Carol Christine Fair
Biographic Data
| ID | 1256353 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Carol Christine Fair |
| GIVEN NAMES | Carol Christine |
| FAMILY NAME | Fair |
| SIGNATURE | FAIR C C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgetown University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6240-3863 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 87 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 455 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 87 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Comparative Shari‘a: Measuring support for Islamism cross-nationally
Studies testing the relationship between preferences for Islamism and preferences for democracy in the Muslim world are inconclusive—and likely the result of measurement issues. Previously, we introduced a four-question battery measuring conceptions of Islamism and found that responses vary predictably across two components: whether respondents consider a shari‘a -based government to be one that provides services or one that imposes restrictive I…
The Stigma Matrix: Gender, Globalization, and the Agency of Pakistan's Frontline Women
Looking for Individual-Level Evidence for the Ethnic Security Dilemma Revisited: A Study of Balochistan
China and the Taliban: Past as prologue
Since the Taliban’s seizure of Kabul in August 2021, there has been significant attention to and debate over China’s ties with the Taliban. This article traces the development of China-Taliban relations from the Afghan Civil War in the 1990’s to the present day. We find that China has consistently respected the Taliban as legitimate long-term political actors. We also find that the Taliban have found China to be a valuable source of economic and …
Under the Gun: Political Parties and Violence in Pakistan by Niloufer A. Siddiqui
The killing fields of Punjab: Representing the Sikh militancy in cinema
The Sikh Militancy was a violent movement that began in the northern Indian state of Punjab in the late 1970s and lasted through the early 1990s. The movement consisted predominantly of Jatt Sikhs, who waged a bloody campaign for an independent, theocratic Sikh state, Khalistan. Despite the sanguinary nature of the conflict and the highly influential role that Punjabi culture plays in India’s mass entertainment culture and even the large numbers …
Parmanu: The story of Pokhran (2018) - the saffronization of India's quest for a nuclear weapon
Parmanu (2018) is a commercial action-cum-spy flick that recounts a highly stylized history of India’s efforts to become a Pokhrannuclear weapons state through the narrative device of the Mahabharat, one of India’s two great Sanskrit epics. In doing so, it renders India’s quest for nuclear weapons in explicitly communal terms rather than national terms. Parmanu exemplifies Modi’s co-optation of Bollywood for his personal gain and that of his part…
Pakistan’s Pathway to the Bomb: Ambitions, Politics, and Rivalries by Mansoor Ahmed
Hindutva and violence: V. D. Savarkar and the politics of history
Hindutva and violence charts the intellectual arc of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the founder of Hindu nationalism from which India's contemporary Hindu chauvinists draw their mission to transform the nation into an authoritarian Hindu state.Throughout his lifetime, Savarkar promoted a two-pronged programme, to 'Hinduize' Indian politics and to militarize Hindus in the pursuit of a 'permanent war against Christians and Muslims' (p.3).In the book, Vi…
Sikh Nationalism: From a Dominant Minority to an Ethno-religious Diaspora
In Sikh Nationalism, Gurharpal Singh and Giorgio Shani lament the inadequate scholarly literature explaining contemporary Sikh nationalism. This lacuna is puzzling despite the passage of nearly four decades since the tragic events of 1984 that began in June that year, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to attack the Golden Temple, to dislodge militants who made the Golden Temple complex their central command center. In Octo…
Colonial institutions and civil war: Indirect rule and maoist insurgency in India
Support for Domestic Islamist Terrorism in Bangladesh: Insights from a Novel Survey
We employ regression analysis of 2017 survey data from 4,067 Bangladeshis to exposit the lineaments of individual support for domestic Islamist violence. Our dependent variables derive from measures of public support for the stated goals and violent means of three Bangladeshi Islamist terrorist groups. Our study variables include participation in communal Friday prayer; indexed measures of other pietic practices; preferences for Shari'a and secul…
The Psychological Roots of Public Opinion Toward a Militant Group: The Case of Pakistani Lashkar-e-Tayyaba
EXISTING THEORIES OF PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR MILITANTS have used relative deprivation arguments, the ideological affinity an individual may have with militants, or co-ethnicity with the militants.1 Here, we put forward a new perspective from which to understand the lineaments of public support for militant groups that is moored in social psychology. In this article, we argue that the most common and widely distributed factor influencing individual sym…
Barriers to Covenantal Pluralism in Bangladeshi Public Opinion
In this paper, we explore Bangladeshi popular support for “covenantal pluralism,” a philosophy developed by the Covenantal Pluralism Initiative at the Templeton Religion Trust. We use a novel dataset derived from a 2017 nationally representative survey of Bangladeshi respondents which included numerous survey items germane to this study. Unfortunately, while Bangladesh may most certainly benefit from such a concept, we find little empirical evide…
Ground Hog Da Din' for the Sikh insurgency
Between 1978 and 1992, Sikh militants rampaged across the northern Indian state of the Punjab demanding that a homeland for Sikhs, called Khalistan, be carved from that state. The so-called Khalistanis, with Pakistan’s extensive support, waged a brutal campaign of violence that killed tens of thousands. While Indian security forces eviscerated the various Khalistani groups by 1992, support for the movement remained strong in pockets of the global…
Did India's demonetization policy curb stone-pelting in Indian-administered Kashmir
On 9 November 2016, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his ‘demonetization’ policy which rendered all Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes null and void. His government claimed that this policy, among other things, would curb stone-pelting in India’s restive Jammu and Kashmir by rendering valueless the copious illegal currency that, according to India, Pakistan pumped into the state to pay protestors to throw stones. Subsequently, New Delhi cla…
Selling Out the Afghans
Research Article| April 01 2020 Selling Out the Afghans C. Christine Fair C. Christine Fair C. Christine Fair is an associate professor of security studies at Georgetown University and a Current History contributing editor. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Current History (2020) 119 (816): 152–155. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2020.119.816.152 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio …
Bangladesh in 2019
After winning a third consecutive term as prime minister in the compromised December 2018 general election, Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League continues to consolidate one-woman rule. Throughout 2019, Hasina continued to persecute critics and opponents. Despite the deepening malaise of bad governance, Bangladesh has continued to enjoy impressive economic growth. But it remains haunted by the desperate Rohingya exodus from Myanmar, and the decades-…
Rational Islamists: Islamism and regime preferences in Bangladesh
Scholars have long studied whether Islam is compatible with democracy. Quantitative analyses of survey data of Muslim polities have drawn from three broad theoretical and epistemological frameworks: civilizationalist or culturist; modernizationist, and rational choice. In this article, we contribute to this discussion by drawing from survey data from an important but under-studied country: Bangladesh. We use respondent-level data from a novel, na…
The Making of the Rohingya Genocide and Myanmar's Impunity
Myanmar has consolidated its impunity, making its crimes a fait accompli. To do so, it first destabilized the legitimacy of the Rohingya as a group
The pious or the doctrinaire? who supports suicide terrorism in Indonesia
Indonesia is generally viewed as a moderate Muslim nation that episodically struggles with terrorism. Between 1981 and the end of 2016, Indonesia experienced 156 attacks from some 15 Islamist militant groups. However, the lineaments of popular support for Islamist militancy in Indonesia remain understudied. In this paper, we expand upon the existing literature on popular support for Islamist violence in Indonesia by replicating and extending the …
Bangladesh in 2018
Sheikh Hasina stole victory in the December 2018 election by hobbling the opposition, stifling criticism, stacking the courts and election commission with her lackeys, using a “war on drugs” to target rivals, and co-opting Islamists. Meanwhile, a million immiserated Rohingyas, who fled Myanmar after a brutal crackdown, still languish in desolate camps
Explaining Why Some Muslims Support Islamist Political Violence
PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH evidences considerable but varied support for Islamist terrorist tactics among the world’s Muslim populations. According to 2014 data from the Pew Research Center, 47 percent and 46 percent of Bangladeshi and Lebanese respondents, respectively, approved of suicide bombing, compared with only 5 percent and 3 percent of Tunisian and Pakistani respondents, respectively.1 This support is theoretically and practically important…
Afghanistan in 2017
The year 2017 witnessed continued challenges to the credibility and competence of the so-called National Unity Government in Kabul. President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah competed over the perquisites of power rather than collaborating to secure a viable future for their country. US and NATO forces remained at a stalemate with the Taliban, while Afghanistan’s predatory neighbors were as self-interested as ever. Hard-won gains remain reversi…
Rohingya: Victims of a Great Game East
In the vulnerable southeastern Bangladeshi city, Cox’s Bazar, an estimated 1 million Rohingyas languish in spartan refugee camps following brutal ethnic cleansing from their homes in Rakhine, a sta
Poverty and Support for Militant Politics: Evidence from Pakistan
Policy debates on strategies to end extremist violence frequently cite poverty as a root cause of support for the perpetrating groups. There is little evidence to support this contention, particularly in the Pakistani case. Pakistan's urban poor are more exposed to the negative externalities of militant violence and may in fact be less supportive of the groups. To test these hypotheses we conducted a 6,000‐person, nationally representative survey…
Diaspora Involvement in Insurgencies: Insights From the Khalistan and Tamil Eelam Movements
This article exposits and contrasts the roles of two diasporas in ethnic conflict waged in their homelands, namely the Sikh diaspora's involvement in the Punjab insurgency in north India and the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora's role in Sri Lanka's Tamil insurgency. It draws out the various similarities and distinctions between the two in their use of technology, means of mobilization and identity production, and the geographical and political reach of…
Who Supports Terrorism? Evidence from Fourteen Muslim Countries
This research note explores aspects of the demand for terrorism using data from the Pew Research Center. With these data from 7,849 adult respondents persons within 14 Muslim countries, this article explores who supports terrorism. It is shown that females, younger persons, and those who believe Islam is under threat are more likely to support terrorism. Very poor respondents and those who believe that religious leaders should play a larger role …
Faith or Doctrine? Religion and Support for Political Violence in Pakistan
Journal Article Faith or Doctrine? Religion and Support for Political Violence in Pakistan Get access C. Christine Fair, C. Christine Fair C. Christine Fair is an Assistant Professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA. Neil Malhotra is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. Jacob N. Shapiro is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Polit…
Understanding Support for Islamist Militancy in Pakistan
Islamist militancy in Pakistan has long stood atop the international security agenda, yet there is almost no systematic evidence about why individual Pakistanis support Islamist militant organizations. An analysis of data from a nationally representative survey of urban Pakistanis refutes four influential conventional wisdoms about why Pakistanis support Islamic militancy. First, there is no clear relationship between poverty and support for mili…
Conceptions of Shari`a and Support for Militancy and Democratic Values: Evidence From Pakistan
Numerous empirical studies of the relationship between popular support for Islamism and support for democracy and violence have yielded inconclusive results. We suspect that this is largely because scholars have not operationalized support for Shari`a in ways that capture the concept’s multi-dimensionality. In this paper, we employ data derived from a carefully designed survey instrument that casts unique insights into how Pakistanis imagine a Sh…
Relative Poverty, Perceived Violence, and Support for Militant Politics: Evidence from Pakistan
Challenging conventional wisdom, previous research in South Asia and the Middle East has shown that poverty and exposure to violence are negatively correlated with support for militant organizations. Existing studies, however, provide evidence consistent with two potential mechanisms underlying these relationships: (1) the direct effects of poverty and violence on attitudes toward militant groups and (2) the psychological effects of perceptions o…
Natural Disasters and Political Engagement: Evidence from the 2010–11 Pakistani Floods
How natural disasters affect politics in developing countries is an important question, given the fragility of fledgling democratic institutions in some of these countries as well as likely increased exposure to natural disasters over time due to climate change. Research in sociology and psychology suggests traumatic events can inspire pro-social behavior and therefore might increase political engagement. Research in political science argues that…
Pakistani Opposition to American Drone Strikes
AMERICA’S EMPLOYMENT OF WEAPONIZED unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as “drones,” to kill alleged terrorists in Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas (FATA) fuels sustained controversy in Pakistan. Pakistani outrage has steadily deepened since 2008, when the United States increased the frequency of the strikes.1 The increasing use of “signature strikes” has been particularly controversial in (and beyond) Pakistan, because …
Democratic Values and Support for Militant Politics: Evidence from a National Survey of Pakistan
A long-standing research tradition on political culture argues that greater support for core liberal values leads to a rejection of destructive political activities and reduced support for violent politics. In this vein, many contemporary analysts of security policy contend that a lack of democratic values in the Middle East promotes the development of violent political organizations. Unfortunately, there have been few direct tests of the hypothe…
Measuring political violence in Pakistan: Insights from the BFRS Dataset
This article presents the BFRS Political Violence in Pakistan dataset addressing its design, collection and utility. BFRS codes a broad range of information on 28,731 incidents of political violence from January 1988 to November 2011. For each incident we record the location, consequences, cause, type of violence and party responsible as specifically as possible. These are the first data to systematically record all different kinds of political v…
Pakistan's War Within
Prior to 2001, Pakistan had limited experience countering domestic militants. Today, the Pakistani army still prefers to focus on a potential war with India rather than against sub-state actors. Nonetheless, there have been noted improvements since 2001, and throughout 2009 Islamabad has demonstrated increasing resolve to defeat militants challenging the writ of the state. Earlier operations such as Al Mizan revealed serious deficiencies in the a…
Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: Implications for Al Qaeda and Other Organizations
Despite Pakistan's extensive contribution to the global war on terrorism, many questions persist about the extent to which Al Qaeda and its associated outfits are currently operating within Pakistan. This article examines this issue by posing several empirical questions: (1) What are the general contours of militancy in Pakistan? (2) What motivates individuals to join specific Pakistan-based militant outfits? (3) By what means do groups recruit s…
Islam, Militancy, and Politics in Pakistan: Insights From a National Sample
We use data from an innovative nationally representative survey of 6,000 Pakistanis in April 2009 to study beliefs about political Islam, Sharia, the legitimacy and efficacy of jihad, and attitudes towards specific militant organizations. These issues are at the forefront of U.S. policy towards Pakistan. Four results shed new light on the politics of militancy and Islamic identity in Pakistan. First, there is no relationship between measures of p…
Who Supports Suicide Terrorism in Bangladesh? What the Data Say
Bangladesh, one of the world's largest Muslim countries, is generally viewed as a success story with a strong tradition of secular democracy. Unfortunately, this assertion rests on a weak empirical foundation. Since becoming independent from Pakistan in 1971, democracy and secularism have been consistently undermined. Moreover, since 2000 Bangladesh has experienced more than 100 incidents of Islamist terrorism. More recently, the Islamic State an…
Can Knowledge of Islam Explain Lack of Support for Terrorism? Evidence from Pakistan
In this research note we employ the work of Wiktorowicz who suggests that persons who are knowledgeable of Islam may be more capable of critically evaluating the claims of militant recruiters and ideologues and thus be more resistant to their appeals than those who are not knowledgeable. This gives rise to an interesting research question: Does knowledge of Islam reduce support for Islamist militancy? To evaluate this research question, we employ…
Consenting to a Child's Decision to Join a Jihad: Insights from a Survey of Militant Families in Pakistan
This study examines the factors that lead household members to give or refuse consent for other household members to become a militant (or mujahid). Using data derived from a detailed survey fielded among a convenience sample of 141 families of slain militants in Pakistan, this manuscript seeks to explain why some families support participation in jihad and why some families do not. Using the extant literature on recruitment, participation in vio…
The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps
The Pakistan Army elicits many concerns about terrorism, nuclear and the coherence of the state. However, very little is actually known about this institution. This article mobilizes unique data to address one important facet: the Army's geographical recruitment base. We find that the Pakistan Army has been successful at expanding the geographical recruitment base while some groups (namely those who are native to Sindh) remain highly under-repres…
Who Are Pakistan's Militants and Their Families
This article presents results of a survey of 141 Pakistani families of slain militants. This survey collected data about the militants and their households. While derived from a convenience sample, these data are unprecedented and offer a glimpse into the backgrounds of militants and the families who (mostly) supported their decision to join the jihad. Most militants served and died in Kashmir and seem to be “high quality” militants in that they,…
Rohingya: Victims of a Great Game East
In the vulnerable southeastern Bangladeshi city, Cox’s Bazar, an estimated 1 million Rohingyas languish in spartan refugee camps following brutal ethnic cleansing from their homes in Rakhine, a sta
From elite consumption to popular opinion: Framing of the US drone program in Pakistani newspapers
The United States has conducted armed drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. While there has been some recent work on Pakistani public opinion about drones, there is very little research on how Pakistan’s media characterize the US drone program. This is an important gap in understanding the determinants of Pakistani popular perceptions of this program. Decades of research has shown that “news framing”, a process by which certain aspects of a compl…
Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Pakistani State
Pakistan's reliance upon LeT will only deepen as security conditions within that country continue to deteriorate. There is little the United States can do in response
Hindutva and violence: V. D. Savarkar and the politics of history
Hindutva and violence charts the intellectual arc of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the founder of Hindu nationalism from which India's contemporary Hindu chauvinists draw their mission to transform the nation into an authoritarian Hindu state.Throughout his lifetime, Savarkar promoted a two-pronged programme, to 'Hinduize' Indian politics and to militarize Hindus in the pursuit of a 'permanent war against Christians and Muslims' (p.3).In the book, Vi…
Rational Islamists: Islamism and regime preferences in Bangladesh
Scholars have long studied whether Islam is compatible with democracy. Quantitative analyses of survey data of Muslim polities have drawn from three broad theoretical and epistemological frameworks: civilizationalist or culturist; modernizationist, and rational choice. In this article, we contribute to this discussion by drawing from survey data from an important but under-studied country: Bangladesh. We use respondent-level data from a novel, na…
Bangladesh in 2018
Sheikh Hasina stole victory in the December 2018 election by hobbling the opposition, stifling criticism, stacking the courts and election commission with her lackeys, using a “war on drugs” to target rivals, and co-opting Islamists. Meanwhile, a million immiserated Rohingyas, who fled Myanmar after a brutal crackdown, still languish in desolate camps
A Search for Guidance: Examining Prenatal Substance Exposure Protocols
Military Operations in Urban Areas: The Indian Experience
U.S. Strategy in the Muslim World After 9/11
Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: Implications for Al Qaeda and Other Organizations
Despite Pakistan's extensive contribution to the global war on terrorism, many questions persist about the extent to which Al Qaeda and its associated outfits are currently operating within Pakistan. This article examines this issue by posing several empirical questions: (1) What are the general contours of militancy in Pakistan? (2) What motivates individuals to join specific Pakistan-based militant outfits? (3) By what means do groups recruit s…
US–Indian Army-to-Army Relations: Prospects for Future Coalition Operations
In light of the US requirement to operate in coalitions and given the impressive movement in Indo-US relations, this essay examines the prospects of operational partnerships between the Indian and US armies. It situates the possible futures of Indo-US army-to-army relations generally, and of potential coalition operations specifically, within the context of India’s strategic culture and its national security strategy as well as the role of the ar…
Learning to Think the Unthinkable: Lessons from India’s Nuclear Tests
In this essay, I mobilize an argument that has been advanced by writers such as Ashley Tellis and George Perkovich. Because this argumentation is fundamental to this essay, I will detail its components at length here. First, due to inadequacies in the 1974 test, the scientists and others within the strategic enclave increasingly sought approval from the government to resume testing. Until 1998, these entreaties were ultimately declined by the civ…
Diaspora Involvement in Insurgencies: Insights From the Khalistan and Tamil Eelam Movements
This article exposits and contrasts the roles of two diasporas in ethnic conflict waged in their homelands, namely the Sikh diaspora's involvement in the Punjab insurgency in north India and the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora's role in Sri Lanka's Tamil insurgency. It draws out the various similarities and distinctions between the two in their use of technology, means of mobilization and identity production, and the geographical and political reach of…
Who Supports Terrorism? Evidence from Fourteen Muslim Countries
This research note explores aspects of the demand for terrorism using data from the Pew Research Center. With these data from 7,849 adult respondents persons within 14 Muslim countries, this article explores who supports terrorism. It is shown that females, younger persons, and those who believe Islam is under threat are more likely to support terrorism. Very poor respondents and those who believe that religious leaders should play a larger role …
Securing Tyrants or Fostering Reform? U.S. Internal Security Assistance to Repressive and Transitioning Regimes: U.S. internal security assistance to repressive and transitioning regimes
This study examines the results of U.S. assistance to the internal security forces of four repressive states: El Salvador, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Efforts to improve the security, human rights, and accountability of security forces appear more likely to succeed in states transitioning from repressive to democratic systems. In addition, several factors are critical for success: the duration of assistance, viability of the justice sy…
United States Internal Security Assistance to Pakistan1
Pakistan confronts numerous domestic security challenges including jihadist extremism, Sunni-Shi’a sectarian violence, drug trafficking, illegal commodity smuggling, endemic corruption, and systemic problems with the provision of justice and law enforcement. While much has been written about US military assistance to the Government of Pakistan (GOP) and the ever-evolving political relations between the two countries, basic questions of highest po…
India and Iran: New Delhi's Balancing Act
Additional informationNotes on contributorsC. Christine Fair C. Christine Fair is a senior research associate at the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. The views expressed herein are solely attributable to the author and not to the United States Institute of Peace. She would like to thank the participants of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology workshop in the spring of 2007 …
Who Are Pakistan's Militants and Their Families
This article presents results of a survey of 141 Pakistani families of slain militants. This survey collected data about the militants and their households. While derived from a convenience sample, these data are unprecedented and offer a glimpse into the backgrounds of militants and the families who (mostly) supported their decision to join the jihad. Most militants served and died in Kashmir and seem to be “high quality” militants in that they,…
Determinants of Popular Support for Iran's Nuclear Program: Insights from a Nationally Representative Survey
This article explores data relating to public support for Iran’s nuclear program, using data from 2006 collected by Fair working with a consortium of institutional partners. The authors evaluate a few general hypotheses from the literature regarding support for nuclear programs using these new data from Iran. Before presenting empirical results, they first provide some background to this poll and some of the challenges that the team encountered. …
Consenting to a Child's Decision to Join a Jihad: Insights from a Survey of Militant Families in Pakistan
This study examines the factors that lead household members to give or refuse consent for other household members to become a militant (or mujahid). Using data derived from a detailed survey fielded among a convenience sample of 141 families of slain militants in Pakistan, this manuscript seeks to explain why some families support participation in jihad and why some families do not. Using the extant literature on recruitment, participation in vio…
The educated militants of Pakistan: Implications for Pakistan's domestic security
This paper presents preliminary findings from a survey of 141 militant households in Pakistan, focusing on the background of slain militants in those households. The militants in the sample are well educated and are not predominantly emerging from Pakistan's religious seminaries as is often suggested. This essay considers Pakistan's policy options and constraints as Islamist militancy looms as Pakistan's single most important security concern. Gi…
The cohesion and stability of Pakistan: An introduction to the special issue
Pakistan is becoming increasingly important in international security calculus, and the future trajectory of this nuclear weapons' state on the front line of the ‘War on Terror’ is of profound significance not only for South Asia but also for the international community. This article introduces an inaugural set of papers from the Pakistan Security Research Unit, established in 2007 at the University of Bradford, UK, focused on the cohesion and st…
Pakistan's Relations with Central Asia: Is Past Prologue
Throughout the 1990s Pakistan sought to cultivate ‘strategic depth’ throughout Iran, Afghanistan and the newly emergent Central Asian Republics while seeking to restrict Indian influence in the region. Chastened by its past failures, Pakistan now embraces more modest regional goals. Despite the diminution in objectives, several factors augur failure including Pakistan's policies in Afghanistan, which diminish the likelihood of a stable Afghanista…
The Lessons of Mumbai
This study of the Mumbai terrorist attack of November 2008 is part of the RAND Corporation Occasional Papers series. The research for this report was completed in December 2008 and updated as of January 9, 2009. Much of the information available for this necessarily preliminary analysis comes from reporting by the news media, which in such circumstances is often inaccurate, and from information provided by well-placed Indian and U.S. Government s…
Time for Sober Realism: Renegotiating U.S. Relations with Pakistan
Pakistan's War Within
Prior to 2001, Pakistan had limited experience countering domestic militants. Today, the Pakistani army still prefers to focus on a potential war with India rather than against sub-state actors. Nonetheless, there have been noted improvements since 2001, and throughout 2009 Islamabad has demonstrated increasing resolve to defeat militants challenging the writ of the state. Earlier operations such as Al Mizan revealed serious deficiencies in the a…
Understanding Support for Islamist Militancy in Pakistan
Islamist militancy in Pakistan has long stood atop the international security agenda, yet there is almost no systematic evidence about why individual Pakistanis support Islamist militant organizations. An analysis of data from a nationally representative survey of urban Pakistanis refutes four influential conventional wisdoms about why Pakistanis support Islamic militancy. First, there is no clear relationship between poverty and support for mili…
Clear, Build, Hold, Transfer”: Can Obama's Afghan Strategy Work
After years of policy neglect under the Bush administration, President Barack Obama came into office with a firm resolve to achieve U.S. interests, variously defined, in Afghanistan. Most recently, Obama declared that by August 2011, the United States will begin making a conditions-based transfer of responsibility to Afghans under the mantra of “clear, hold, build, and transfer.” In this article, the author evaluates the viability of this strateg…
Islam, Militancy, and Politics in Pakistan: Insights From a National Sample
We use data from an innovative nationally representative survey of 6,000 Pakistanis in April 2009 to study beliefs about political Islam, Sharia, the legitimacy and efficacy of jihad, and attitudes towards specific militant organizations. These issues are at the forefront of U.S. policy towards Pakistan. Four results shed new light on the politics of militancy and Islamic identity in Pakistan. First, there is no relationship between measures of p…
Pakistan's Security-Governance Challenge
The military will never stay in the barracks until other institutions have developed enough credibility to counter the army's
Under the Shrinking U.S. Security Umbrella: India's End Game in Afghanistan
Political science (83 works) · Law (70 works) · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East (58 works) · Politics (57 works) · Sociology (57 works) · Law (51 works) · Political economy (38 works) · Economics (34 works) · South Asian Studies and Conflicts (30 works) · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence (27 works)