Abbey Steele
Biographic Data
| ID | 796526 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Abbey Steele |
| GIVEN NAMES | Abbey |
| FAMILY NAME | Steele |
| SIGNATURE | STEELE A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1126-9235 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 374 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1966 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
We are what we care for: Living with diversity in nature and society in Colombia
The Colombian civil war is the longest-running in the Western Hemisphere. The government has registered 8.9 million victims, nearly 25 percent of the population, roughly 90 percent of whom were dis...
The Micro-foundations of Peace: Attitudes Towards the Implementation of Colombia's Peace Agreement in war-affected Regions
What explains public support for peace agreements, especially as implementation unfolds? It has been eight years since the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) reached a peace accord, among the most comprehensive and ambitious accords ever signed. How has the Colombian public in war-affected communities shifted their opinions about the agreement since its implementation began? We leverage a 12,000-individual …
The Bureaucracy of Reparations and Political Engagement
Countries transitioning from civil war and authoritarian legacies often adopt transitional justice measures like reparations, prosecutions, and truth commissions. The success of these efforts depends, in part, on interactions with victims. We propose a framework linking victims’ engagement with reparations programs to political participation. We then use panel survey data from over 12,000 respondents in conflict-affected regions of Colombia to sh…
Permanent Membership: The Prohibition of Citizenship Renunciation
Dual citizenship is often seen as an indication that states are adopting more open membership policies. In some cases, however, dual citizenship is imposed because states lay claim to populations beyond their borders, and prohibit the renunciation of citizenship. This research note presents new data to describe which countries prohibit renunciation. First, we find that some states prohibit renunciation in administrative practice, even though nati…
Introducing the Mapping Attitudes, Perceptions and Support (Maps) dataset on the Colombian peace process
This article introduces the Mapping Attitudes, Perceptions and Support (MAPS) dataset, which provides rich survey data from more than 12,000 respondents in Colombia. Our panel survey - carried out in two separate waves in 2019 and 2021 - is representative at the level of each 'Program for Development with a Territorial Focus' (PDET, for its acronym in Spanish), the most war-affected regions and those targeted for peace agreement implementation. W…
Civil War Legacies, The Prohibition of The Drug Trade, and Armed Politics in Latin America
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Social Control in Civil Wars
The public places an important constraint on funding security in Europe, and austerity risks making the constraint tighter. Several recent studies show that curtailing military spending is a popular way to reduce debt in Europe. Yet it remains unclear if military spending aversion persists when threats are salient. We fielded an original survey experiment in Italy weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine to examine how information about secur…
The commander's dilemma: Violence and restraint in war
The commander's dilemma: violence and restraint in war The commander's dilemma: violence and restraint in war. By Amelia Hoover Green. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2018. 276pp. £41.00. Isbn978 1 50172 647 7. Abbey Steele Abbey Steele University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Corresponding author: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 96, Issue 2, March 2020…
Subnational Variation Across States: A Typology and Research Agenda
This special issue is concerned with how the state varies subnationally. Prominent conceptualizations of the state imply that strong states provide public goods, especially order and protection, throughout their territory (e.g., This understanding informs Mann's influential definition of infrastructural power as "the capacity of the state actually to penetrate civil society, and to implement logistically political decisions throughout the realm" …
The Strength of the Weapons of the Weak
There are more refugees today than at any other time in history. These tens of millions of people receive the bulk of humanitarian and political attention. By comparison, the hundreds of millions of civilians who stay in their communities during ongoing wars are often overlooked. Oliver Kaplan's Resisting War: How Communities Protect Themselves shows that this oversight limits our understanding of civil wars. Kaplan argues that, through cooperati…
Civilian resettlement patterns in civil war
This article proposes a descriptive typology of civilian resettlement patterns in civil wars. The patterns vary in two dimensions: whether or not displaced civilians cluster together or resettle independently, and if they remain within their home country or not. The combination of the factors leads to four resettlement patterns: expulsion, segregation, integration, and dispersion. Expulsion and segregation occur when the displaced cluster, either…
Books by Our Readers
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Democracy and civil war: The case of Colombia
We argue that scholarship on the Colombian civil war can fertilize the research program on political violence and democracy in two ways. First, the Colombian case demonstrates that the scholarly research agenda on electoral violence should expand to incorporate a broader focus on democratic institutions. In the context of an ongoing civil war, democratic reforms in Colombia had a substantial impact on the dynamics of wartime violence. Second, the…
IDP resettlement and collective targeting during civil wars: Evidence from Colombia
Refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) are not always safe where they resettle in ethnic civil wars, in which civilians' identities overlap with the ethnic profile of armed combatants. This article argues that IDPs are also vulnerable in non-ethnic civil wars, through two related mechanisms that indicate civilians' loyalties: (1) where the displaced are from and when they left; and (2) resettlement patterns. The first can suggest loyalti…
Endogenous Taxation in Ongoing Internal Conflict: The Case of Colombia
Recent empirical evidence suggests an ambiguous relationship between internal conflicts, state capacity, and tax performance. In theory, internal conflict should create strong incentives for governments to develop the fiscal capacity necessary to defeat rivals. We argue that one reason that this does not occur is because internal conflict enables groups with de facto power to capture local fiscal and property rights institutions. We test this mec…
Democracy and Displacement in Colombia's Civil War
Civilian displacement is a regular, massive feature of civil war violence. This book provides a new way to think about displacement, by connecting it to how armed groups target violence against civilians, and how civilians respond. Individuals escape selective violence, civilians relocate together to avoid indiscriminate violence, and groups experience political cleansing following collective violence. Political cleansing is the expulsion of civi…
Constraining the Samurai: Rebellion and Taxation in Early Modern Japan
On the eve of the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the nearly 300 semi-autonomous domains across Japan had widely varying tax rates. Some handed over 70 percent of their rice yield to the samurai ruler of the domain, while others provided 15 percent. This variation existed in spite of the similar fiscal demands that the domain rulers faced within the Tokugawa regime—the feudal system that governed Japan between 1603 and 1868. This period was remarkably…
Subcontracting State-Building
Contemporary development assistance often takes the form of subcontracted state-building. Foreign donors hire for-profit firms to provide services and to improve or create institutions in developing countries, particularly those experiencing internal conflict. This arrangement creates two counterproductive dynamics: first, it introduces agency problems between donors, recipient states, subcontractors, and citizens; and second, it undermines the l…
Warfare, political identities, and displacement in Spain and Colombia
True Believers, Deserters, and Traitors: Who Leaves Insurgent Groups and Why
Anti-insurgent militias and states attempt to erode insurgent groups’ capacities and co-opt insurgent fighters by promising and providing benefits. They do so to create a perception that the insurgency is unraveling and to harness inside information to prosecute more effective counterinsurgency campaigns. Why do some insurgents defect to a paramilitary group and others exit the war by demobilizing, while still others remain loyal to their group? …
Electing Displacement: Political Cleansing in Apartadó, Colombia
This article highlights a nefarious effect of elections during civil wars by demonstrating that they can facilitate the displacement of civilians. In contrast to the perception of displacement as haphazard, the author argues that armed groups displace strategically when they attempt to gain control over a territory, and where they have information about civilians’ loyalties. Although inferring preferences is difficult in the context of civil wars…
Seeking Safety: Avoiding Displacement and Choosing Destinations in Civil Wars
Despite civil war violence, some civilians stay in their communities. Those who leave choose one of many possible destinations. Drawing on fieldwork in Colombia, this article argues that the way armed groups target civilians explains households' decisions about displacement. When groups of civilians are targeted based on a shared characteristic - `collective' targeting - their best options for avoiding violence differ from those targeted selectiv…
The American People and China
Electing Displacement: Political Cleansing in Apartadó, Colombia
This article highlights a nefarious effect of elections during civil wars by demonstrating that they can facilitate the displacement of civilians. In contrast to the perception of displacement as haphazard, the author argues that armed groups displace strategically when they attempt to gain control over a territory, and where they have information about civilians’ loyalties. Although inferring preferences is difficult in the context of civil wars…
True Believers, Deserters, and Traitors: Who Leaves Insurgent Groups and Why
Anti-insurgent militias and states attempt to erode insurgent groups’ capacities and co-opt insurgent fighters by promising and providing benefits. They do so to create a perception that the insurgency is unraveling and to harness inside information to prosecute more effective counterinsurgency campaigns. Why do some insurgents defect to a paramilitary group and others exit the war by demobilizing, while still others remain loyal to their group? …
Seeking Safety: Avoiding Displacement and Choosing Destinations in Civil Wars
Despite civil war violence, some civilians stay in their communities. Those who leave choose one of many possible destinations. Drawing on fieldwork in Colombia, this article argues that the way armed groups target civilians explains households' decisions about displacement. When groups of civilians are targeted based on a shared characteristic - `collective' targeting - their best options for avoiding violence differ from those targeted selectiv…
Warfare, political identities, and displacement in Spain and Colombia
Endogenous Taxation in Ongoing Internal Conflict: The Case of Colombia
Recent empirical evidence suggests an ambiguous relationship between internal conflicts, state capacity, and tax performance. In theory, internal conflict should create strong incentives for governments to develop the fiscal capacity necessary to defeat rivals. We argue that one reason that this does not occur is because internal conflict enables groups with de facto power to capture local fiscal and property rights institutions. We test this mec…
Democracy and civil war: The case of Colombia
We argue that scholarship on the Colombian civil war can fertilize the research program on political violence and democracy in two ways. First, the Colombian case demonstrates that the scholarly research agenda on electoral violence should expand to incorporate a broader focus on democratic institutions. In the context of an ongoing civil war, democratic reforms in Colombia had a substantial impact on the dynamics of wartime violence. Second, the…
IDP resettlement and collective targeting during civil wars: Evidence from Colombia
Refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) are not always safe where they resettle in ethnic civil wars, in which civilians' identities overlap with the ethnic profile of armed combatants. This article argues that IDPs are also vulnerable in non-ethnic civil wars, through two related mechanisms that indicate civilians' loyalties: (1) where the displaced are from and when they left; and (2) resettlement patterns. The first can suggest loyalti…
Subnational Variation Across States: A Typology and Research Agenda
This special issue is concerned with how the state varies subnationally. Prominent conceptualizations of the state imply that strong states provide public goods, especially order and protection, throughout their territory (e.g., This understanding informs Mann's influential definition of infrastructural power as "the capacity of the state actually to penetrate civil society, and to implement logistically political decisions throughout the realm" …
Civilian resettlement patterns in civil war
This article proposes a descriptive typology of civilian resettlement patterns in civil wars. The patterns vary in two dimensions: whether or not displaced civilians cluster together or resettle independently, and if they remain within their home country or not. The combination of the factors leads to four resettlement patterns: expulsion, segregation, integration, and dispersion. Expulsion and segregation occur when the displaced cluster, either…
Constraining the Samurai: Rebellion and Taxation in Early Modern Japan
On the eve of the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the nearly 300 semi-autonomous domains across Japan had widely varying tax rates. Some handed over 70 percent of their rice yield to the samurai ruler of the domain, while others provided 15 percent. This variation existed in spite of the similar fiscal demands that the domain rulers faced within the Tokugawa regime—the feudal system that governed Japan between 1603 and 1868. This period was remarkably…
Social Control in Civil Wars
The public places an important constraint on funding security in Europe, and austerity risks making the constraint tighter. Several recent studies show that curtailing military spending is a popular way to reduce debt in Europe. Yet it remains unclear if military spending aversion persists when threats are salient. We fielded an original survey experiment in Italy weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine to examine how information about secur…
The American People and China
Introducing the Mapping Attitudes, Perceptions and Support (Maps) dataset on the Colombian peace process
This article introduces the Mapping Attitudes, Perceptions and Support (MAPS) dataset, which provides rich survey data from more than 12,000 respondents in Colombia. Our panel survey - carried out in two separate waves in 2019 and 2021 - is representative at the level of each 'Program for Development with a Territorial Focus' (PDET, for its acronym in Spanish), the most war-affected regions and those targeted for peace agreement implementation. W…
Permanent Membership: The Prohibition of Citizenship Renunciation
Dual citizenship is often seen as an indication that states are adopting more open membership policies. In some cases, however, dual citizenship is imposed because states lay claim to populations beyond their borders, and prohibit the renunciation of citizenship. This research note presents new data to describe which countries prohibit renunciation. First, we find that some states prohibit renunciation in administrative practice, even though nati…
Civil War Legacies, The Prohibition of The Drug Trade, and Armed Politics in Latin America
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
The Strength of the Weapons of the Weak
There are more refugees today than at any other time in history. These tens of millions of people receive the bulk of humanitarian and political attention. By comparison, the hundreds of millions of civilians who stay in their communities during ongoing wars are often overlooked. Oliver Kaplan's Resisting War: How Communities Protect Themselves shows that this oversight limits our understanding of civil wars. Kaplan argues that, through cooperati…
The American People and China
Seeking Safety: Avoiding Displacement and Choosing Destinations in Civil Wars
Despite civil war violence, some civilians stay in their communities. Those who leave choose one of many possible destinations. Drawing on fieldwork in Colombia, this article argues that the way armed groups target civilians explains households' decisions about displacement. When groups of civilians are targeted based on a shared characteristic - `collective' targeting - their best options for avoiding violence differ from those targeted selectiv…
Electing Displacement: Political Cleansing in Apartadó, Colombia
This article highlights a nefarious effect of elections during civil wars by demonstrating that they can facilitate the displacement of civilians. In contrast to the perception of displacement as haphazard, the author argues that armed groups displace strategically when they attempt to gain control over a territory, and where they have information about civilians’ loyalties. Although inferring preferences is difficult in the context of civil wars…
True Believers, Deserters, and Traitors: Who Leaves Insurgent Groups and Why
Anti-insurgent militias and states attempt to erode insurgent groups’ capacities and co-opt insurgent fighters by promising and providing benefits. They do so to create a perception that the insurgency is unraveling and to harness inside information to prosecute more effective counterinsurgency campaigns. Why do some insurgents defect to a paramilitary group and others exit the war by demobilizing, while still others remain loyal to their group? …
Warfare, political identities, and displacement in Spain and Colombia
Democracy and Displacement in Colombia's Civil War
Civilian displacement is a regular, massive feature of civil war violence. This book provides a new way to think about displacement, by connecting it to how armed groups target violence against civilians, and how civilians respond. Individuals escape selective violence, civilians relocate together to avoid indiscriminate violence, and groups experience political cleansing following collective violence. Political cleansing is the expulsion of civi…
Constraining the Samurai: Rebellion and Taxation in Early Modern Japan
On the eve of the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the nearly 300 semi-autonomous domains across Japan had widely varying tax rates. Some handed over 70 percent of their rice yield to the samurai ruler of the domain, while others provided 15 percent. This variation existed in spite of the similar fiscal demands that the domain rulers faced within the Tokugawa regime—the feudal system that governed Japan between 1603 and 1868. This period was remarkably…
Subcontracting State-Building
Contemporary development assistance often takes the form of subcontracted state-building. Foreign donors hire for-profit firms to provide services and to improve or create institutions in developing countries, particularly those experiencing internal conflict. This arrangement creates two counterproductive dynamics: first, it introduces agency problems between donors, recipient states, subcontractors, and citizens; and second, it undermines the l…
Books by Our Readers
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Democracy and civil war: The case of Colombia
We argue that scholarship on the Colombian civil war can fertilize the research program on political violence and democracy in two ways. First, the Colombian case demonstrates that the scholarly research agenda on electoral violence should expand to incorporate a broader focus on democratic institutions. In the context of an ongoing civil war, democratic reforms in Colombia had a substantial impact on the dynamics of wartime violence. Second, the…
IDP resettlement and collective targeting during civil wars: Evidence from Colombia
Refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) are not always safe where they resettle in ethnic civil wars, in which civilians' identities overlap with the ethnic profile of armed combatants. This article argues that IDPs are also vulnerable in non-ethnic civil wars, through two related mechanisms that indicate civilians' loyalties: (1) where the displaced are from and when they left; and (2) resettlement patterns. The first can suggest loyalti…
Endogenous Taxation in Ongoing Internal Conflict: The Case of Colombia
Recent empirical evidence suggests an ambiguous relationship between internal conflicts, state capacity, and tax performance. In theory, internal conflict should create strong incentives for governments to develop the fiscal capacity necessary to defeat rivals. We argue that one reason that this does not occur is because internal conflict enables groups with de facto power to capture local fiscal and property rights institutions. We test this mec…
The Strength of the Weapons of the Weak
There are more refugees today than at any other time in history. These tens of millions of people receive the bulk of humanitarian and political attention. By comparison, the hundreds of millions of civilians who stay in their communities during ongoing wars are often overlooked. Oliver Kaplan's Resisting War: How Communities Protect Themselves shows that this oversight limits our understanding of civil wars. Kaplan argues that, through cooperati…
Civilian resettlement patterns in civil war
This article proposes a descriptive typology of civilian resettlement patterns in civil wars. The patterns vary in two dimensions: whether or not displaced civilians cluster together or resettle independently, and if they remain within their home country or not. The combination of the factors leads to four resettlement patterns: expulsion, segregation, integration, and dispersion. Expulsion and segregation occur when the displaced cluster, either…
The commander's dilemma: Violence and restraint in war
The commander's dilemma: violence and restraint in war The commander's dilemma: violence and restraint in war. By Amelia Hoover Green. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2018. 276pp. £41.00. Isbn978 1 50172 647 7. Abbey Steele Abbey Steele University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Corresponding author: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 96, Issue 2, March 2020…
Subnational Variation Across States: A Typology and Research Agenda
This special issue is concerned with how the state varies subnationally. Prominent conceptualizations of the state imply that strong states provide public goods, especially order and protection, throughout their territory (e.g., This understanding informs Mann's influential definition of infrastructural power as "the capacity of the state actually to penetrate civil society, and to implement logistically political decisions throughout the realm" …
Social Control in Civil Wars
The public places an important constraint on funding security in Europe, and austerity risks making the constraint tighter. Several recent studies show that curtailing military spending is a popular way to reduce debt in Europe. Yet it remains unclear if military spending aversion persists when threats are salient. We fielded an original survey experiment in Italy weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine to examine how information about secur…
Permanent Membership: The Prohibition of Citizenship Renunciation
Dual citizenship is often seen as an indication that states are adopting more open membership policies. In some cases, however, dual citizenship is imposed because states lay claim to populations beyond their borders, and prohibit the renunciation of citizenship. This research note presents new data to describe which countries prohibit renunciation. First, we find that some states prohibit renunciation in administrative practice, even though nati…
Introducing the Mapping Attitudes, Perceptions and Support (Maps) dataset on the Colombian peace process
This article introduces the Mapping Attitudes, Perceptions and Support (MAPS) dataset, which provides rich survey data from more than 12,000 respondents in Colombia. Our panel survey - carried out in two separate waves in 2019 and 2021 - is representative at the level of each 'Program for Development with a Territorial Focus' (PDET, for its acronym in Spanish), the most war-affected regions and those targeted for peace agreement implementation. W…
Civil War Legacies, The Prohibition of The Drug Trade, and Armed Politics in Latin America
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
The Micro-foundations of Peace: Attitudes Towards the Implementation of Colombia's Peace Agreement in war-affected Regions
What explains public support for peace agreements, especially as implementation unfolds? It has been eight years since the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) reached a peace accord, among the most comprehensive and ambitious accords ever signed. How has the Colombian public in war-affected communities shifted their opinions about the agreement since its implementation began? We leverage a 12,000-individual …
The Bureaucracy of Reparations and Political Engagement
Countries transitioning from civil war and authoritarian legacies often adopt transitional justice measures like reparations, prosecutions, and truth commissions. The success of these efforts depends, in part, on interactions with victims. We propose a framework linking victims’ engagement with reparations programs to political participation. We then use panel survey data from over 12,000 respondents in conflict-affected regions of Colombia to sh…
We are what we care for: Living with diversity in nature and society in Colombia
The Colombian civil war is the longest-running in the Western Hemisphere. The government has registered 8.9 million victims, nearly 25 percent of the population, roughly 90 percent of whom were dis...
Political science (21 works) · Law (18 works) · Politics (15 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Political economy (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Spanish Civil War (10 works) · Computer Science (6 works)