Browsing by Author "Liu, SX"

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Open Access
Control, Coercion, and Cooptation
(World Politics, 2022-01-01) Liu, SX
This article examines how rebels govern after winning a civil war. During war, both sides - rebels and their rivals - form ties with civilians to facilitate governance and to establish control. To consolidate power after war, the new rebel government engages in control through its ties in its wartime strongholds, through coercion in rival strongholds where rivals retain ties, and through cooptation by deploying loyal bureaucrats to oversee development in unsecured terrain where its ties are weak. These strategies help to explain subnational differences in postwar development. The author analyzes Zimbabwe's Liberation War (1972-1979) and its postwar politics (1980-1987) using a difference-in-differences identification strategy that leverages large-scale education reforms. Quantitative results show that development increased most quickly in unsecured terrain and least quickly in rival strongholds. Qualitative evidence from archival and interview data confirms the theorized logic. The findings deepen understanding of transitions from conflict to peace and offer important insights about how wartime experiences affect postwar politics.
Open Access
From Politicization to Vigilance: The Post-war Legacies of Wartime Victimization
(Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2024-01-01) Liu, SX
Following regime change, how does wartime victimization shape political attitudes and participation in the long run? I argue that it increases post-war political vigilance: greater sensitivity to illiberal politics and poor governance, but with dampened effects on participation under authoritarianism due to greater fear of harm. I examine Protected Villages (PVs) in the Zimbabwe Liberation War (1972–1979). PVs, a Rhodesian counterinsurgency strategy, was a large-scale and violent resettlement program that intensified politics’ role in civilian lives. I map PV-affected areas within pre-war and current-day administrative divisions, and estimate a difference-in-discontinuities regression to identify PVs’ long-run effects. PV-affected areas report greater sensitivity to the country’s illiberal politics and are more critical of poor government performance today. Contrary to existing literature however, I find no evidence of increased political participation and pro-social behavior in the long run, nor hardened support for the ruling party—whom these areas had once supported during war.
Open Access
How war-related deprivation affects political participation: Evidence from education loss in Liberia
(Journal of Peace Research, 2022-05-01) Liu, SX
How does civil war affect citizen engagement with democracy? Civilians who live through warfare face numerous disruptions to everyday life that can have permanent effects on political engagement even after peace is achieved. This article analyzes the role of depressed living standards resulting from education loss during the Liberia Civil War as a case study of war-related deprivation. I argue that the negative effects of war on education and economic outcomes clash with the expectations that citizens have for postwar democracy, with adverse consequences for political participation. I demonstrate support for this argument using a mixed methods approach, combining qualitative interviews with census, voting, and Afrobarometer survey data. I leverage a difference-in-differences identification strategy to causally identify the negative impact of conflict on human capital for a generation of young adults, and on the downstream consequences of disruptions in education on political participation. Results indicate that children who were of school age during the civil war are differentially less likely to have any formal schooling by the end of the war. I further find that educational deficiencies disproportionately decrease postwar job prospects, breeding resentment against the newly elected government. This extends to political participation: those who lost out on educational opportunities due to war exhibit lower political engagement and less desire to engage with democratic processes.
Open Access
When does education increase political participation? Evidence from Senegal
(Political Science Research and Methods, 2023-01-01) Larreguy, H; Liu, SX
We argue that education's effect on political participation in developing democracies depends on the strength of democratic institutions. Education increases awareness of, and interest in, politics, which help citizens to prevent democratic erosion through increased political participation. We examine Senegal, a stable but developing democracy where presidential over-reach threatened to weaken democracy. For causal identification, we use a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits variation in the intensity of a major school reform and citizens' ages during reform implementation. Results indicate that schooling increases interest in politics and greater support for democratic institutions- but no increased political participation in the aggregate. Education increases political participation primarily when democracy is threatened, when support for democratic institutions among educated individuals is also greater.