Ralph Sundberg

Uppsala University, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Post-Doc

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Papers by Ralph Sundberg

Conceptualizing Civil War Complexity

Security Studies

USA tränade terroristerna

Intolerance in the Name of Liberalism: Opposition to Muslim Headscarves in Sweden and the Netherlands

Opposition to Muslim headscarves remains high in otherwise typically tolerant countries, like Swe... more Opposition to Muslim headscarves remains high in otherwise typically tolerant countries, like Sweden and the Netherlands. One suggested explanation is a mounting concern among liberal Europeans that Muslims threaten liberal values. Yet, the nature of these threatened values remains obscure. Empirical research on anti-Muslim attitudes in general, and their relation to liberal values in particular is limited.What understanding of liberalism characterizes those who oppose Muslim veiling? By studying attitudes towards the veil in a Swedish and a Dutch sample, we test a number of hypotheses informed by political theory, and the burgeoning field of immigration studies, which have rarely been used in political psychology. We include measures of different conceptions of liberalism and value orientations and resistance to Muslim veils.Our analyses suggest that post-materialism values are too crude measures for parsing out intolerance against the Muslim veil in a liberal sample. Positive atti...

Measurements for the institutional cohesion dimension of the standard model of military group cohesion

Military Psychology, 2021

Notwithstanding the prominence of the so-called Standard Model of Military Group Cohesion (SMMGC)... more Notwithstanding the prominence of the so-called Standard Model of Military Group Cohesion (SMMGC), important parts of the model are understudied: both conceptually and empirically. In this article we, first, synthesize previous research to conceptualize and measure the overlooked institutional cohesion dimension. Second, we test the validity of the proposed full four-dimensional SMMGC model using a survey of an Italian Alpini battalion, and more rigorous methods than in previous research. Results are supportive of our proposed measurements and the validity of the four-dimensional model. We thus make a methodological and an empirical contribution to further the ongoing debate on military cohesion.

format_quoteConfirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) utilized, highlighting its advantages over traditional metrics like Cronbach's alpha for dimensionality assessment.format_quote

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IP_submission_online appendix

Online appendix for IP submission, December 2018.<br>

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Spatial Patterns of Violence against Civilians

Peace and Conflict 2017, 2017

To Blame or to Support? Large-scale Insurgent Attacks on Civilians and Institutional Trust: Evidence from Kabul City

To Blame or to Support? Large-scale Insurgent Attacks on Civilians and Institutional Trust: Evide... more

A Veteran At Last

Gender Equality and Political Assassinations

States in Armed Conflict 2008

Illiberal Liberalism: Liberal Predictors of Opposition to the Muslim Veil Among Swedish Students

Values and Attitudes across Peace Operations : Change and Stability in the Political Psychology of Swedish ISAF Soldiers

Participation in Peace Support Operations (PSOs) is one of the most common military duties assign... more

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Value Stability and Change in an ISAF Contingent

Journal of personality, Jan 13, 2014

Studying an International Security Assistance Force contingent on tour in Afghanistan, the aim of... more Studying an International Security Assistance Force contingent on tour in Afghanistan, the aim of the present study was to test assertions of the relative stability of personal values in a challenging environment. Three hundred twenty Swedish soldiers answered questionnaires on their values before and after a 6-month tour of Afghanistan. Value change and stability were studied via mean-level change, rank-order stability, and individual-level change methods. Regression analysis was used to study the impact of combat exposure and personality traits on change. The analysis concluded that even when experiencing such a different social context as a military mission to Afghanistan, the soldiers' values remained stable. Some minor changes occurred, in a pattern similar to a regression toward the mean. It was also shown that combat exposure-to a minor extent-predicted changes in values, whereas Big Five scores yielded stronger effects. The present findings suggest that the assertion of ...

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Global Comparison of Warring Groups in 2002–2007: Fatalities from Targeting Civilians vs. Fighting Battles

PLoS ONE, 2011

Background: Warring groups that compete to dominate a civilian population confront contending beh... more Background: Warring groups that compete to dominate a civilian population confront contending behavioral options: target civilians or battle the enemy. We aimed to describe degrees to which combatant groups concentrated lethal behavior into intentionally targeting civilians as opposed to engaging in battle with opponents in contemporary armed conflict. Methodology/Principal Findings: We identified all 226 formally organized state and non-state groups (i.e. actors) that engaged in lethal armed conflict during 2002-2007: 43 state and 183 non-state. We summed civilians killed by an actor's intentional targeting with civilians and combatants killed in battles in which the actor was involved for total fatalities associated with each actor, indicating overall scale of armed conflict. We used a Civilian Targeting Index (CTI), defined as the proportion of total fatalities caused by intentional targeting of civilians, to measure the concentration of lethal behavior into civilian targeting. We report actor-specific findings and four significant trends: 1.) 61% of all 226 actors (95% CI 55% to 67%) refrained from targeting civilians. 2.) Logistic regression showed actors were more likely to have targeted civilians if conflict duration was three or more years rather than one year. 3.) In the 88 actors that targeted civilians, multiple regressions showed an inverse correlation between CTI values and the total number of fatalities. Conflict duration of three or more years was associated with lower CTI values than conflict duration of one year. 4.) When conflict scale and duration were accounted for, state and non-state actors did not differ. We describe civilian targeting by actors in prolonged conflict. We discuss comparable patterns found in nature and interdisciplinary research. Conclusions/Significance: Most warring groups in 2002-2007 did not target civilians. Warring groups that targeted civilians in small-scale, brief conflict concentrated more lethal behavior into targeting civilians, and less into battles, than groups in larger-scale, longer conflict.

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Violent values: Exploring the relationship between human values and violent attitudes

Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 2014

ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between basic human values and different subdimen... more ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between basic human values and different subdimensions of violent attitudes: attitudes to war, penal, child-rearing, and masculine violence. Examining a sample of university students in Sweden, the article confirms previous research’s finding that the security value is the principal predictor of positive attitudes toward war violence and penal violence. The results also show that attitudes toward violent child-rearing and masculine violence are correlated with the values of tradition and conformity but are not at all related to the security value. Previous findings on the primacy of the power value as a predictor of violent attitudes are also shown to be highly dependent on gender, with power predicting violent attitudes primarily for males. The findings indicate that the 4 dimensions of violent attitudes identified stem from different psychological motivations rather than one specific psychological motivation or value. Accordingly, the article proposes that the many different forms of violent attitudes need to be studied as separate categories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)

Introducing the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset

Journal of Peace Research, 2013

This article presents the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset (UCDP GED). The UCDP GED is an event d... more This article presents the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset (UCDP GED). The UCDP GED is an event dataset that disaggregates three types of organized violence (state-based conflict, non-state conflict, and one-sided violence) both spatially and temporally. Each event – defined as an instance of organized violence with at least one fatality – comes with date, geographical location, and identifiers that allow the dataset to be linked to and merged with other UCDP datasets. The first version of the dataset covers events of fatal violence on the African continent between 1989 and 2010. This article, firstly, introduces the rationale for the new dataset, and explains the basic coding procedures as well as the quality controls. Secondly, we discuss some of the data’s potential weaknesses in representing the universe of organized violence, as well as some potential biases induced by the operationalizations. Thirdly, we provide an example of how the data can be used, by illustrating the assoc...

format_quoteThe dataset records events meeting a fatality threshold of 25 deaths, covering organized violence in Africa and aiming for global reach.format_quote

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Peace by Pact: The Theory and Data of Peace Agreement Implementation

Is the implementation of peace agreement a severe obstacle for peace? Conventional wisdom holds t... more Is the implementation of peace agreement a severe obstacle for peace? Conventional wisdom holds that the failure to implement peace agreement is an important explanation to the recurrence of war. Much scholarly work has been devoted to how the design of peace agreements can pave the way for peace, stability and democracy. In this regard, power sharing is seen as a viable solution to end civil war. However, the implementation of such power sharing pacts has only to a limited extent been the focus of systematic analysis. ...

Psykologin i SD:s väljarbas

Local Conflict Intensity and Public Perceptions of the Police: Evidence from Afghanistan

The Journal of Politics

UN Peacekeeping and Forced Displacement in South Sudan

International Peacekeeping

Does UN peacekeeping reduce the number of people forcibly displaced by violence? While previous r... more Does UN peacekeeping reduce the number of people forcibly displaced by violence? While previous research has found that the presence and size of peacekeeping deployments can reduce violence, little is known about how peacekeepers affect other aspects of civilian protection. Using original data on sub-national events of forced displacement and the location and size of UN troop deployments this study systematically evaluates the criticized efforts of UNMISS in South Sudan, while simultaneously testing hypotheses on peacekeepers and forced displacement. It is hypothesized that increasing numbers of troops affect the flight equation among civilians through the promise of and actual deterrence of violence. These deterrence-based hypotheses are also discussed in relation to the South Sudan context, creating scope conditions for their possible application in this case. The statistical analysis provides, however, no robust evidence for peacekeepers reducing the occurrence or levels of forced displacement, and only weak evidence of displaced congregating in larger numbers around peacekeeping locations. The paper ends by arguing that the theoretical argument provided may still be valid, but that an effect was not feasible to identify in South Sudan where the peacekeeping missiondespite its comparatively large numberslacks credible deterrent capacity.

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