Conflict Processes and Finance

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Panel Summary: Following the conference theme, this panel examines the financial and distributive dimensions of conflict processes. A wave of recent research investigates the important role of finance in conflict, examining war outcomes, the cost of war, leadership tenure, , and postwar economic recovery. Given these implications, it is important to understand how finance responds to the expectations and management of conflict. The current literature mostly only considers one causal direction: how finance affects conflict. The papers proposed here aim to provide a more holistic approach to war through new examinations of how conflict affects finance. In their paper, Zielinski and Woldemariam examine how institutions, specifically central banks mitigate civil war’s effect on finance. Lee shows that domestic and international investors respond to the risk of conflict in varying ways. Chadefaux uses financial data coupled with forecasting methods to model escalation and early warning signals. Finally, Shea and DiGiuseppe argue that great power patronage can provide short term financial gains for a client state, but can ultimately undermine a client state’s military capacity in long term.

Panel Chair: Sarah Kreps, Cornell University

Panel Discussants: Sarah Kreps, Cornell University & Paul Poast, University of Chicago

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 21: Conflict Processes

Individual Presentations

• Central Bank Behavior in Contemporary Civil Wars - Rosella Cappella, Boston University; Michael H. Woldemariam, Boston University

• The Relationship between Interstate Disputes and Government Bondholders - Kyu Young Lee, Saint Lawrence University

• Rocket Science? Forecasting Palestinian Attacks on Israel - Thomas Chadefaux, Trinity College Dublin

• Ties that Bind: Alliances, Finance, and Military Capacity - Patrick E. Shea, University of Houston

Chair

• Sarah E. Kreps

Discussant

• Sarah E. Kreps