests that reports of terrorism should be sparse in dictatorships... more ABSTRACT Conventional wisdom suggests that reports of terrorism should be sparse in dictatorships, both because such violence is unlikely to result in policy change and because it is difficult to get reliable information on attacks. Yet, there is variance in the number of terrorist attacks reported in autocracies. Why? We argue that differences in the audience costs produced by dictatorships explain why some nondemocracies experience more terrorism than others. Terrorists are more likely to expect a response in dictatorships that generate high domestic audience costs. Using data from multiple terrorism databases, we find empirical evidence that dictatorships generating higher audience costs—military dictatorships, single-party dictatorships, and dynastic monarchies—experience as much terrorism as democracies, while autocracies generating lower audience costs—personalist dictatorships and non-dynastic monarchies—face fewer attacks than their democratic counterparts.

Do interstate relations influence the sources and targets of transnational terrorism? A considera... more Do interstate relations influence the sources and targets of transnational terrorism? A considerable body of recent research suggests that the answer to this question is yes, and that one state may sponsor terrorist attacks to weaken the bargaining positions of other states. We suggest, in contrast, that positive or cooperative actions invite terrorist attacks from a different source: non-state groups wishing to spoil interstate cooperation that they oppose. We assess this argument with a dyadic dataset using monthly data on transnational terrorist attacks and cooperative and non-cooperative actions between states. Our results suggest that spoiling in response to interstate cooperation is an important determinant of transnational terrorism. We thank the editor and reviewers for their comments and suggestions. Data and replication files available upon publication at http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/internationalinteractions.

Foreign Policy Analysis, 2016

ABSTRACT Do governments respond to terrorism with torture? Although governments face incentives t... more ABSTRACT Do governments respond to terrorism with torture? Although governments face incentives to increase torture in response to terrorist attacks, previous research finds no relationship between terror and state torture. We argue that this is unsurprising because incentives to violate human rights differ across domestic government agencies. Using new data that disaggregates state torture by the government agency responsible for the abuse, we investigate the effect of transnational and domestic terrorism on torture perpetrated by military officials. We find that military agents—especially those in democracies—engage in substantively more widespread torture when confronted with terrorism and that this behavior is particularly likely in response to transnational attacks.

Journal of Peace Research, 2013

Why do some autocratic states allocate more resources to the military than others? We contend tha... more Why do some autocratic states allocate more resources to the military than others? We contend that as narrow political interests have more influence on a leader, relative to broader political interests, a state's military burden increases. Further, we argue that two domestic factors are central to explaining the relative strength of narrow political interests for military spending, and therefore variation in state military burden. First, institutions that increase the cost of political participation reduce the influence of the median citizen, increasing the strength of narrow political interests and, concomitantly, military spending. Second, as a regime ages, narrow interests become more entrenched and the regime becomes less concerned about overthrow. In turn, older regimes spend more on their militaries. We test hypotheses from this argument by examining the military burden for all autocracies over the period 1950-2000. We find that variation in restrictions on political participation and the age of the regime are central to understanding differences in military spending among autocracies. Further, once these institutional features are taken into account, we find only modest support for the view that certain types of regimes spend more than others. What matters is not regime type but specific institutional features that affect the strength of narrow interests and vary across, and within, autocratic regimes.

Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2013

Are countries with large Muslim populations more likely to experience or produce transnational te... more Are countries with large Muslim populations more likely to experience or produce transnational terrorist attacks than countries with fewer Muslims? And if there is a difference, is it attributable to the influence of Islam, or to the economic, social and political conditions that are common in predominantly Muslim countries? Analyzing all transnational terrorist attacks between 1973 and 2002, this study uses decomposition analysis to identify the relative contributions of the observable and behavioral characteristics of a state on the amount of terrorism that it experiences and produces. The results suggest that Muslim states do not systematically produce more terrorism than non-Muslim states once state repression, human rights abuses, and discrimination against minorities are taken into account.

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2011

Existing scholarly research on terrorism has largely ignored the role of international relations ... more Existing scholarly research on terrorism has largely ignored the role of international relations and its effects on patterns of terrorism. This study argues that strategic interstate relationships can affect the amount of terrorism that a state experiences and should be considered along with “traditional” determinants of terrorism, such as domestic institutional and macroeconomic variables. The study specifically looks at state sponsorship of terrorism, arguing that while we cannot reliably identify state sponsors of terror, we can indirectly observe relevant evidence of state sponsorship. To support this claim, the study examines the annual number of transnational terrorist attacks that occurred in all countries during the period 1975–2003. The results demonstrate that states involved in ongoing rivalries with other states are the victims of more terrorist attacks than states that are not involved in such hostile interstate relationships.

International Interactions, 2011

Explanations for the democratic peace have developed along two broad lines: those that focus on d... more Explanations for the democratic peace have developed along two broad lines: those that focus on democratic-specific mechanisms and those that focus on institutional similarity mechanisms. We test these competing mechanisms against each other by examining a range of regime types and a variety of institutional mechanisms, and for the first time, test them in logistic multiple regression models of rivalry onset using three rivalry datasets. Our comparative test of the two approaches largely justifies democratic-specific explanations ...

Papers by Justin Conrad

How does natural resource wealth influence the duration of civil conflicts? We theorize that the ... more How does natural resource wealth influence the duration of civil conflicts? We theorize that the exploitation of natural resources can strengthen rebels' " power to resist " the government, but this depends on how rebels earn funding from those resources. Distinguishing between the extortion and smuggling of natural resources, we posit that smuggling in particular is more likely to give rebels the flexibility and mobility needed to effectively resist government repression. We then test this proposition empirically using new data that identify not only whether rebels profit from resources but also how they do so. We find that only when rebels smuggle natural resources do civil conflicts last significantly longer. In contrast, conflicts in which rebel groups earn money from extorting natural resource production are not significantly more likely to endure. This finding is of special interest because past work has largely ignored how rebels earn income from natural resources and the implication this distinction might have on conflict processes.