This study asks whether localized economic hardship affects civilians’ willingness to support peace-building measures—specifically reintegrating former combatants. Using individual-level survey responses about support for Taliban reintegration and exploiting variation from the 2015 Hindu Kush earthquake, the authors examine whether damage to local economic sectors changed civilians’ attitudes toward reintegration. The contribution is a focused test of how sectoral economic impacts of a sudden shock map onto public support for conflict cessation.
Individual-level survey data on reintegration Localized earthquake exposure Spatial randomization using geocoded fault lines
Data and methods
The analysis uses individual-level survey data on support for Taliban reintegration and links respondents to localized measures of economic impact from the 2015 Hindu Kush earthquake. The authors report leveraging geocoded fault lines and a spatial randomization procedure described as novel to construct counterfactual exposure variation. The abstract indicates a battery of robustness tests was applied.
Main findings
According to the abstract, the earthquake reduced civilian support for reintegration when reintegration was into economic sectors disproportionately impacted by the quake, while there was no effect for less-impacted sectors. The authors present these results as evidence that economic hardship can undermine civilian support for reintegration, subject to the qualifications and robustness checks they report.
- Reduced support occurred for reintegration into sectors hit hardest by the earthquake.
- No measurable effect for reintegration into less-impacted sectors.
