Max Schaub

Why do military forces target civilians in interstate wars? Advances in long-range weapons allow states to strike deep behind front lines, while modern communications enable civilians to transmit targeting information. Together, these dynamics turn areas nominally under control into contested zones, putting civilians at risk as combatants seek to suppress and deter information sharing. We test this theory with geospatial evidence from the Russian war in Ukraine, combining fixed-effects with a regression discontinuity design. Civilian targeting rises sharply at the boundaries of conventional artillery range, and intensifies further with the introduction of HIMARS long-range rocket systems. Consistent with our argument, the effect is strongest in areas with extensive mobile communications coverage. Our study extends the cooperation-control model from civil wars to interstate wars, demonstrating how modern weapons and communications technologies reshape the geography of contestedness and heighten civilian vulnerability in an era of ubiquitous connectivity.

No other form of violence targets gender identities and norms as much as sexual violence. What are the effects of victimization and exposure to sexual violence on gender norms? What are the effects of victimization and exposure to sexual violence on gender norms? How enduring are these effects, and how are they transmitted across generations? We seek to answer these questions by examining two of the most extreme cases of known mass wartime sexual violence in Europe: widespread rape following the Soviet occupation of Germany after World War II, and systematic sexual abuse during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s. Using original survey data from three postwar generations spanning 80 years in eastern Germany (n=2,500) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH, n=2,000), we examine individual attitudes and perceived social expectations regarding the appropriate roles of men and women. Exposure to wartime sexual violence is high in our sample, with 12% of respondents in Germany and 8% in BiH reporting that a close family member had suffered rape or other forms of sexual violence. Consistent with classic feminist research on the topic, we find that wartime sexual violence reinforces patriarchal gender norms within victims' families. This effect is plausibly driven by social disruption, deteriorating mental health, and high levels of domestic violence within victims' families, as confirmed by additional analyses on family members (n=600 in each country). We validate our results with a list experiment and by with an instrumental variable approach, instrumenting self-reported exposure to wartime sexual violence with proximity to military and internation camps. Our findings confirm the cynical logic of using wartime sexual violence as a weapon to undermine the social fabric, and underscore the importance of interventions to mitigate negative consequences among victims and their descendants.

Introduction Armed conflict severely impacts health, with indirect deaths often exceeding direct casualties by a factor of 2 to 4, disproportionately affecting women and children. Although the magnitude of these effects is well-documented, the mechanisms driving them remain insufficiently understood. This study shifts the focus from supply-side factors, such as the destruction of infrastructure, to demand-side processes, particularly healthcare-seeking behavior, and from broader conflict exposure to individual-level violent victimization.
Methods Data come from a representative survey (N = 3,006) of caregivers of young children in northeastern Nigeria, a region heavily affected by armed insurgency. Unlike previous studies, our survey included dedicated measures of victimization, health-seeking outcomes, and mediating factors within a single instrument, enabling precise measurement and analysis. A matched case-control design (651 cases and 651 controls) was used to assess the impact of individual-level victimization on maternal and child healthcare-seeking behavior, and causal mediation analysis to identify the mechanisms linking victimization to health outcomes.
Results Victimization was widespread, with 21% of respondents (n=651) having experienced a severe form of violence in the past 3 years. While maternal healthcare-seeking behavior appeared unaffected, victimization significantly reduced healthcare-seeking for child health. Children of victimized caregivers were markedly less likely to be fully immunized (OR: 0.43, p<0.001) and to receive care at government health facilities (OR: 0.23, p<0.001). This decline was primarily driven by increased distrust in the health system (PM: 0.42–0.70, p<0.05), stemming from negative experiences during the conflict, particularly health worker absenteeism and victimization by state security forces.
Conclusion Addressing fear and mistrust is key to improving healthcare-seeking in conflict-affected populations. Efforts should focus on providing security for government-run health facilities, reducing violence against civilians by state security forces, and restoring trust in healthcare and state institutions. Future research should explore effective strategies for achieving these objectives.

Armed conflict undermines public health not only by destroying infrastructure but also by eroding trust in government institutions. Prior work shows that victimized individuals often withdraw from public services, including government healthcare facilities, with especially adverse consequences for child health. Yet it remains unclear whether this distrust can be repaired. We address this question in northeastern Nigeria, a region heavily affected by insurgent violence. In the second wave of a representative household survey of caregivers of young children (n = 2,594), we embedded a randomized field experiment. Half of respondents received an official letter from their state health authority that acknowledged hardship and invited families to return to public clinics. The intervention significantly increased trust in healthcare institutions among respondents who had previously experienced violence—a pattern in line with theoretical expectations. Effects for non-victimized respondents were negligible. While no corresponding changes were observed in stated future use of government health facilities, exploratory analyses indicate greater willingness to vaccinate children. Our results show the potential of acknowledgment interventions as a scalable means to rebuild trust between citizens and public health systems in conflict-affected settings.

The book will explore a core dilemma of regime transitions: how should new regimes deal with the elites of the old order? These elites can pose a threat - undermining legitimacy, conspiring against new rulers, or mobilizing resistance. Yet they also hold valuable human and social capital that can strengthen state capacity and support regime survival. We will examine this tension through a unique natural experiment in post-World War II Poland, where the unexpected survival of traditional elites, driven by exogenous wartime shocks, shaped long-term opposition to authoritarian rule. While Nazi and Soviet forces systematically killed Poland's elites, one unlikely group largely survived: reserve officers captured by the Wehrmacht, spared as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. Their capture was quasi-random, determined by battlefield contingencies rather than elite traits, offering rare causal leverage on elite survival. Drawing on original archival research on elite purges, untapped data on Polish elite biographies, and rich administrative and survey data from both communist and post-communist Poland, the book will trace the wartime fates and postwar roles of three elite groups - nobles, intellectuals, and officers - and show how surviving members of these groups shaped patterns of resistance, compliance, and development under communist rule.