16:50 - 18:30
P5-S115
Room: 0A.04
Chair/s:
Rizwan Asghar
Discussant/s:
Christopher Clary
Counterinsurgency Calculus: Unraveling Curfew Strategies in Conflict-Ridden Territories
P5-S115-3
Presented by: Burak Kazim Yilmaz
Burak Kazim Yilmaz
Emory University
Governments engaged in armed conflict with insurgent groups often resort to indiscriminate measures in their counterinsurgency campaigns. In this study, I focus on the imposition of curfews during Turkey's counterinsurgency campaign against the Kurdish insurgency. It posits that detecting where civilians' loyalties lie provides the government with an opportunity to implement indiscriminate measures selectively at a minimal cost. I argue that governments are less likely to impose curfews if alienating civilians may result in losing control of a locality to insurgents, making heavily insurgent loyalist populated localities more susceptible to curfew imposition. Furthermore, implementing curfews selectively in certain districts allows civilians to escape the affected areas to safer regions, allowing counterinsurgents to conduct more operations in residential areas. Using regression discontinuity design, I find that civilian loyalties influence the government's decision to impose curfews. Further analyses suggest that these curfews lead civilians to flee their homes while giving more operational freedom to counterinsurgents in urban areas.
Keywords: counterinsurgency, curfew, displacement, civilian loyalties

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