IU Political Science Professor Ore Koren has received a grant from the National Science Foundation. This NSF-funded project investigates how zoonotic disease outbreaks influence the risk of various conflicts and violence, focusing on local and global security impacts. Utilizing an original database of confirmed outbreaks and health-related conflicts involving 30 pathogens from 1996 to 2024, the research aims to understand the reciprocal relationship between zoonotic outbreaks and war on a global scale. The findings will enhance national security practices and prepare the U.S. for emerging security challenges, while also integrating infectious disease impacts across the social sciences and training future scholars in this critical area.
He also has published a new article on disease's impact on conflict and violence in Springer Nature. As new diseases emerge, their impact on conflict and violence remains unclear. Koren's new study with Kaderi Bukari at Nature Human Behaviour uses my new geolocated dataset on 22 zoonotic diseases in Africa to understand how outbreaks impacted civil war and social conflict. From 1997 to 2019, him and his team found that zoonotic outbreaks reduced state-initiated civil conflict but increased social conflict involving identity militias, with a causally consistent effect for the latter, while rebel violence showed no significant association.
The article can be found here.
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