IGCC Fellows Present Research at the Forefront of Global Security

On October 25, the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) hosted a workshop for its 2024-25 dissertation fellows, Ph.D. candidates from across the UC system whose research sheds new light on the causes and consequences of conflict and emerging global security threats. The event, which took place on the campus of UC Los Angeles, brought the 13 fellows together to share their work and receive feedback from their peers. It also laid the groundwork for longer-term cross-campus collaboration among the cohort.

“The fellowship is IGCC’s longest-running program, and a central part of the institute’s peace mission,” said IGCC associate director Lindsay Shingler. “The dissertation fellowship helps nurture a new generation of policy engaged researchers who produce social science that fosters international cooperation and reduces conflict. Our fellows are committed not only to understand how the world works, but to making it better.”

The workshop began with a focus on themes of military power and state rule. Anya Stewart of UC Davis kicked the day off with an overview of her research, which seeks to define martial law, identify the circumstances which predispose its use, and examine its consequences. Stewart finds that martial law declarations rose steadily since the mid-1990s before spiking greatly during the pandemic, and that they are more likely to come from newly elected or appointed leaders to solidify their power. Max Plithides of UC Los Angeles followed by sharing his work, which advances a novel theory of how the civilian economy is translated into different types of military power by the state—labor-intensive economies field infantry-heavy armies, capital-intensive ones provide militaries with more advanced weaponry, and resource-based rentier economies face inefficiencies building any sort of military. Wendy Wagner of UC San Diego then introduced her research, which explores how and why states coexist with armed rebel groups within their borders under informal yet durable governance arrangements. Using a data set focused on the Middle East and North Africa region, Wagner showed that rebel groups typically spend most of their lifespan peacefully coexisting with the state. 

The second round of presentations commenced with UC Los Angeles’ Jiyoung Kim and her research, informed by fieldwork in Nigeria, which asks whether climate-induced economic stress increases intergroup intolerance, or if shared struggles of climate impact can create greater intergroup understanding. Kim’s work aims to advance knowledge of how climate change influences social dynamics and how to forge peace amid worsening climate impacts. Lorena De la Puente Burlando, also of UC Los Angeles, continued by sharing her case studies of lithium extraction in Puno, Peru and California’s remote Imperial County, examining the impact of energy transition resource speculation on regulatory institutions, as project promoters and evaluators contest the limited information space which surrounds the mining sector. UC San Diego’s Jesús Rojas Venzor followed with his work, which examines cooperation between European democracies and their non-democratic neighbors to stem the flow of irregular migration, using data to zero in on the motives of European right-wing populist parties in enacting such agreements.

The next group of presentations touched on democratic backsliding and transitions, diaspora politics, and attitudes toward immigration. Enrico La Viña of UC Davis presented his work on the drug war waged by former president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte. La Viña finds that in backsliding democracies like the Philippines, popular support for extreme policies is leveraged to degrade democratic institutions through democratic means. Then, Jieun Park of UC Los Angeles shared her research into an underexamined phenomenon: that women are less favorably inclined toward immigration when compared to their male compatriots. Park uses the case study of Japan to understand why this is, finding that gendered differences in immigration attitudes are partly explained by women’s more vulnerable economic position.

Felicity Turkmen of UC Riverside followed by outlining her case studies of transnational political engagement and repression within the Turkish and Zimbabwean diasporas, which explores how positive diaspora engagement policies—such as dual citizenship and voting from abroad—and negative policies—namely transnational repression—affect expatriates’ political involvement. Yeilim Cheong of UC San Diego then presented her research on how the legacy of opposition parties’ repression under autocratic governments affects how those parties are able to compete in free elections after democratic transitions. Cheong finds that support for such opposition parties rises with their visible repression under autocratic regimes, but falls when the repression is more covert.  

The concluding round of presentations touched on the finance, semiconductor, and defense industries. UC Los Angeles’s Rohan Advani spoke on his work, which asks why organizations dedicated to financing development evolved to become sovereign wealth funds in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, and how these funds use financial tools to realize state objectives. Then, Ming-yen Ho of UC Berkeley presented his research examining the workings of Chinese local and central government support for the semiconductor industry in response to U.S. technology restrictions, finding that while interprovincial rivalry recreates the advantages of market competition, there are divergent interests at stake between Beijing’s goal of creating national champions versus provinces’ desire to promote local firms. Cartland Zhou of UC Los Angeles closed out the day by sharing her work on how the availability of weapons places practical limits on states’ ability to go to war.

The conference prompted lively discussions among the fellows and produced a valuable starting point for future collaborations among the cohort and between the fellows and IGCC. IGCC looks forward to sharing more of the fellows’ work throughout the 2024-25 academic year.

Paddy Ryan is senior writer/editor at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC).