Escalating Conflict in Actor-grid Networks: A Multilayer Network Approach

• In Event: Novel Approaches to Studying Escalation of Political Violence

Abstract

Current research on civil conflict escalation focuses on either the geographic or actor dimension. While the geographic dimension focuses on the spatial spread and escalation within grids or administrative units, actor models concentrate on the strategic interdependence between actors to explain conflict escalation. We propose a multi-layer network perspective to account for spatial (geographic) and strategic (actor) dependencies simultaneously when predicting conflict escalation. This approach also allows us to leverage cross-layer dependencies between actor and spatial networks, which implies that heightened escalation between a set of actors has implications for particular geographic units. We compare model performance between single-layer models (spatial and strategic) and multilayer networks using latent network approaches. Our framework also has the potential to integrate intra-state and inter-state escalations into a principled prediction approach.

Authors

• Mihai Croicu, Uppsala University, Dept. of Peace and Conflict Research

• Håvard Hegre, Uppsala University

• Nils W. Metternich, University College London