Abstract
Governments and multilateral organisations often attempt to influence multi-sided violent conflicts by supporting or undermining one of the conflicting parties. We investigate the (intended and unintended) consequences of strengthening or weakening an agent in a multi-sided conflict. Using a conflict network based on Franke and Öztürk (J Public Econ 126:104–113, 2015), we study how changing the strength of otherwise symmetric agents creates knock-on effects throughout the network. Increasing or decreasing an agent’s strength has the same unintended consequences. Changes in the strength of an agent induce a relocation of conflict investments: Distant conflicts are carried out more fiercely. In line with previous results, asymmetry reduces aggregate conflict investments. In the case of bipartite networks, with two conflicting tacit groups with aligned interests, agents in the group of the (now) strong or weak agent face more intense conflicts. Furthermore, in conflicts where the (now strong or weak) agent is not involved, the probabilities of winning remain unchanged compared to the symmetric case.
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We are grateful to the editor, Nicholas Yannelis, the co-editor, and two anonymous referees for insightful and constructive contributions which greatly improved the paper. We would also like to thank Subhasish M. Chowdhury, Matthias Dahm, Marcin Dziubiński, Christian Ewerhart, Jörg Franke, Sanjeev Goyal, Oliver Gürtler, Laura A. Harvey, David Hugh-Jones, Dan Kovenock, Maria Montero, Ivan Pastine, Amrish Patel, David Rojo Arjona, Dmitry Ryvkin and Mich Tvede for comments. Also, we are grateful for comments received at the 20th Annual SAET Conference, the 2019 Latin American Workshop in Economic Theory, and the Contest Conference and Conflict Workshop held at UEA and Bath University, respectively. All remaining errors are our own.
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Cortes-Corrales, S., Gorny, P.M. How strength asymmetries shape multi-sided conflicts. Econ Theory (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-024-01569-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-024-01569-6