Locking Down Violence Globally: The Short- and Long-Term Effects of Lockdowns on Nonstate Actor Violence

• In Event: Perspectives on Political Science Challenges Lightning Round

Abstract

Early studies of the short-term effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on violence involving nonstate actors, such as Boko Haram, ISIS, and al-Qaeda, presented competing hypotheses about their likely effects and yielded mixed results. Economic arguments primarily claimed that lockdowns would increase violence and implied that their effects would last after lockdowns were lifted. Logistical arguments proposed, in contrast, that lockdowns would decrease violence and claimed that their effects would last only as long as lockdowns were in place. Using new, more precise, and comprehensive data and measures, this study directly tests these competing hypotheses globally over the short and long term. It finds that overall lockdowns reduced nonstate violence in the short and long term, and that lockdowns indirectly increased nonstate actor violence through their adverse economic effects and directly reduced it by making it logistically more difficult for nonstate actors to operate.

Author

• Dawn Brancati, Yale University