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Most countries deployed their military in some capacity to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. We present original data on early pandemic-related deployments, identifying seven types of deployment: logistic operations, enforcement, international involvement, border protection, information provision, intelligence operations, and domestic protection. We find that military deployments are shaped by capacity and electoral considerations, even after accounting for cross-country differences in perceptions of the military. Countries with elected leaders were significantly more likely to deploy the military for border protection. Incumbents facing reelection were especially sensitive to electoral concerns, becoming significantly less likely to deploy the military for domestic enforcement when facing an imminent election.

Previous research has shown that military training at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst was used by the UK in the post-World War II period as a soft foreign policy tool in anticipation of decolonisation. This article builds on this work by first detailing how early attempts to introduce military training for foreign cadets replicated racial hierarchies. Second, it describes how, as the programme was re-conceived to embrace the colonial territories, race and British belonging continued to be a source of both diplomatic and domestic friction. Third, it illustrates how the programme was a contested and occasionally conflictual process within the metropole.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit Nepal harder in 2021 than in the previous year, resulting in thousands dead, millions of livelihoods lost, food access constricted, educations upended, and social and economic devastation. In the midst of this, political leaders were preoccupied with power politics, leaving the country ill-equipped to manage the COVID-19 crisis. Fragile democratic institutions and norms were undermined by the inability of leaders to prioritize governance. Environmental problems, an economic downturn, and continued human rights violations further exacerbated the country's woes.

Temporally and spatial disaggregated datasets are commonly used to study political violence. Researchers are increasingly studying the data generation process itself to understand the selection processes by which conflict events are included in conflict datasets. This work has focused on conflict fatalities. In this research note, we explore how non-fatal conflict events are reported upon and enter into datasets of armed conflict. To do so, we compare reported non-fatal conflict events with the population of events in two direct observation datasets, collected using a boots-on-the-ground strategy: mass abductions in Nepal (1996-2006) and troop movements in Darfur. We show that at the appropriate level of aggregation media reporting on abductions in Nepal largely mirrors the "true" population of abductions, but at more disaggregated levels of temporal or spatial analysis, the match is poor. We also show that there is no overlap between a media-driven conflict dataset and directly-observed data on troop movements in Sudan. These empirics indicate that non-fatal data can suffer from serious underreporting and that this is particularly the case for events lacking elements of coercion. These findings are indicative of selection problems in regards to the reporting on non-fatal conflict events.

How does state surveillance influence citizens’ willingness to express political and social opinions? This article theorizes about different citizen responses to surveillance that fall on what we term the evasion-deception spectrum, including preference falsification, self-censorship, and opting out. We present the results from an empirical exploration of these responses, drawing on an online survey experiment conducted in Japan. In our survey, we use a novel experimental stimulus to assess whether individuals engage in different forms of evasion and deception when plausibly under government surveillance. The study finds that citizens are substantially more likely to opt out of sharing their opinions (by exiting a survey) when reminded of their government’s capacity for monitoring. This occurs even despite implying a monetary cost (forfeiting payment for the survey) and in a fully consolidated democracy, where freedoms of speech and opinion are legally codified. We conclude by discussing the implications of this finding for democratic deliberation and citizen-state relations.

Internal party rifts in the Nepali government preoccupied leaders, who squandered opportunities to prepare a coherent response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic resulted in a four-month lockdown, with widespread economic and social consequences. The government's response to criticism was to propose legislation restricting citizens' rights, prompting accusations of creeping authoritarianism. Continued tensions along Nepal's borders led to escalated rhetoric. The crises of 2020 exacerbated existing problems with governance, social inequality, and poverty.

The police are often key actors in conflict processes, yet there is little research on their role in the production of political violence. Previous research provides us with a limited understanding of the part the police play in preventing or mitigating the onset or escalation of conflict, in patterns of repression and resistance during conflict, and in the durability of peace after conflicts are resolved. By unpacking the role of state security actors and asking how the state assigns tasks among them—as well as the consequences of these decisions—we generate new research paths for scholars of conflict and policing. We review existing research in the field, highlighting recent findings, including those from the articles in this special issue. We conclude by arguing that the fields of policing and conflict research have much to gain from each other and by discussing future directions for policing research in conflict studies.

Undergraduate and master's students frequently conduct independent human subjects research on topics related to political violence and human rights - often, but not always, in the field. This work may involve the direct collection of data from vulnerable populations, in unstable contexts and about sensitive topics. However, despite the rich literature about research ethics, the ethics of advising, enabling and encouraging this type of student research on political violence has been largely overlooked. This article aims to (1) raise awareness about the proliferation of students engaging in human subject research on topics related to political violence and human rights; (2) discuss the risks inherent in this enterprise that are distinct from those that many faculty and doctoral students face; (3) provide suggestions about how to mitigate some of those risks, including a shift away from fieldwork-based research projects. We argue that it is a collective responsibility to require that students engage in ethical practices, including more thoughtful and creative selection of research questions, sites and populations.