A Dynamic Model of the Spread of Intrastate War

Abstract

The spread of intrastate war has gained increasing prominence, especially in therecent past. This paper studies the spread of intrastate war as a result of anotherintrastate war in a neighboring country using a system dynamics modelingapproach. The model employed is a modification of the SIR, a spread of diseasemodel taken from epidemiology. Revising the SIR model with relevant politicaland economic variables, the model seeks to explain the mechanism through whichan intrastate conflict is spread from an "infected" country to a "susceptible"country. Although diffusion and contagion of civil wars have been widelyexamined in the past, a dynamic modeling approach has not been adequatelyused in this area. Consistent with the existing literature, the results of the modelsuggest that refugees are a means to carry the conflict disease from the initialcountry by disturbing economic and social dynamics of the host whereas politicalcapacity acts as the immune system, reducing the likelihood of conflict contagion.The results of the simulations, obtained using theoretical parameters, are mainlyconsistent with the expectations.