In the first two decades of the 21st century, intrastate armed conflicts have changed significantly: Scholars note that they increasingly cross national borders, become more intense, and involve more actors. The new TraCe Working Paper, “The Internationalization of Armed Intrastate Conflict: A Systematic Assessment of the State of Research, Data, and Explanations,” examines this development and aims to identify possible explanations for this trend.
To this end, authors Frederik Schissler, Felix Bethke, Hanna Pfeifer, Regine Schwab, Constantin Ruhe, and Jonas Wolff first systematize the various definitions and measures of intrastate conflict internationalization found in the literature. While the literature highlights the trend toward internationalization and its characteristics, the authors demonstrate through their analysis that existing literature does not explain this global trend toward the internationalizationof intrastate armed conflicts. To address this gap in the research, the authors then develop a network-based framework to study potential explanations for this trend. The analysis suggests that the interplay between the increasing role of Islamist rebel groups in intrastate conflicts and the so-called War on Terror has plausibly contributed to internationalization.
The Working Paper is an extended preprint version of a paper published by Sage in the Journal Cooperation and Conflict: Schissler, Frederik, Hanna Pfeifer, Constantin Ruhe, Regine Schwab, and Jonas Wolff (forthcoming): “The internationalization of intrastate conflict: A network perspective on empirical evidence and theoretical explanations”. Cooperation and Conflict, DOI: 10.1177/00108367251413148 (open access).
The English-language Working Paper is available for download (PDF).