Global Uncertainties Workshop: "Contentious Politics and New Dimensions of Diffusion"

How does political conflict diffuse across space, types, and time? In the past decade, scholars have explored why civil wars in one country infect other countries and how civil war violence is spreading within states. Demonstrating that contagion is an important phenomenon, this literature predominantly focuses on intrastate conflicts. Yet as political scientists turn to investigating other types of political contention from protests to communal conflict and targeting of civilians, they only begin to understand how diffusion dynamics affect these outcomes.

The workshop explores three novel dimensions of political contention. First, it welcomes contributions on spatial diffusion – both within and between states – for alternative types of political contention. Relevant questions are, for example, whether communal conflicts cluster in space or if protests follow similar patterns of diffusion as civil wars.

Second, the workshop aims to explore diffusion between different types of political contention. While some scholars investigate when civil wars tip into genocide, relatively little is known about the interaction of, for example, communal conflict and civil war or intra and interstate conflicts. Taking diffusion literally, the concept clearly encompasses the intermingling of different types of political contention.

Finally, the workshop welcomes contributions focused on the temporal dynamics of diffusion processes. Although scholars often discuss “waves of diffusion” or “eruptions of violence”, most existing research implicitly assumes that diffusion processes are constant over time.

Studying the diffusion of political violence is a key concern of the University of Exeter's Global Uncertainties theme with its focus on “cross-disciplinary research to address key issues associated with insecurity, uncertainty and rapid, far-reaching and sometimes unpredictable change in an increasingly inter-connected world.”