Conference

The Effects of Military Interventions: Taking Stock


CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE

CLICK HERE TO VIEW CONFERENCE PROGRAM

The Department of Economics, Royal Holloway (University of London) is pleased to announce a virtual conference on the effects of military interventions. This conference will bring together scholars from multidisciplinary backgrounds to take stock of theoretical and empirical knowledge on social, political, economic and strategic effects of military interventions.

Key Information

1- When

20th of February 2021

2- Where

Zoom [Link will be emailed after registration]

3- Targeted Audience

Academics and Postgraduate Students

4- Program and Sessions

Three separate sessions lasting about an hour each. Click here to view full program.

5- Objectives

  • To enable exchange of knowledge on effects of military interventions

  • To take stock of existing knowledge on effects of military interventions

6- Outcome

  • Overview of selected theoretical and empirical perspectives on the effects of military interventions

  • Increase networking amongst scholars

7- Advisory Committee

  • Prof. Michael Spagat (Royal Holloway, University of London)

  • Dr. Lisa Hultman (Uppsala University)

  • Mr. Luqman Saeed (Royal Holloway, University of London)

8- Contact

Mr. Luqman Saeed

luqman.saeed@rhul.ac.uk


Rationale

Despite that most formal colonial regimes collapsed by mid-twentieth century, military interventions (MIs) by major powers and multilateral agencies (the United Nations and NATO etc.) have continued to take place. The United States and France intervened for about 15 and 10 years in various nations during 1950s which increased to 23 and 19 years during 1990s. Ongoing atrocities and disorders in countries of interest for big powers such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and diffusion of ISIS-affiliates, particularly in Africa, suggest that the increasing trend in MIs is likely to continue. In fact in the past two decades MIs have gained increasing level of legal and formal recognitions such as the United Nations’ World Summit unanimous adoption of resolution in favour of Responsibility to Protect in 2005 and France Defence White Paper of 2013 which enunciates interventionism as an important policy measure to protect overseas interests.

Military interventions are mainly launched to influence favourable changes in economic, political and strategic spheres in intervened nations. But are these changes favourable to the wellbeing of societies at the recipient end? Ever-since the dawn of civilization humankind has practiced warfare[1] but what distinguishes magnitude of the effects of warfare in current epoch is the spectacular rise of modern weaponries and their impact on civilian lives and means of civilized existence. According to the Centre for Civilian in Conflicts (CIVIC) 100 civilians die every day in armed conflict. London based charity, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) documented that during 2011-2019 period 90 percent of people who fell victim to explosive violence in populated areas were civilians. More than ever before civilians and their properties are vulnerable to violence in armed conflicts. On many occasions, these armed conflicts have drawn in major powers to militarily intervene and influence conflict outcomes, as we have recently observed in Libya, Syria and Iraq. However, MIs happen at a cost. For instance, interventions against ISIS in Syria and Iraq led to between 8253-13132 civilian deaths in the US led coalition air bombings as recently reported by Airwars and Pax for Peace.

Major intervening powers, such as the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China have political and economic interests in the Middle East and Africa. Ongoing instabilities in these regions[2] imply that military interventions will remain one of the key forms of foreign involvement in the region. The consolidation of ISIS in West and Central Africa, where domestic states are weak and ill-equipped to resolve internal political tensions, further adds to this expectation; hence the need to document and study the effects of interventions.

Against this background, the Department of Economics at Royal Holloway (University of London) is pleased to convene a virtual conference on the effects of MIs. In line with Pearson and Bauman (1993) we understand military interventions as movement of regular troops or forces (airborne, seaborne, shelling, etc) of one country inside another, in the context of some political issue or dispute (Pearson and Baumann, 1993) [3]

This conference will bring together distinguished scholars from multidisciplinary backgrounds who have critically examined effects of military interventions in their research. This conference will enable pooling and synthesizing current state of knowledge on how military interventions affect political, social, strategic and economic outcomes in intervened nations.

Notes


[1] Some form of warfare was practiced amongst Neanderthal men, (Robert, 2003; 21) however warfare between organized militaries probably emerged with the increase in surplus brought forth by civilizational progress (Roberts, 2003; 34)

[2] According to the data collected by the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University the state based conflict in Africa hit record high in 2019, 25 in total, and number of civil wars in Middle in 2018 were at all-time high since 1996.

[3] Other conceptualizations of MIs such as by Sullivan and Koch (2009) and more recently Gromes and Dembinski (2019) are particularly focused on interventions by power states and those which only motivated by humanitarian intent. Maintaining Pearson and Bauman (1993) as a reference definition allows us to incorporate empirical studies which will otherwise be missed out if we focus on conceptualization of MIs based on type of actors or intent.


Gromes, T., & Dembinski, M. (2019). Practices and Outcomes of Humanitarian Military Interventions: A New Data Set. International Interactions, 45(6), 1032-1048.

Pearson, F. S., & Baumann, R. A. (1988). International Military Interventions: Identification and Classification. International Interactions, 14(2), 173-180.

Roberts, J. M. (2003). The New Penguin History of the World. London: Penguin Books.

Sullivan, P. L., & Koch, M. T. (2009). Military Interventions by Powerful State 1945-2003. Journal of Peace Research, 46(5), 707-718.



List of Speakers

Dr. Bridget Conley

Tufts University, USA

Dr. Conley is an Associate Research Professor and Research Director at the World Peace Foundation, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, USA. She is the author of the book How Mass Atrocities End: Studies from Guatemala, Burundi, Indonesia, the Sudans, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iraq (Cambridge University Press). More information on her research can be found at Bridget K. Conley | The Fletcher School (tufts.edu)

Prof. Christopher Coyne

George Mason University, USA

Prof. Coyne is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and the Associate Director of the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center. He is the author of Defense, Peace, and War Economics (Cambridge University Press) and Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails (Stanford University Press)

Click here to view his research profile


Dr. Daniel Meierrieks

WZB Berlin Social Science Centre, Germany

Dr. Meierrieks is a Research Fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre. He has previously held positions at University of Frieburg and University of Kiel Germany. His work on anti-American terrorism has been published in Journal of Peace Research and Oxford Economics Papers. More information on his research can be found at Dr. Daniel Meierrieks | WZB



Dr. Jessica Di Salvatore

University of Warwick, UK


Dr. Salvatore is an Associate Professor in Political Science and Peace Studies in the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS), University of Warwick, UK. Before joining PAIS, she was British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford (Department of Politics and International Relations), and associate member at the Nuffield College. Her current research focuses on the political, economic and social impact of UN peace operations and their contribution to state-building and post-conflict development.

Dr. Lisa Hultman

Uppsala University, Sweden


Dr. Hultman is an Associate Professor at Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. Her research has been published in journals such as American Political Science Review, Journal of Conflict Resolution and Journal of Peace Research among others, and focuses on how interventions shapes civil war dynamics and violence against civilians. Click here to view her research profile.

Prof. Raul Caruso

Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Italy

Raul Caruso is at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart where he is professor of Peace economics. He is also the Director of CESPIC (European Centre of Peace Science Integration and Cooperation) at the Catholic University 'Our Lady of Good Counsel'. He has served as executive director of Network of European Peace Scientists (2009 - 2019). He is editor-in- chief of Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy.

Dr. Thorsten Gromes

Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, Germany

Dr. Thorsten Gromes is a Senior Researcher at Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. His research interests are in peacebuilding, democratization, state-building and humanitarian interventions. Dr. Gromes is the co-author of novel database on humanitarian military interventions which can be accessed using this link.


Ms. Vanessa Meier

Oxford University, UK

Ms. Meier is a DPhil candidate in International Relations at the University of Oxford. Her research examines the consequences of external military assistance in civil wars. She is particularly interested in the unintended effects training and equipping foreign militaries can have on regime stability and the treatment of civilians. To that end, she examines the impact of external military assistance on different forms of political violence such as violence against civilians, domestic terrorism, and coup d'états.

Dr. Vasja Badalič

University of Ljubljana , Slovenia

Dr. Badalič is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana, Slovenia. His primary fields of research are contemporary imperialism and migration. He combines theory with frequent field-work, which is focused on political and military issues in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is the author of four single-authored monographs, including The War Against Civilians: Victims of the “War on Terror” in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).