Researcher Finds Covid Safety Restrictions Reduced ISIS Violence

Research By Professor J Hanna Birnir

featured in American Political Science Review found that lockdowns like those that occurred because of COVID-19 can combat another threat to public safety: acts of violence by non-state actors.

Using ISIS as an example, Birnir and Dawn Brancati of Yale University and Qutaiba Idlbi of the Atlantic Council tested the impact of the pandemic on non-state actor violence by collecting data related to ISIS violent events that occurred in Iraq, Syria and Egypt between December 2018 and June 2020. They compared the acts of ISIS violence that occurred before and after the pandemic began, noting each area’s implementation of two lockdown measures, curfews and travel bans.

The researchers’ models of ISIS violent events in Iraq and Syria in 2019 versus 2020 showed a decrease in attacks coinciding with the pandemic. Lockdowns in Syria were associated with an approximate 15% overall reduction in violence, while in Iraq, the overall decline was around 30%.

What surprised the authors most was not only the changes they observed in the volume of ISIS violent acts, but also the location of those acts.

“It seemed that curfews made it more difficult for ISIS to carry out violent events in heavily populated areas because of the difficulty of moving around when there’s a curfew,” Birnir said. “Our empirical tests showed that there was a reduction in the number of violent events in urban areas, and less of a decrease or even an increase in the number of violent events that took place in rural areas.” •

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Read more at go.umd.edu/birnirresearch23

UMD Critical Issues Poll: Country of Origin, Race, Politics Influence Gun Violence Attitude

ATTITUDES ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE and firearm policies are influenced by race more than age, and opinions vary widely based on whether respondents were born in the United States and their political affiliation, according to a UMD Critical Issues Poll conducted with Ipsos.

Among the findings of the poll, directed by Professors Shibley Telhami and Stella Rouse of the Department of Government and Politics, those born outside the United States were more likely to support greater gun restrictions compared to those born in the United States. Of those foreign-born respondents, only 14% believed that tighter school security was most likely to reduce gun violence against children, while 33% said fewer guns would do so, and 42% said both equally.

In comparison, a third of those born in the United States said that gun violence against children would be reduced by tighter security, 19% said by fewer guns and 28% by both equally.

“It’s well established that the U.S. leads developed countries by a wide margin in both the number of guns and the number of gun homicides, two correlated measures,” said Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development. “This may be one reason why U.S.-born and foreign-born Americans express different attitudes on guns and gun violence.” •

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Read more in the Maryland Today article at go.umd.edu/gunviolencepoll