The Relationship between Violence and Participation in Armed Conflict

This paper systematically and empirically explores participation in the first 10 ‎months of the Croatian Homeland War through theories of collective action. ‎It tests the theory that in the face of indiscriminate violence, individuals will ‎choose to participate in a conflict through joining an armed organization that‎ can provide them with the resources to better survive. I hypothesize that as‎ violence increases in a given area, the number of individuals joining the Croatian‎ military forces will also increase. Using a dataset of daily event data and‎ the number of participants per municipality, I test this hypothesis in a generalized ‎linear model. The results show a significant relationship exists between ‎violent events and increased participation.‎