A Dynamic Model of the Spread of Intrastate War

Year 2020, , 23 - 59, 20.12.2019

Ali Fisunoğlu

https://doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.616008

Abstract

The spread of intrastate war has
gained increasing prominence, especially in the recent past. This paper studies
the spread of intrastate war as a result of another intrastate war in a
neighboring country using a system dynamics modeling approach. The model
employed is a modification of the SIR, a spread of disease model taken from
epidemiology. Revising the SIR model with relevant political and economic
variables, the model seeks to explain the mechanism through which an intrastate
conflict is spread from an "infected" country to a
"susceptible" country. Although diffusion and contagion of civil wars
have been widely examined in the past, a dynamic modeling approach has not been
adequately used in this area. Consistent with the existing literature, the results
of the model suggest that refugees are a means to carry the conflict disease
from the initial country by disturbing economic and social dynamics of the host
whereas political capacity acts as the immune system, reducing the likelihood
of conflict contagion. The results of the simulations, obtained using
theoretical parameters, are mainly consistent with the expectations.

Keywords

Intrastate conflict, refugees, state capacity, diffusion of war, system dynamics models

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