Aila Matanock received the Helen Dwight Reid Award which recognizes the best doctoral dissertation in the field of international relations, law, and politics. Professor Matanock's "International Insurance: Why Militant Groups and Governments Compete with Ballots Instead of Bullets," (at Stanford University) asks an interesting and timely question: What are the conditions under which militant groups will participate in post-conflict elections, forming political parties instead of returning to violence? The question helps to identify a crucial missing piece of the puzzle about the role of post-conflict elections in securing peace. Matanock argues persuasively that both governments and militant groups can use elections to bring in outsiders to guarantee outcomes, providing "insurance" for the commitments both parties make. She carefully tests commitment theory against alternatives using an orginal dataset of different types of militant groups - terrorist, insurgent and guerrilla - worldwide between 1980 and 2010. Her results are bolstered by extensive interviews with representatives of all sides, including militants themselves, in Colombia and elsewhere.
