Forecasting Internal Conflict

This article evaluates a formal theory of domestic political conflict using a forecasting approach. The theory, a mobilization of discontent model, argues that the extent of open political conflict within nations is a function of popular discontent, popular dispositions toward conflict, and the balance of organizational strengt between challengers and the regime. In order to examine the forecasting power of this argument, two competing and less elaborate models of domestic political conflict are also proposed. One, a model of the conflict process, forms linkages between the extent and intensity of conflict. The other is a truly naive model, which represents only a persistence of conflit argument. All three models are used to forecast conflict for 10 randomly selected nations in 1971-1975, and implications for the modelling of domestic political conflict are drawn.