Had a great conversation about my new book with Wesleyan's Leo Bader on New Books in Political Science (and New Books in South Asian Studies). Ordinary Rebels is out now with OUP! @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social @oxfordacademic.bsky.social

Available now from Oxford University Press and Amazon! Tell your libraries and colleagues!

In other words, state toleration molds militants to ambiguous and sometimes chaotic cooperation with the state, reducing violence without restoring a monopoly on force. This helps explain why separatist regions so often get stuck for decades in "frozen conflict" and "durable disorder."

Second, a green light for low-level coercion makes more moderate armed groups (who can work inside ceasefire more successfully) more attractive and hardliners (who are less willing to work with the government) less attractive. Moderate factions, leaders, and splinter groups become stronger.

I find that periods of toleration have two effects.

First, comfort and safety attract many new recruits and supporters, many of whom have different goals and intentions than armed leaders themselves, leading to a larger but far less disciplined and coherent movement.

Based on 1) survey experiments inside recruiting hotspots in separatist areas of Northeast India and 2) dozens of qualitative interviews tracing four armed movements in India and Sri Lanka. The book shows how armed movements transform from the inside out when states coexist with militants.

What happens to armed organizations when states tolerate their activities? And what do rank-and-file militants, recruits, and supporters actually want out of armed movements? Very excited to announce that my new book is out with @oxfordacademic.bsky.social !!
(Thread below.)

Wesleyan GOVT department is hiring! Open subfield (IR/CP/PT), but we have interest in scholars of human rights, migration, environment, global health, inequality, or international law.

I am on the committee, so feel free to reach out with any questions about the position or Wes!

#OpenAccess from the new issue of @psrm.bsky.social -

Polarization versus professionalism: military and civilian views on the domestic use of the military - cup.org/4lN6HDv

- @kolbyhanson.bsky.social & @austinknuppe.bsky.social

We didn't ask about media diet (probably something we would change if we did it again), but we did ask about education. American adults with a college degree were about 10 ppt MORE likely to favor deploying the military than those without a college degree. All of this was surprising to us.

A new paper by @kolbyhanson.bsky.social and Austin Knuppe seems extremely relevant to the moment:

Key finding: while the American public is sadly quite ready to back deploying the military for domestic policing — including of “downtown riots” — actual soldiers are very unsupportive of such missions

Trump has suggested using the military to police protests. Polls show that the public might be supportive but that the military’s professional norms are a check against this, write @kolbyhanson.bsky.social and @austinknuppe.bsky.social in this week’s Foreign Policy Essay.

We are so grateful for everyone who has played a role in this project: our project partners, everyone who has provided us comments over the years, and especially Rachel Brule for her early work on this project. Stay tuned for two more papers to come! (6/n)

This provides an important window into the experiences and attitudes of nearly 300 million migrants (and many more former migrants) around the world. Some will influence their destination regions, but more will return home to play important roles in their sending regions. (5/n)

With survey evidence and qualitative interviews, we trace these effects to intercultural contact. Even in day-to-day service work, migrants made meaningful connections to native-born individuals and to migrants from other cultures. (4/n)

In this paper, we show that -- contrary to some prior work on native-born individuals -- migrating overseas makes migrants more tolerant of other cultural groups, more likely to identify with cosmopolitan identities, and more supportive of global integration. (3/n)

Working with local governments/NGOs and international recruiters, our team connected randomly-selected (interested) young people from Northeast India with good paying, safe jobs in the Gulf region's hospitality sector (working at quick-service restaurants, etc.). (2/n)

We know a lot about how native-born individuals react to migrants. But how does migration shape the attitudes of migrants themselves?
The first paper from our years-long field experiment on migration (w/ Nikhar Gaikwad and Aliz Toth) is ONLINE at
@ajpseditor.bsky.social! (1/n)

Thanks so much to MIT SSP, especially Roger Petersen and
Erik Lin-Greenberg, for the opportunity to share some highlights from my soon-to-be-forthcoming book! Now under contract with OUP. My talk starts at 08:35 on the video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEWY...

I'm excited to teach trade using data from Africa by assigning my new paper with Helen Milner at @iojournal.bsky.social. Both Afrobarometer and original survey data from 🇬🇭 & 🇺🇬 are highly consistent with factor endowment models – arguably more consistent than data from 🇺🇸 & 🇪🇺 have been. 👇