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Ethnic Challenges to Government Authority
Code Book
Version 1.1
1. Introduction: Coding Costly Signals
Costly Signaling in Practice: An intuitive description of the observable referent
Coding costly signals is difficult for several reasons. First, a costly signal is an abstract
concept. Second, the observable referents of a costly signal are to some degree context
dependent. I will therefore give an intuitive description of what we are looking for in more
concrete terms before moving on to set up a series of coding criteria for various variables
describing the two sets of costly signals that we are looking for empirically.
Intuitively we may think of a challenge to government authority as the initiation of a crisis.
Costly signaling can be viewed as crisis bargaining, having much of the trappings of an
interstate crisis, including threats and counter threats, demonstrations of the willingness to use
force, mobilization of resources and people, high tensions, uncertainty, and so on. It indicates
that the parties consider armed conflict as a real possibility, implying that the probability of
armed conflict really has gone up, and the parties themselves are preparing for the worst
because they are uncertain about the final outcome of the bargaining.
We are primarily interested in measuring the move that signals the initiation of a potentially
violent challenge to government authority. We can think of this move as a qualitative step up
an escalation ladder, where the ethnic actor changes its strategy from efforts at persuasion to
efforts at intimidation. Taking this step implies that it is willing to use coercion if its demands
are not met by the government – the final step up the escalation ladder.
In more concrete terms, when the ethnic group resorts to intimidation it escalates the conflict
by publicly threatening to resort to force, and by demonstrating its willingness to resort to
force through various actions. To demonstrate its willingness (i.e. resolve) to risk armed
conflict with the government, the ethnic actor may provoke the government, try to preempt
the government, or by making public commitments that are costly to back down from or risky
to make because they may provoke a clampdown by the government. A few examples of how
an ethnic group might make a demand a costly signal would be the following. First, it may
begin to arm itself (if it is not already armed), thereby showing that it is preparing for armed
conflict, should it be necessary. The act of acquiring arms is also taking a risk. Acquiring
arms threatens to upset the governments monopoly on the means of organized violence, and is
thus also a provocation of the government, which might result in heavy handed
countermeasures which would be costly to the ethnic actor. Consequently, the acquisition of
arms in conjunction with a public demand challenging the governments authority in some way
is a costly signal of resolve on that issue. Ethnic actors who are not prepared to risk a
clampdown or engage the government in armed conflict would be much less likely to arm
themselves. Thus, the signal distinguishes (imperfectly) between ethnic actors with different
levels of resolve on the issue at stake.
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A second example would be to instigate violent riots in conjunction with a demand and a
threat to resort to force. Instigating riots shows the ethnic actors relative indifference to the
costs of violence, or willingness to make sacrifices to have its way on the issue at stake. It is
also a provocation that might generate a clampdown by the government on the ethnic actor.
Ethnic actors who are not prepared to risk a clampdown or risk engaging the government in
armed conflict, or who are sensitive to the costs of violence, would be much less likely to
instigate violent riots. Thus, the signal distinguishes (imperfectly) between ethnic actors with
different levels of resolve on the issue at stake.
A third example would be to simply make a public threat to resort to force, thereby
committing the group to resort to force, unless the ethnic actors demands are met. Under most
circumstances simply making such a threat would be accepting a risk. The threat may, by
itself, provoke adverse government countermeasures – if not against the whole group, then at
least against the person(s) or organization making the threat. However, the severity of the
governments countermeasures and the likelihood that they will materialize is likely to depend
on the circumstances under which the ethnic actor’s threat was made. Thus, while every threat
to resort to force may involve some risk, only under certain circumstances does it become a
sufficiently risky to count as a costly signal in the sense intended here. A threat alone, i.e. a
threat not coupled with some kind of provocation, or preemption, is considered to be a costly
signal in the sense intended here if the government is authoritarian. This is so because ethnic
actors residing in authoritarian states are liable to believe that the likelihood of severe
countermeasures is much more likely than actors residing in democratic states. Thus, in
authoritarian states only ethnic actors with high resolve will dare to threaten the government
with violence. Therefore, in authoritarian states, a threat alone distinguishes (imperfectly)
between ethnic actors with different levels of resolve on the issue at stake.
We are also interested in measuring the government’s initial response to the challenge. This
too involves measuring a costly signal. First, having been challenged with a costly signal of
resolve by the ethnic actor, any action or statement by the government that indicates it is
refusing to accommodate the ethnic actors demand is a costly signal. Not accommodating the
demands is a costly signal by the government because the ethnic group has already indicated
its willingness to fight over the issue unless its demands are met. Thus, by not accommodating
the demands, the government shows that it is willing to run the risk that the ethnic actor is
serious about its threat to resort to violence. In a situation where the ethnic actor has made a
serious threat to resort to force, a government that is not prepared to fight an armed conflict
over the issue at stake is also much less likely to dare to reject the ethnic actor’s demands.
Thus, whether the government takes steps to accommodate the ethic actors demands, or not,
distinguishes (imperfectly) between those governments with high specific resolve, who are
prepared risk an armed conflict, and those governments with lower specific resolve, who are
not.
In addition to responding to the demands of the ethnic actor, the government may take
countermeasures. These countermeasures serve two purposes. First, they make the
governments signal clearer, by making the signal more costly. Second, they raise the cost to
the ethnic actor for engaging the government in armed conflict. Thus, government
countermeasures reinforce the signal in the same way the ethnic actors provocation and
preemption do.
In general terms, government countermeasures are all actions that make the organization, or
conduct, of armed conflict more difficult for the ethnic actor. In concrete terms this includes
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such things as curfews and martial laws, banning opposition meetings and gatherings, shutting
down opposition media, arrests or deportations of rebel leaders, deployment of military,
paramilitary and police units to strategic areas, and so on – all of which make a rebellion more
difficult to organize. Deployment of military, paramilitary and police units to strategic areas,
calling up reserves, and raising the readiness of such units also make a rebellion more difficult
for the ethnic actor to win, should there be an armed conflict. Government countermeasures
may thus also function as deterrence threats.
Finally, we also measure the specific issue at stake in each particular challenge. Costly signals
are indicators of specific resolve, i.e. just how willing the actors are to fight over a specific
issue. Not all issues are likely to be of equal importance to the actors, so we also need a
measure of the specific issue at stake in any given challenge. We measure this as the specific
demand made by the ethnic group in the challenge.
2. The Actor Problem: Ethnic Groups, Actors, and Factions
Theoretically, the actor in the model is a decision maker, or a small decision making group,
making decisions on behalf of the ethnic group. In many real world situations there are more
than one decision maker, or decision making group, that claims to make decisions on behalf
or the whole ethnic group, or some subset of it. The problem facing us here is which faction
and/or leader may be thought of as speaking and acting on behalf of the group.
This is a problem only because the unit of analysis in the Minorities at Risk data set is the
ethnic group as a whole. Thus the values on the variables apply to the group as a whole and
not to any specific leader, or faction, who might be the concrete actor that challenges the
government. This, obviously, applies to virtually any international relations data set as well,
only then it is usually clear who speaks for and acts on behalf of the state. Thus, in
international politics we usually make the simplifying assumption that the government of a
country speaks and acts for the state1. In this data, we make the similar assumption that the
formal leaders of the government speaks for the government and that government agencies
speak and act on behalf of their leaders.
The problem facing us here is that while it is usually fairly clear who speaks and acts on
behalf of the government, it is not always clear who speaks and acts on behalf of the ethnic
group. Several organizations or factions may claim to represent the ethnic group. It is almost
impossible to determine who actually does represent the group as a whole, if anyone. The
solution to this problem, applied here, is that any actor that claims to represent the group
when challenging the government will be considered as if it was representing the group. This,
obviously, is not a perfect solution, but I think it is the least bad solution – and it might be the
only feasible solution. In fact, I think it is better than it may first seem and I have three
reasons for choosing this particular solution.
First, if one faction challenges the government this is still a challenge, whether or not the
faction actually speak and act on behalf of the whole group or not. The logic of the model is
not affected by this issue, only the measurement of background conditions, and this is a
problem only when these variables measures attributes of the group as a whole. Second, the
problem with measuring attributes of the whole group rather than of the specific actor making
1 This by no means exclude the possiblility that the government is influenced by factions within the country or
within the government.
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the challenge can to some extent be controlled for. The degree to which an ethnic group is
divided into factions is measured by variables in Minorities at Risk data and this gives us a
measure of control over the problem, because it gives us a measure of how representative the
challenging actor might be. Finally, and most importantly, governments oftentimes do not
seem to be able to make fine distinctions between various factions of the ethnic group either.
More to the point, they usually do not know exactly to what extent the challenger is actually
supported by the ethnic group.
A slightly different coding problem arises if there are two actors claiming to represent the
group who both challenge the state independently on different issues at the same time. For the
reasons given above, these challenges will be coded as separate challenges. Theoretically, that
is what they are, and the problem with measuring actor attributes is no different from the case
above where only one faction or organization is challenging.
In sum, when coding challenges to state authority, or crisis initiations, any challenge
(fulfilling the criteria outlined below) made by an actor representing, or claiming to represent,
the ethnic group is coded as a challenge by the ethnic group.
3. Challenge to Government Authority
Operational definition
A challenge to state authority is a set of events that conveys a costly signal of resolve to the
government on some issue. It will be coded on two dimensions: the challenge (a costly signal)
and the demand (the stakes, or issue, that the challenge concerns). A challenge may be a
single event or a set of events. By this I mean that the challenge will usually consist in more
than one action on part of the challenger. For example, it may verbally threaten to resort to
force unless its demands are met (one event or action) and then begin arming itself to show
that it means business (another event or action), or vice versa. When two or more such actions
or events occur in a single episode (i.e. relatively short periods of time between actions), this
constitutes a costly signal that it is coded as a challenge.
Challenge coding criteria
An event (or set of events in a single episode) is coded as a challenge if the event fulfilled
the following two criteria:
1. The ethnic actor made a public commitment to resort to force if their stated demands are
not accommodated, and this commitment was made in either of two ways:
a) by threatening to resort to force unless the government yields on the issue at stake
(public commitment)
b) by unilaterally beginning to implement demands thereby creating a fait accompli that
the actor threatens to defended by force if necessary (public
commitment/provocation).
2. And at least one of the following statements are true:
a) it is reported that the ethnic actor has taken control over some area or location, that is, it
contests government authority/control over some area or location
(provocation/preemption).
b) it is reported that the ethnic group is nominally capable of organized violence, i.e. has a
high degree of militant mobilization (provocation). MaR can be used to determine degree
of militant mobilization.
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c) it is reported that the ethnic actor begins to acquire the means to conduct significant
organized violence, i.e. it arms itself (preemption/provocation).
d) it is reported that the ethnic actor commits some minor act(s) of violence or
demonstration(s) of armed force directed at the government, or its agents, or its
constituency (provocation).
e) the threat to resort to force is made in the context of minor clashes or violent riots.
99) no events or conditions falling under the criteria in this section (2) is reported.
The first set of criteria establishes that a challenge has taken place. The second set of criteria
attempts to establish whether the challenge is a costly signal, or cheap talk.
The raw codings will then have the following format:
1a2d
signifies an episode in which an actor makes a public commitment to resort to
force and commits some minor act of violence or demonstration of force.
1a99
signifies an episode in which an actor makes a public commitment to resort to
force but does nothing beyond that, so 99 signifies a missing value.
An alternative version of the challenge variable is coded using the following additional
criteria: For the cases with no specific preemption or provocation reported (99) the case is
coded as a challenge if the government is authoritarian (provocation), and not if the
government is not autocratic (no significant provocation) as determined by the polity IV data
set (cut-off point –7).2
In addition to the coding of the characteristics of the costly signal, the first date when the
criteria are fulfilled will be noted with the highest precision given by the sources (yymmdd)
and will signify the date when the challenge was initiated. Not also, that the order in which
the set of events constituting the challenge is irrelevant. For example, 1a2d may signify an
episode where an ethnic actor first commits some minor act of violence or demonstration of
force, and then makes a public commitment, just as well as the other way around.
4. Issue at stake
Operational definition
Values for the issues at stake represent the value of interests at stake for the ethnic group and
government respectively, relative to the value of the status quo (Fearon 1990:33). In
observational terms the value for the issues at stake can be thought of as the extent of the
change demanded by the ethnic actor relative to the status quo. Note that we are here only
interested in the specific demand made in the challenge, as defined above.
Demands for change can, of course, be of very different kinds ranging from the right to
use cultural symbols to complete independence. It is hard to see any meaningful ranking of
issues on such diverse issues as language rights, educational rights, economic redistribution,
access to public office, democracy, or separatism and so on. However, if we raise the level of
abstraction one order of magnitude it is possible to discern one underlying theoretical
dimension that subsumes almost all these diverse issues – or so I will argue. This underlying
dimension is political authority, defined as the competence (i.e. right and power) to make
legally binding decisions.
In this dataset we therefore limit our attention to demands for greater political authority,
i.e. the power to make authoritative decisions. There are two reasons for doing so. First,
2 The assumption is that making an overt threat in an authoritarian state is entails a high risk and thereby
discriminates between groups with high resolve and groups with low resolve. Making the same threat in an open
society presumably does not entail the same risks and costs.
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political authority is the means to almost all of the other goals. Second, this gives us the
opportunity to limit ourselves to one underlying dimension on which we can meaningfully
rank the demands.
The argument is that all, or almost all, of the issues concerned in ethnic conflicts have the
following in common: they can be resolved with legally binding decisions. The underlying
issue is thus the competence to make legally binding decisions. The group is either
questioning a legally binding decision, or wanting a legally binding decision to be made; or
they wish to obtain for themselves, or deprive the government of, the competence to make
legally binding decisions for some issue or issues, or for all issues concerning some people or
geographical area. Thus, the relevant issue dimension is who has the right to make legally
binding decisions on what issues for whom and where. This is analogous to the issue of
jurisdiction in international law (Rubin 1997).
Political authority in this sense intended here has two important components: who has the
right to make authoritative decisions for whom/where and on what issues. This puts complete
sovereignty for the group at the high end of the spectrum and complete subordination of the
group to the authority of a government controlled by others at the low end.
Issue at stake coding criteria:
0) No demand made
1) Demands for political, civil, cultural, or economic rights or privileges for the group or its
members, short of autonomy or power sharing arrangements.
2) Demands for autonomy within the state.
3) Demands for power sharing arrangements in the central government
4) Demands for a separate state (separatist demands), or for joining another state (irredentist
demands)
5) Demands for control of the government of the state
99) Demand unclear (note and motivate what the demand is in your best judgement)
This would then be a nominal scale, but it can easily be recombined, as suggested below, into
an ordinal scale for the issue at stake. This would then also allow for simpler and more
powerful statistical analysis, at the cost of loosing some information.
Issue at stake re-coding scheme
No demand for political authority over any issues anywhere is coded Issue at Stake = 0. No
demand implies that there is no issue at stake and thus no crisis. Demands for some political
authority somewhere is coded Issue at Stake = 1. In concrete terms this could be demands for
cultural rights, regional autonomy, power sharing arrangements in the central government and
the like – anything short of Issue at stake 2. Demands for complete (i.e. sovereign) political
authority somewhere is coded Issue at Stake = 2. This is either a demand for complete control
of the government in an existing state, or separatism or irredentism. A distinction is often
made in the literature between separatist challenges and challenges for control of the
government. Since these issues are separated in the raw codings (above), we have the
flexibility of trying out different variants in the analysis, to see if the distinction makes a
difference.
5. Initial Government Response
Operational definition
Publicly rejecting demands associated with a provocation, preemption or public commitment
is inherently risky. Consequently, any outright rejection would be a costly signal that the
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government stands firm. The problem occurs whenever the government is uncommitted,
either by not saying or doing anything in particular, or by offering a conditioned response or
by giving some unclear response. In the coding scheme below, 1, 2 and 3 are increasingly
strong signals of resolve by the government on the issue at stake. Only 0 would not signal any
resolve on the issue at stake.
Initial government response coding criteria:
0) the government explicitly offers to accommodate the principal demand made by the ethnic
actor, i.e. it offers concessions on the issue at stake.
1) the government does not offer to accommodate the principal demand made by the ethnic
actor, but offers to make some concessions on subsidiary issues.
2) the government does not offer any concessions on the issue at stake. This may include not
making any explicit response to the demands.
3) the government explicitly and outright rejects the key demand made by the ethnic actor.
Using this scale allow us to use different cutoff points in the analysis, where 1 though 3 are
gradations of costly signals of resolve on the issue at stake.
6. Government Countermeasures
Operational definition
Government countermeasures are actions taken by the government in order to make a
successful rebellion more difficult, i.e. it is a form of preemptive action that changes the
expected value of rebellion. If the government takes such action, it is a clear signal of resolve.
So what might count as countermeasures? Basically anything that makes rebellion more
difficult or costly to the ethnic actor. The problem here is that any number of things can
conceivably make rebellion a less attractive prospect for the ethnic actor. This is to say that it
is hard to delineate exactly the empirical referent of the concept. To handle this difficulty, we
use the following coding procedure – which allows for a tradeoff between validity and
reliability after the coding is done.
The defining characteristic of these countermeasures is that they generate military advantages
for the government in case of rebellion and that they are openly observable. They are thus,
like government response above, one part of the government’s signal of resolve on the issue at
stake. Consequently, whatever the coding on government response above, if the government
takes countermeasures that make rebellion more costly for the ethnic actor it has signaled
resolve, i.e. willingness to fight if necessary.
Government countermeasures coding criteria:
0) no countermeasures taken
1) at least one of the following countermeasures were taken: instituting curfews or martial
laws, searches for weapons, arrests of opposition leaders, deportations of opposition
leaders, deployment of police, paramilitary or military units to a disputed area,
significantly increasing the presence of police, paramilitary or military units to a disputed
area, calling up reserves.
2) some other countermeasure was taken which was deemed to make rebellion more difficult
for the ethnic actor, namely…. (exactly what is specified in a note).
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Defining in advance all the possible actions was deemed impossible, so the criteria simply
enumerates a number of possible referents and then in the data we enumerate exactly what
behavior was coded as government countermeasures. This also allows the user the option of
experimenting with the inclusion (or not) of countermeasures not listed in the coding scheme
above (2).
7. Duration and Outcome of the Challenge
In this dataset a challenge to state authority can end in either of two ways, either it escalates
into war, or not. This is determined by MaR annual rebellion scores and/or Uppsala Conflict
Data. However, to be able to establish when a new challenge is initiated we also need to know
when a challenge ends – with more precision than annual data can provide. Thus, each
challenge is followed through time and the end date is determined as closely as possible using
the following criterion.
Coding criteria determining the outcome and ending of a challenge:
A challenge is considered to have ended when
0) a series of costly signaling events (as defined above) comes to an end and no new such
events are reported for some period of time (see note below).
1) The ethnic actor is reported to make a new demand, i.e. challenges on a new issue (-> new
crisis initiation as defined above).
2) Reports of verbal bargaining and costly signaling (as defined above) is superseded by
reports of sustained and organized fighting between military or paramilitary units and
similarly organized opposition units. The fighting should be on a larger scale than costly
signaling as defined above, i.e. above and beyond riots and sporadic clashes, attacks,
bombings, demonstrations of force and so on.
This also generates an alternative dependent variable.
A note on coding the duration and ending of a challenge:
The problem here is to distinguish between challenges. When does an old challenge end, and
when does a new challenge begin? If the demands change or if fighting ensues this makes for
a clear ending of a challenge, and in the first case the start of a new challenge on a new issue.
Whenever a challenge (an episode of costly signaling) ends in some other way, it becomes
more difficult to determine whether renewed signaling on the same issue should be considered
a new challenge, or a continuation of the old challenge. The question is, how much time has
to pass before we consider it a new challenge. Oftentimes, it will be intuitively obvious
whether renewed signaling is a continuation of a challenge, or a new challenge. But
sometimes it will not and we nevertheless need some criteria to determine this issue.
To keep all options open the following procedure was followed. For every month it was
determined whether or not costly signaling is taking place during that time period. The start
date for a new challenge could then be defined as any month with costly signaling with no
signaling in the preceding month(s). Likewise, the end date of a challenge could then be
defined as the last month of signaling preceding a set of month(s) without signaling.
First: for every month, determine:
0) No costly signaling events (as defined above) occurred during the month.
1) Costly signaling events (as defined above) occurred during the month, but no new
demands were made (as defined above).
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2) The ethnic actor is reported to make a new demand, i.e. challenges on a new issue (-> new
challenge to state authority as defined above).
The data thus generated can then be used to experiment with different cutoff points for
determining the ending of a challenge and the beginning of a new challenge.
8. Data and documentation
Data sources
The sources used for coding this data set are the Economist Intelligence Unit’s country reports
for each country 1989-1998, and the Minorities at Risk Project Group Files for each group,
Reuter’s Business Briefings, the Uppsala Conflict Data Archives.
The data coding matrix
V1
Country
V2
Name of challenge
V3
Challenge ID#
V4
Initiation
V5
Init. date
V5
Note
V6
Source
V7
Outcome
V8
End date
V9
Note
V10
Source
V11
Issue atstake
V12
Note
V13
Source
V14
Group
V15
Actor Org.
V16
Note
V17
Source
V18
Gov. Response
V19
Note
V20
Source
V21
Gov. Countermeasures
V23
Source
V25
V26
Gov. Group. Note
V24
Gov. Org.
V27
Source
V22
Note
V28
Case Synopsis