Université de Lausanne
Faculté des
HEC
Département d'économétrie
et d'économie politique
Cahier de recherches économiques du DEEP No. 13.04
Hannes Mueller, Dominic Rohner and David Schoenholzer
Tectonic Boundaries and Strongholds: The Religious Geography of Violence in Northern Ireland
April 2013
Abstract
The conflict in Northern Ireland was an example of "complex warfare"
with both insurgency and sectarian violence. We present a unified model that
helps to identify these two forms of conflict from the spatial distribution
of violence. The model predicts that tectonic boundaries between residential
areas of opposed groups drive sectarian violence. Violence between the minority
and state forces takes place in minority strongholds. We test the model with
fine-grained data on religious composition and geo-referenced data on killings
with detailed information on attackers and targets. We also show that sectarian
violence can predict the placement of barriers (i.e. so-called "peace lines").
Finally, we analyze the effect of a troop surge in 1972 and the proximity to
the Republic of Ireland on the two elements of the conflict.
Keywords: Conflict; Terrorism; Religious Tensions; Ethnic Diversity; Northern Ireland; Segregation; Insurgency; Counter-Terrorism
JEL classification: D74 ; K42 ; N44 ; Z10