Insurgency and Small Wars: Estimation of Unobserved Coalition Structures

80 Pages Posted: 26 May 2015 Last revised: 8 Jun 2023

See all articles by Francesco Trebbi

Francesco Trebbi

University of California, Berkeley - Haas School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Eric Weese

Yale University Department of Economics

Date Written: May 2015

Abstract

Insurgency and guerrilla warfare impose enormous socio-economic costs and often persist for decades. The opacity of such forms of conflict is often an obstacle to effective international humanitarian intervention and development programs. To shed light on the internal organization of otherwise unknown insurgent groups, this paper proposes two methodologies for the detection of unobserved coalitions of militant factions in conflict areas, and studies their main determinants. Our approach is parsimonious and based on daily geocoded incident-level data on insurgent attacks alone. We provide applications to the Afghan conflict during the 2004-2009 period and to Pakistan during the 2008-2011 period, identifying systematically different coalition structures. Further applications are discussed.

Suggested Citation

Trebbi, Francesco and Weese, Eric, Insurgency and Small Wars: Estimation of Unobserved Coalition Structures (May 2015). NBER Working Paper No. w21202, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2610499

Francesco Trebbi (Contact Author)

University of California, Berkeley - Haas School of Business ( email )

545 Student Services Building, #1900
2220 Piedmont Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Cambridge, MA 02138
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Eric Weese

Yale University Department of Economics ( email )

28 Hillhouse Ave
New Haven, CT 06511
United States

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