‘Wrong’ data increases confusion over reducing ethnic civil war risk

The use of territorial self-governance seems to decrease the risk of ethnic civil war in some cases and to increase it in others. This has led to claims that arrangements designed to manage such conflicts—like federalism, autonomy, and decentralization—constitute a paradox.

A new study reveals that claims about the paradoxical nature of territorial self-governance are exaggerated: Contradictory findings about the relationship between territorial self-governance and ethnic civil war risk are primarily a function of which aspects of self-rule and shared rule are part of the underlying measurement of self-governance.

An Anglo-German research team from the Universities of Birmingham and East Anglia, and Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany, conducted a systematic overview of the underlying definitions and the geographic and temporal scope of quantitative indicators from ten widely-used datasets on territorial self-governance to highlight the manner which they do (or do not) capture aspects of self-rule, shared rule and the legal codification of self-governance arrangements.

Publishing their findings in World Development, the researchers reveal that the choice of indicator influences the statistical results that are obtained—and that this choice may be, at least in part, responsible for conflicting conclusions. Overall, they make the deceptively simple yet empirically fundamental point that it matters which data are being used and why.

Co-author Professor Stefan Wolff, from the University of Birmingham, commented, “Ethnic civil wars are common and a big problem for countries’ development—slowing economic, social, and political progress.

“Giving regions within a country control over their own affairs has a reputation of being difficult. But this is more often than not a self-inflicted difficulty. Our main point is simple but important: the data you use matters. The ‘paradox’ is often exaggerated because people are not talking about the same thing.”

Co-author Professor Natascha Neudorfer, from Heinrich-Heine-Universität, added, “Our study does not solve the debate about whether territorial self-governance prevents or resolves ethnic civil wars, but it shows that the choice of measurement can change the results, which might explain why people reach different conclusions.

“This is not just an academic issue. As policymakers use statistics to make decisions, it is crucial to understand what the numbers really mean. We should be careful not to let statistics make conflict resolution seem easier than it actually is.”

The research team also considered empirical examples from Yemen and Ukraine, which demonstrated that ambiguity around terms like “federalism” and “decentralization” added complexity to peace negotiations and policy discussions. Federalism has been proposed as a solution for peace in Yemen’s civil war—some see it as necessary for sustainable peace, while others view it as a cause of the current conflict. The researchers advise that it must be considered alongside other factors, such as state strength and political fragmentation.

Territorial self-governance was a key topic in the Minsk negotiations after the illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. While the Minsk accords were never fully implemented, debate over whether the conflict was intra-state or inter-state and how decentralization should be defined and operationalized in Ukraine added confusion and complexity at a time of great political instability and uncertainty.

Co-author Dr. Ulrike Theuerkauf, from the University of East Anglia, said, “War is often described as ‘development in reverse,’ due to its overwhelmingly negative impact on countries’ economic, social, and political trajectories. Peacebuilding approaches that are based on power-sharing principles—including in the form of territorial self-governance—rightly remain of interest to academics and policymakers.

“In the ongoing quantification of civil war studies, ‘hard data’ based on statistical results has become increasingly influential, but, as our study shows, we need to keep questioning how choices relating to research design affect knowledge production.”

This new study sheds some light on why the academic and policy debates on how to achieve peace remain inconclusive and what can be done to overcome the notion of the paradox of territorial self-governance.

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