The Effect of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Global Armed Conflict: Early Evidence
Open accessAbstract
As Covid-19 spreads around the world, international actors, including the United Nations, have called for a stop to armed conflict to facilitate efforts to fight the pandemic. At the same time, coronavirus may also trigger and intensify armed conflict due to its negative economic consequences and by offering windows of opportunity to opposition movements to attack distracted and weakened incumbents. We use real-time data on the spread of Covid-19, governmental lockdown policies, and battle events to study the causal short-term effect of the pandemic on armed conflict. Our results suggest that both the spread of Covid-19 and lockdown policies exhibit a global Null effect with considerable regional heterogeneity. Most importantly, governmental lockdowns have increased armed conflict in the Middle East. In contrast, reported combat has decreased in Southeast Asia and the Caucasus as the pandemic has spread.
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An increase in the frequency or intensity of armed conflict would seriously affect efforts to cope with the pandemic.
“An increasing frequency or intensity of armed conflict, in turn, would seriously affect efforts to cope with the pandemic (Mehrl & Thurner, 2020).”
From COVID-19 and armed conflict (2021) · cites this paper as Mehrl & Thurner, 2020
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Ide, T. (2021) · World Development · doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105355 · Cited by 85 · see citing works
- Authors
- Mehrl, M., & Thurner, P. W.
- Affiliations
- University of Essex (GB)
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Mehrl, Marius
- Venue
- Political Studies Review
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2020-08-13
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 286-293
- ISSN
- 1478-9299 (ISSN-L)
- 1478-9302
- PMC
- PMC7426721
- OpenAlex
- W3048791144
- Cited by
- 54
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 2
- FWCI
- 14.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Political Studies Review (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
- Open access LMU (Ludwid Maxmilian's Universitat Munchen) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Defense, Military, and Policy Studies
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflict, lockdown policy, regional heterogeneity, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Caucasus, economic impact of pandemic, political opportunity structure, opposition movements
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