Electoral Cycles, Conflict, Crime, and Pro-environmental Behavior

Abstract

This thesis consists of three self-contained chapters. The first two focus on violent conflicts: international collective action to mitigate them and their violent and international spill-over effects. The third chapter focus on climate change and examines efforts of individual consumers to mitigate their own impact on it. In chapter one, I document electoral cycles in troop contributions to UN peacekeeping operations and examine their consequences for mission and conflict outcomes. In chapter two, I examine the violent spill-over effects of conflict, focusing on the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its effect on hate crime towards Jews and Muslims in the United States. In chapter three, I examine how pro-environmental consumers in Sweden reduce their total consumption-based carbon footprint using a carbon calculator that covers all financial transactions.