Burcu Savun
Biographic Data
| ID | 1417341 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Burcu Savun |
| GIVEN NAMES | Burcu |
| FAMILY NAME | Savun |
| SIGNATURE | SAVUN B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pittsburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5932-0592 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 637 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Violence beyond the Battlefield: Civilian Targeting, Sexual Violence, and Women’s Political Empowerment
Research has established links between intrastate conflict and political gains by women following war, suggesting that changes of a positive nature can emerge from the misery of war. While much of the empirical focus on conflicts’ transformative effects has been on battle-related violence, we investigate whether pro-social effects are associated with two other types of violence perpetrated against civilians—one-sided violence and sexual violence.…
Alliances and Civil War Intervention
Governments have a number of structural advantages over rebel groups in civil wars, one of which is their greater ability to make credible international commitments. Governments can use foreign policy commitments to incentivize other states to provide them military support or deny support to their rebel groups. We analyze international intervention in civil conflicts between 1975 and 2017 and find that some kinds of alliances are associated with …
Less Is More? Shifting Power and Third-Party Military Assistance
In contexts as diverse as civil war interventions, alliances, and military coalitions, states often militarily assist protégés to counteract unfavorable power shifts. Existing theoretical work finds that such assistance mitigates commitment problems and reduces the probability of war. We develop a model that captures this but also includes information asymmetries. In many cases, overcoming the commitment problem encourages the protégé to take gre…
Strategic Humanitarianism: Host States and Refugee Policy
The significant rise in the number of forcibly displaced people crossing international borders, i.e., refugees, necessitates a thorough examination of the policies implemented by receiving states to manage the arrival of these vulnerable populations. This article reviews the literature on the factors that influence refugee policies, focusing on two dimensions of host state responses: admission and integration. We argue that there may be an inhere…
Not All Elections Are Created Equal: Election Quality and Civil Conflict
Research on the dangers of democratization has long warned of the potential for elections to spark civil conflict. Yet, this work has remained surprisingly isolated from the burgeoning body of research on electoral integrity. We open the "black box" of elections to theorize how variation in their quality shapes the opportunities and incentives for military conflict. We argue that electoral integrity matters by influencing perceptions about the le…
Government Targeting of Refugees in the Midst of Epidemics
We investigate how the outbreak of epidemics can affect host governments’ targeting of refugees and violation of their physical integrity rights. We argue that governments target repression against refugees for two reasons. First, refugees are easily scapegoated for the arrival of epidemics at a time when governments are looking to shift the blame for their own poor performance. Second, crises provide circumstances for governments to engage in op…
Welcoming the Unwelcome: Refugee Flows, Refugee Rights, and Political Violence
This article examines refugee-related violence by exploring the effect of extensive refugee rights on the risk of civil conflict and violent attacks against refugees by local population. The provision of fundamental rights, such as the freedom of movement, can reduce refugee groups’ grievances, the risk of radicalization, and the ability of militant organizations to recruit refugees, thereby decreasing the risk of civil conflict. Regarding the be…
Introducing Posvar: A dataset on refugee-related violence
While scholars have for some time debated the role of refugee flows in the international spread of conflict, most evidence has been indirect due to the scarcity of systematic data on refugee-related violence. The Political and Societal Violence By And Against Refugees (POSVAR) dataset addresses this lacuna by providing cross-national, time-series data on refugees' involvement in acts of physical violence in their host state, either as the victims…
From protection to persecution: Threat environment and refugee scapegoating
The security consequences associated with refugee flows are among the most widely studied aspects of forced migration. While the majority of this research program has focused on how refugee movements affect the risk of political violence, scant scholarly attention has been paid to violence perpetrated against refugees. Building upon the state repression literature, we argue that refugees are particularly vulnerable to the violation of their physi…
Refugees, forced migration, and conflict: Introduction to the special issue
Few issues in international politics have dominated public debates, both in domestic and international arenas, as much as refugee movements across borders in recent years. By the end of 2017, more than 68.5 million people - one in approximately every 110 people on the planet - had been displaced from their homes, either as internally displaced persons (IDPs) or as refugees, due to violent conflict, persecution, famine, or natural disasters. This …
Foreign Aid as a Counterterrorism Tool: More Liberty, Less Terror
Is foreign aid effective in reducing terrorism? The existing evidence is mostly negative. We argue that this pessimistic outlook on the efficacy of aid as a counterterrorism tool is partly a function of focusing on only one type of aid: economic aid. Governance and civil society aid can dampen the participation in and support for terrorism by altering the political conditions of a country. We expect countries that receive high levels of governanc…
Reputation, concessions, and territorial civil war: Do ethnic dominoes fall, or don’t they
Barbara Walter's application of reputation theory to self-determination movements has advanced our understanding of why many separatist movements result in armed conflict. Walter has shown that governments of multi-ethnic societies often respond to territorial disputes with violence to deter similar future demands by other ethnic groups. When governments grant territorial accommodation to one ethnic group, they encourage other ethnic groups to se…
New democracies and the risk of civil conflict: The lasting legacy of military rule
Existing theories of regime transitions suggest that new democracies are more prone to political violence than consolidated democracies. We contend that this risk varies based on the political legacy of the new regime. Specifically, we argue that the prior authoritarian regime influences the risk of conflict in new democracies by shaping the nature of the post-transition political environment. In democracies following military rule, the former au…
Exogenous Shocks, Foreign Aid, and Civil War
The recent civil war literature suggests that negative economic shocks in low-income countries increase the risk of civil war. Foreign aid can be an effective conflict-prevention tool in times of severe economic conditions. Aid cushions government spending from the downward pressures of economic shocks, providing recipient governments with resources they can use to make rebellion a less attractive option for aggrieved domestic groups. Using Offic…
Foreign Aid, Democratization, and Civil Conflict: How Does Democracy Aid Affect Civil Conflict
It has been suggested that democratizing states are prone to civil wars. However, not all democratizing states experience domestic political violence. We argue that one of the key factors that "shelters" some democratizing states from domestic political violence is the receipt of democracy aid. Democratizing states that receive high levels of democracy assistance are less likely to experience civil conflict than countries that receive little or n…
Information, Agreement Design, and the Durability of Civil War Settlements
Civil war is usually examined from the perspective of commitment problems. This approach provides considerable insight regarding which civil war agreement provisions reduce the chance of renewed fighting. Yet, additional insight can be gained by examining information asymmetries as a potential cause of civil war recurrence. We argue that significant uncertainty regarding military capabilities may persist after fighting ends and that this uncertai…
Democracy, Foreign Policy, and Terrorism
This article takes a closer look at the relationship between democracy and transnational terrorism. It investigates what it is about democracies that make them particularly vulnerable to terrorism from abroad. The authors suggest that states that exhibit a certain type of foreign policy behavior, regardless of their regime type, are likely to attract transnational terrorism. States that are actively involved in international politics are likely t…
Fostering Peace After Civil War: Commitment Problems and Agreement Design
Lasting peace after civil war is difficult to establish. One promising way to ensure durable peace is by carefully designing civil war settlements. We use a single theoretical model to integrate existing work on civil war agreement design and to identify additional agreement provisions that should be particularly successful at bringing about enduring peace. We make use of the bargaining model of war which points to commitment problems as a centra…
Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars by Caroline A. Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie
Journal Article Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars by Caroline A. Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie Get access Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars by Caroline A. Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie. University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. 208 pp. $55.00. Burcu Savun Burcu Savun University of Pittsburgh Search for other works by this author…
Information, Bias, and Mediation Success
Why do some mediation episodes produce successful negotiated settlements between the disputants of international conflict while others fail to achieve success? This article examines how certain characteristics of a mediator, that is, a mediator’s information about the disputants and a mediator’s bias toward them, affect the success of mediation of international conflicts. By drawing a conceptual distinction between absolute and relative bias and …
Terminating Alliances: Why Do States Abrogate Agreements
Are binding international agreements only valuable as matters stand (rebus sic stantibus), or are pacts respected in good faith regardless of changing circumstances (pacta sunt servanda)? In this article, we examine this question with respect to military alliance agreements, and we find that alliances are more likely to be abrogated opportunistically when one or more members experience changes that affect the value of the alliance, for instance a…
Fostering Peace After Civil War: Commitment Problems and Agreement Design
Lasting peace after civil war is difficult to establish. One promising way to ensure durable peace is by carefully designing civil war settlements. We use a single theoretical model to integrate existing work on civil war agreement design and to identify additional agreement provisions that should be particularly successful at bringing about enduring peace. We make use of the bargaining model of war which points to commitment problems as a centra…
Terminating Alliances: Why Do States Abrogate Agreements
Are binding international agreements only valuable as matters stand (rebus sic stantibus), or are pacts respected in good faith regardless of changing circumstances (pacta sunt servanda)? In this article, we examine this question with respect to military alliance agreements, and we find that alliances are more likely to be abrogated opportunistically when one or more members experience changes that affect the value of the alliance, for instance a…
Democracy, Foreign Policy, and Terrorism
This article takes a closer look at the relationship between democracy and transnational terrorism. It investigates what it is about democracies that make them particularly vulnerable to terrorism from abroad. The authors suggest that states that exhibit a certain type of foreign policy behavior, regardless of their regime type, are likely to attract transnational terrorism. States that are actively involved in international politics are likely t…
Information, Agreement Design, and the Durability of Civil War Settlements
Civil war is usually examined from the perspective of commitment problems. This approach provides considerable insight regarding which civil war agreement provisions reduce the chance of renewed fighting. Yet, additional insight can be gained by examining information asymmetries as a potential cause of civil war recurrence. We argue that significant uncertainty regarding military capabilities may persist after fighting ends and that this uncertai…
Foreign Aid, Democratization, and Civil Conflict: How Does Democracy Aid Affect Civil Conflict
It has been suggested that democratizing states are prone to civil wars. However, not all democratizing states experience domestic political violence. We argue that one of the key factors that "shelters" some democratizing states from domestic political violence is the receipt of democracy aid. Democratizing states that receive high levels of democracy assistance are less likely to experience civil conflict than countries that receive little or n…
Exogenous Shocks, Foreign Aid, and Civil War
The recent civil war literature suggests that negative economic shocks in low-income countries increase the risk of civil war. Foreign aid can be an effective conflict-prevention tool in times of severe economic conditions. Aid cushions government spending from the downward pressures of economic shocks, providing recipient governments with resources they can use to make rebellion a less attractive option for aggrieved domestic groups. Using Offic…
Information, Bias, and Mediation Success
Why do some mediation episodes produce successful negotiated settlements between the disputants of international conflict while others fail to achieve success? This article examines how certain characteristics of a mediator, that is, a mediator’s information about the disputants and a mediator’s bias toward them, affect the success of mediation of international conflicts. By drawing a conceptual distinction between absolute and relative bias and …
From protection to persecution: Threat environment and refugee scapegoating
The security consequences associated with refugee flows are among the most widely studied aspects of forced migration. While the majority of this research program has focused on how refugee movements affect the risk of political violence, scant scholarly attention has been paid to violence perpetrated against refugees. Building upon the state repression literature, we argue that refugees are particularly vulnerable to the violation of their physi…
Foreign Aid as a Counterterrorism Tool: More Liberty, Less Terror
Is foreign aid effective in reducing terrorism? The existing evidence is mostly negative. We argue that this pessimistic outlook on the efficacy of aid as a counterterrorism tool is partly a function of focusing on only one type of aid: economic aid. Governance and civil society aid can dampen the participation in and support for terrorism by altering the political conditions of a country. We expect countries that receive high levels of governanc…
Refugees, forced migration, and conflict: Introduction to the special issue
Few issues in international politics have dominated public debates, both in domestic and international arenas, as much as refugee movements across borders in recent years. By the end of 2017, more than 68.5 million people - one in approximately every 110 people on the planet - had been displaced from their homes, either as internally displaced persons (IDPs) or as refugees, due to violent conflict, persecution, famine, or natural disasters. This …
Not All Elections Are Created Equal: Election Quality and Civil Conflict
Research on the dangers of democratization has long warned of the potential for elections to spark civil conflict. Yet, this work has remained surprisingly isolated from the burgeoning body of research on electoral integrity. We open the "black box" of elections to theorize how variation in their quality shapes the opportunities and incentives for military conflict. We argue that electoral integrity matters by influencing perceptions about the le…
New democracies and the risk of civil conflict: The lasting legacy of military rule
Existing theories of regime transitions suggest that new democracies are more prone to political violence than consolidated democracies. We contend that this risk varies based on the political legacy of the new regime. Specifically, we argue that the prior authoritarian regime influences the risk of conflict in new democracies by shaping the nature of the post-transition political environment. In democracies following military rule, the former au…
Strategic Humanitarianism: Host States and Refugee Policy
The significant rise in the number of forcibly displaced people crossing international borders, i.e., refugees, necessitates a thorough examination of the policies implemented by receiving states to manage the arrival of these vulnerable populations. This article reviews the literature on the factors that influence refugee policies, focusing on two dimensions of host state responses: admission and integration. We argue that there may be an inhere…
Introducing Posvar: A dataset on refugee-related violence
While scholars have for some time debated the role of refugee flows in the international spread of conflict, most evidence has been indirect due to the scarcity of systematic data on refugee-related violence. The Political and Societal Violence By And Against Refugees (POSVAR) dataset addresses this lacuna by providing cross-national, time-series data on refugees' involvement in acts of physical violence in their host state, either as the victims…
Government Targeting of Refugees in the Midst of Epidemics
We investigate how the outbreak of epidemics can affect host governments’ targeting of refugees and violation of their physical integrity rights. We argue that governments target repression against refugees for two reasons. First, refugees are easily scapegoated for the arrival of epidemics at a time when governments are looking to shift the blame for their own poor performance. Second, crises provide circumstances for governments to engage in op…
Welcoming the Unwelcome: Refugee Flows, Refugee Rights, and Political Violence
This article examines refugee-related violence by exploring the effect of extensive refugee rights on the risk of civil conflict and violent attacks against refugees by local population. The provision of fundamental rights, such as the freedom of movement, can reduce refugee groups’ grievances, the risk of radicalization, and the ability of militant organizations to recruit refugees, thereby decreasing the risk of civil conflict. Regarding the be…
Reputation, concessions, and territorial civil war: Do ethnic dominoes fall, or don’t they
Barbara Walter's application of reputation theory to self-determination movements has advanced our understanding of why many separatist movements result in armed conflict. Walter has shown that governments of multi-ethnic societies often respond to territorial disputes with violence to deter similar future demands by other ethnic groups. When governments grant territorial accommodation to one ethnic group, they encourage other ethnic groups to se…
Violence beyond the Battlefield: Civilian Targeting, Sexual Violence, and Women’s Political Empowerment
Research has established links between intrastate conflict and political gains by women following war, suggesting that changes of a positive nature can emerge from the misery of war. While much of the empirical focus on conflicts’ transformative effects has been on battle-related violence, we investigate whether pro-social effects are associated with two other types of violence perpetrated against civilians—one-sided violence and sexual violence.…
Less Is More? Shifting Power and Third-Party Military Assistance
In contexts as diverse as civil war interventions, alliances, and military coalitions, states often militarily assist protégés to counteract unfavorable power shifts. Existing theoretical work finds that such assistance mitigates commitment problems and reduces the probability of war. We develop a model that captures this but also includes information asymmetries. In many cases, overcoming the commitment problem encourages the protégé to take gre…
Terminating Alliances: Why Do States Abrogate Agreements
Are binding international agreements only valuable as matters stand (rebus sic stantibus), or are pacts respected in good faith regardless of changing circumstances (pacta sunt servanda)? In this article, we examine this question with respect to military alliance agreements, and we find that alliances are more likely to be abrogated opportunistically when one or more members experience changes that affect the value of the alliance, for instance a…
Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars by Caroline A. Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie
Journal Article Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars by Caroline A. Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie Get access Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars by Caroline A. Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie. University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. 208 pp. $55.00. Burcu Savun Burcu Savun University of Pittsburgh Search for other works by this author…
Information, Bias, and Mediation Success
Why do some mediation episodes produce successful negotiated settlements between the disputants of international conflict while others fail to achieve success? This article examines how certain characteristics of a mediator, that is, a mediator’s information about the disputants and a mediator’s bias toward them, affect the success of mediation of international conflicts. By drawing a conceptual distinction between absolute and relative bias and …
Democracy, Foreign Policy, and Terrorism
This article takes a closer look at the relationship between democracy and transnational terrorism. It investigates what it is about democracies that make them particularly vulnerable to terrorism from abroad. The authors suggest that states that exhibit a certain type of foreign policy behavior, regardless of their regime type, are likely to attract transnational terrorism. States that are actively involved in international politics are likely t…
Fostering Peace After Civil War: Commitment Problems and Agreement Design
Lasting peace after civil war is difficult to establish. One promising way to ensure durable peace is by carefully designing civil war settlements. We use a single theoretical model to integrate existing work on civil war agreement design and to identify additional agreement provisions that should be particularly successful at bringing about enduring peace. We make use of the bargaining model of war which points to commitment problems as a centra…
Information, Agreement Design, and the Durability of Civil War Settlements
Civil war is usually examined from the perspective of commitment problems. This approach provides considerable insight regarding which civil war agreement provisions reduce the chance of renewed fighting. Yet, additional insight can be gained by examining information asymmetries as a potential cause of civil war recurrence. We argue that significant uncertainty regarding military capabilities may persist after fighting ends and that this uncertai…
Foreign Aid, Democratization, and Civil Conflict: How Does Democracy Aid Affect Civil Conflict
It has been suggested that democratizing states are prone to civil wars. However, not all democratizing states experience domestic political violence. We argue that one of the key factors that "shelters" some democratizing states from domestic political violence is the receipt of democracy aid. Democratizing states that receive high levels of democracy assistance are less likely to experience civil conflict than countries that receive little or n…
Exogenous Shocks, Foreign Aid, and Civil War
The recent civil war literature suggests that negative economic shocks in low-income countries increase the risk of civil war. Foreign aid can be an effective conflict-prevention tool in times of severe economic conditions. Aid cushions government spending from the downward pressures of economic shocks, providing recipient governments with resources they can use to make rebellion a less attractive option for aggrieved domestic groups. Using Offic…
New democracies and the risk of civil conflict: The lasting legacy of military rule
Existing theories of regime transitions suggest that new democracies are more prone to political violence than consolidated democracies. We contend that this risk varies based on the political legacy of the new regime. Specifically, we argue that the prior authoritarian regime influences the risk of conflict in new democracies by shaping the nature of the post-transition political environment. In democracies following military rule, the former au…
Foreign Aid as a Counterterrorism Tool: More Liberty, Less Terror
Is foreign aid effective in reducing terrorism? The existing evidence is mostly negative. We argue that this pessimistic outlook on the efficacy of aid as a counterterrorism tool is partly a function of focusing on only one type of aid: economic aid. Governance and civil society aid can dampen the participation in and support for terrorism by altering the political conditions of a country. We expect countries that receive high levels of governanc…
Reputation, concessions, and territorial civil war: Do ethnic dominoes fall, or don’t they
Barbara Walter's application of reputation theory to self-determination movements has advanced our understanding of why many separatist movements result in armed conflict. Walter has shown that governments of multi-ethnic societies often respond to territorial disputes with violence to deter similar future demands by other ethnic groups. When governments grant territorial accommodation to one ethnic group, they encourage other ethnic groups to se…
Introducing Posvar: A dataset on refugee-related violence
While scholars have for some time debated the role of refugee flows in the international spread of conflict, most evidence has been indirect due to the scarcity of systematic data on refugee-related violence. The Political and Societal Violence By And Against Refugees (POSVAR) dataset addresses this lacuna by providing cross-national, time-series data on refugees' involvement in acts of physical violence in their host state, either as the victims…
From protection to persecution: Threat environment and refugee scapegoating
The security consequences associated with refugee flows are among the most widely studied aspects of forced migration. While the majority of this research program has focused on how refugee movements affect the risk of political violence, scant scholarly attention has been paid to violence perpetrated against refugees. Building upon the state repression literature, we argue that refugees are particularly vulnerable to the violation of their physi…
Refugees, forced migration, and conflict: Introduction to the special issue
Few issues in international politics have dominated public debates, both in domestic and international arenas, as much as refugee movements across borders in recent years. By the end of 2017, more than 68.5 million people - one in approximately every 110 people on the planet - had been displaced from their homes, either as internally displaced persons (IDPs) or as refugees, due to violent conflict, persecution, famine, or natural disasters. This …
Not All Elections Are Created Equal: Election Quality and Civil Conflict
Research on the dangers of democratization has long warned of the potential for elections to spark civil conflict. Yet, this work has remained surprisingly isolated from the burgeoning body of research on electoral integrity. We open the "black box" of elections to theorize how variation in their quality shapes the opportunities and incentives for military conflict. We argue that electoral integrity matters by influencing perceptions about the le…
Government Targeting of Refugees in the Midst of Epidemics
We investigate how the outbreak of epidemics can affect host governments’ targeting of refugees and violation of their physical integrity rights. We argue that governments target repression against refugees for two reasons. First, refugees are easily scapegoated for the arrival of epidemics at a time when governments are looking to shift the blame for their own poor performance. Second, crises provide circumstances for governments to engage in op…
Welcoming the Unwelcome: Refugee Flows, Refugee Rights, and Political Violence
This article examines refugee-related violence by exploring the effect of extensive refugee rights on the risk of civil conflict and violent attacks against refugees by local population. The provision of fundamental rights, such as the freedom of movement, can reduce refugee groups’ grievances, the risk of radicalization, and the ability of militant organizations to recruit refugees, thereby decreasing the risk of civil conflict. Regarding the be…
Violence beyond the Battlefield: Civilian Targeting, Sexual Violence, and Women’s Political Empowerment
Research has established links between intrastate conflict and political gains by women following war, suggesting that changes of a positive nature can emerge from the misery of war. While much of the empirical focus on conflicts’ transformative effects has been on battle-related violence, we investigate whether pro-social effects are associated with two other types of violence perpetrated against civilians—one-sided violence and sexual violence.…
Alliances and Civil War Intervention
Governments have a number of structural advantages over rebel groups in civil wars, one of which is their greater ability to make credible international commitments. Governments can use foreign policy commitments to incentivize other states to provide them military support or deny support to their rebel groups. We analyze international intervention in civil conflicts between 1975 and 2017 and find that some kinds of alliances are associated with …
Less Is More? Shifting Power and Third-Party Military Assistance
In contexts as diverse as civil war interventions, alliances, and military coalitions, states often militarily assist protégés to counteract unfavorable power shifts. Existing theoretical work finds that such assistance mitigates commitment problems and reduces the probability of war. We develop a model that captures this but also includes information asymmetries. In many cases, overcoming the commitment problem encourages the protégé to take gre…
Strategic Humanitarianism: Host States and Refugee Policy
The significant rise in the number of forcibly displaced people crossing international borders, i.e., refugees, necessitates a thorough examination of the policies implemented by receiving states to manage the arrival of these vulnerable populations. This article reviews the literature on the factors that influence refugee policies, focusing on two dimensions of host state responses: admission and integration. We argue that there may be an inhere…
Political science (21 works) · Law (20 works) · Law (16 works) · Politics (16 works) · Political economy (14 works) · Economics (13 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (12 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Development economics (8 works) · Democracy (6 works)