Prof. Dr. Constantin Ruhe - RESEARCH PROFILE

Constantin Ruhe’s research focuses on empirical peace and conflict research as well as applied quantitative research methods. His work on peace and conflict investigates two broader topics: the determinants and the effects of international conflict management attempts in armed conflict as well as the effect of exposure to violence on individual attitudes, group dynamics and (forced) migration processes.

Peer-reviewed journal articles

  • Ruhe, Constantin & Jana Kuhnt. Who Wants to Leave? Global Survey Evidence on How Individual Emigration Aspirations Differ between Peaceful and Conflict-Affected Contexts. In: International Migration Review. [Open access journal version]
  • Schutte, Sebastian, Constantin Ruhe & Niranjan Sahoo. (2023) How Fear of Violence Drives Intergroup Conflict: Evidence from a Panel Survey in India. in: Terrorism and Political Violence 35(2), 229-247. [Open access journal version]
  • van Vuuren, Detlef P., Caroline Zimm, Sebastian Busch, Elmar Kriegler, Julia Leininger, Dirk Messner, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Johan Rockstrom, Keywan Riahi, Frank Sperling, Valentina Bosetti, Sarah Cornell, Owen Gaffney, Paul L. Lucas, Alexander Popp, Constantin Ruhe, Armin von Schiller, Jörn O. Schmidt & Bjoern Soergel. (2022) Defining a sustainable development target space for 2030 and 2050. in: One Earth 5(2), 142-156. [Open access journal version]
  • Schutte, Sebastian, Constantin Ruhe & Andrew M. Linke. (2022) How indiscriminate violence fuels conflicts between groups: Evidence from Kenya. in: Social Science Research (Vol.103). [Open access journal version]
  • Martin-Shields, Charles P., Sonia Camacho, Rodrigo Taborda & Constantin Ruhe. (2022) Digitalization and e-government in the lives of urban migrants: Evidence from Bogotá. in: Policy & Internet (14)2, 450-467. [Open access journal version]
  • Ruhe, Constantin. (2021) How migration intentions change during periods of political instability and violence: Panel survey evidence from Kenya. in: Migration Studies 9(4), 1763–1788 [Free access link to journal version].
  • Ruhe, Constantin & Iris Volg. (2021) Sticks and Carrots for Peace: The Effect of Manipulative Mediation Strategies on Post-Conflict Stability. in: Research & Politics. [Open access journal version]
  • Ruhe, Constantin. (2021) Impeding fatal violence through third party diplomacy: The effect of mediation on conflict intensity. in: Journal of Peace Research 58(4), 687–701 [Open access journal version]
  • Soergel, Bjoern, Elmar Kriegler, Isabelle Weindl, Sebastian Rauner, Alois Dirnaichner, Constantin Ruhe, Matthias Hofmann, Nico Bauer, Christoph Bertram, Benjamin Leon Bodirsky, Marian Leimbach, Julia Leininger, Antoine Levesque, Gunnar Luderer, Michaja Pehl, Christopher Wingens, Lavinia Baumstark, Felicitas Beier, Jan Philipp Dietrich, Florian Humpenöder, Patrick von Jeetze, David Klein, Johannes Koch, Robert Pietzcker, Jessica Strefler, Hermann Lotze-Campen, and Alexander Popp. (2021) A sustainable development pathway for climate action within the UN 2030 Agenda. in: Nature Climate Change 11, 656–664. [Free access link to journal version]
  • Ruhe, Constantin, Charles Martin-Shields, and Lisa Maria Groß. (2021) The Asylum Hump: Unpacking why country income level predicts new asylum seekers, but not new refugee numbers. in: Journal of Refugee Studies 34(2),1730-1746. [Open access journal version]

Other journal contributions

  • Ruhe, Constantin, Julia Leib, Nils B. Weidmann, and Margit Bussman. (2020) Empirisch-analytische Friedens- und Konfliktforschung in Deutschland: Ein Kommentar zur Evaluation durch den Wissenschaftsrat. in: Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung. [Open access journal version]

Contributions to edited volumes and reports

  • Ruhe, Constantin, Gerald Schneider, and Gabriele Spilker. (2022) Quantitative Methoden in den Internationalen Beziehungen. in: Frank Sauer, Carlo Masala, and Luba von Hauff (Hrgs.) Handbuch Internationale Beziehungen. Heidelberg: Springer (3. komplett überarbeitete Ausgabe). [Full text]
  • Martin-Shields, Charles P., Sonia Camacho, Rodrigo Taborda and Constantin Ruhe. (2019) Digitalisation in the lives of urban migrants: Evidence from Bogota. Discussion Paper 12/2019. German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). [Full text]
  • Leininger, Julia, Ines Dombrowsky, Dirk Messner, Anita Breuer, Constantin Ruhe, Hannah Janetschek and Hermann Lotze-Campen. (2018) Governing the transformations towards sustainability. in: Elmar Kriegler, Dirk Messner, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Keywan Riahi, Johan Rockström, Jeffrey Sachs, Sander van der Leeuw, Detlef van Vuuren (eds.) Transformations to achieve the sustainable development goals. Report prepared by The World in 2050 Initiative. Laxenburg: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). [Full text]
  • Ruhe, Constantin, Gerald Schneider, and Gabriele Spilker. (2017) Quantitative Methoden in den Internationalen Beziehungen. in: Masala, Carlo and Frank Sauer (eds.) Handbuch Internationale Beziehungen. Heidelberg: Springer (2nd edition). [Springer Living Reference Work Entry]

Online data tool

  • Grävingholt, Jörn, Sebastian Ziaja, Constantin Ruhe, Patrick Fink, Merle Kreibaum, and Christopher Wingens. (2018) Constellations of State Fragility v1.0. German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). DOI: 10.23661/CSF1.0.0

The Impact of Social Structure, Discrimination and Violence on the German Muslim Community

(Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), 2021-2024; Project Team: Sigrid Roßteutscher (Goethe University Frankfurt), Constantin Ruhe (Goethe University Frankfurt), Richard Traunmüller (University of Mannheim))

The religiosity and religious identity of Western European Muslims has received increasing attention in academic research and public discourse. Yet, despite extensive research over the past decade, Muslims' strong preservation of religious traditions remains an unsolved pattern in Western European immigration societies. A dominant explanation of religious identity is the discrimination or exclusion of Muslim immigrants by the majority population. However, beyond the often individually experienced discrimination in everyday situations, Muslim individuals are subject to a more severe and increasingly visible form of xenophobia: violence and acts of terror, which explicitly target Muslims indiscriminately. Moreover, radical Islamic terror organizations try to fuel this vicious cycle. Caught between a faction of radicalized Muslims as well as hostile, islamophobic elements of the majority population, secular segments of the Muslim population are in an awkward position, where they feel resentment and pressure from different sides.Surprisingly, however, we have very little empirical research on how this two-pronged threat of violence affects Muslims in Germany. The proposed research project addresses core questions within this research gap: How does religiously motivated violence alter religious identity? How does identity, discrimination and violence affect civic or political behavior? And how do these reactions vary with the social position which individuals occupy? After all, social mobility has fundamentally altered and diversified German society, including the largest Muslim-origin immigrant group, the Turkish guestworker communities. Today, many Muslim-origin immigrants of all generations hold a wide range of positions in politics, economy and society, with the result that religion cross-cuts many other dimensions which are potentially relevant to individuals' social identity.We build on the theoretical framework of the overarching RISS research and expand it by illuminating how exogenous events, such as Islamist and anti-Muslim violence, perturb the association between social structure, identity and behavior. The proposed project examines these questions using an original survey of German Muslims, which we will collect as part of the RISS Internalization Survey. We rely on innovative measurement strategy using a conjoint experiment to estimate the importance of religion within individuals' multidimensional social identity. Furthermore, our proposed empirical analysis uses an experimental design to evaluate how social identity as well as political preferences and behavior are linked to perceptions of violence and discrimination. (Project Page)


What can we agree upon? Theorizing and modelling peace agreement content, compromise ability and their effects on armed intrastate conflicts.

(Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), 2021-2023; Project Team: Constantin Ruhe (Principal Investigator), Meri Dankenbring (Project Researchers), Iris Volg (Project Researcher))

Recent research argues that peace agreements in armed intrastate conflicts are more stable and prolong peace if they contain specific provisions, such as powersharing, justice measures or information-sharing mechanisms. Surprisingly, however, very little research analyzes when and why we see specific peace agreement content in the first place. This research project addresses these gaps and develops a comprehensive theoretical framework of peace negotiations, agreement content and their joint effect on conflict behavior in armed intrastate conflicts. To this end, it connects and expands research on mediation, peace agreements and disaggregated conflict dynamics. The framework generalizes insights from mediation research and argues that conflict parties' ability to reach a compromise is a central, but thus far unobserved variable, which determines both the content and the impact of peace agreements. The project will break new ground by developing a measurement model from the theoretical framework, which will enable us to quantify compromise ability in civil conflicts worldwide. Based on this new data, the project explains and models specific agreement content and its effects.


The civilian dimension of peacekeeping operations and human rights promotion

(Funding: Swedish Research Council; Project Team: Sabine Otto (Uppsala University, Project Leader), Constantin Ruhe (Goethe University Frankfurt), Hannah Smidt (University of Zurich), Lisa Hultman (Uppsala University), Jair van der Lijn (SIPRI))

United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations have become one of the most prominent responses to civil wars around the world. The role of civilian personnel and their activities have proliferated during the last two decades and become increasingly central, whereby the promotion of human rights is one of the core function of UN peacekeeping operations. Our knowledge, however, about the impact of civilian staff and activities on protecting human rights standards is inconclusive and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We explore whether and how the civilian components of UN peacekeeping operations improve human rights standards. To achieve this goal, we disaggregate the civilian dimension of peacekeeping operations into civilian personnel and their activities. Empirically, we collect and analyze novel data that disaggregates peacekeeping operations along these key dimensions. By using statistical methods that exploit between- and within- country variation, we examine whether and how the different civilian components affect peacekeeping operations' ability to improve human rights practices. The results from the project will generate valuable insights into how to design more effective peacekeeping operations. (Project Page)


Reducing root causes of forced displacement and managing migration

(Associated researcher at the German Development Institute)

This project addresses the multidimensional (multivariate) causes and explanatory factors of forced migration, and investigates the sustainability of different strategies for managing forced migration and flight. It also uses examples of two African sub-regions (East Africa, West Africa) to examine the potential for regional, national and sub-national policies to support a development-oriented approach to managing regular migration.

Project papers

  • Digitalisation in the lives of urban migrants: Evidence from Bogota (with Charles Martin-Shields, Sonia Camacho and Rodrigo Taborda) - published by Policy & Internet
  • The Asylum Hump: Unpacking why country income level predicts asylum seeking, but not new refugee numbers (with Charles Martin-Shields and Lisa Groß) - published by Journal of Refugee Studies
  • How migration intentions change during periods of political instability and violence: Panel survey evidence from Kenya - published by Migration Studies
  • Who intends to leave? Global survey evidence how individual migration intentions differ between conflict-affected and peaceful contexts (with Jana Kuhnt) - forthcoming in International Migration Review

Measuring violence and emergent hostility in ongoing civil wars using reimbursed mobile phone surveys

(joined work with Sebastian Schutte and Andrew Linke)

The project aims at measuring and monitoring inter-group hostilities in ongoing civil conflicts to investigate how individual attitudes towards out-groups covary with experienced violence. The research is based on a social-psychological framework and the recent turn in the civil conflict literature toward grievance-based explanations for mobilization. To test observable implications of the theory, we employ a new computer system for conducting reimbursed electronic surveys in low-intensity conflicts in both Kenya and India.

Project papers

  • How indiscriminate violence fuels religious conflict: Evidence from Kenya (with Sebastian Schutte and Andrew Linke) - published by Social Science Research, SocArXiv version
  • How fear of violence drives intergroup conflict: Evidence from a panel survey in India (with Sebastian Schutte and Niranjan Sahoo) - published by Terrorism & Political Violence, [Open access journal version]

Visualizing and interpreting time-varying effects from duration models

The most commonly used duration models assume that covariate effects remain constant over time. This assumption is often violated in political science analyses with long observation times. While modeling such time-varying effects is easy to implement, the interpretation is not intuitive and prone to severe inferential errors. I study the merits and limitation of existing interpretation and visualization techniques and develop methods and software tools that help applied researchers to interpret estimation results correctly.

Project papers:

  • Estimating survival functions after stcox with time-varying coefficient – published by the Stata Journal
  • Quantifying change over time: Interpreting time-varying effects in duration analyses – published by Political Analysis
  • Bootstrap pointwise confidence intervals for covariate-adjusted survivor functions in the Cox model – published by the Stata Journal
  • Sticks and Carrots for Peace: The Effect of Manipulative Mediation Strategies on Post-Conflict Stability (with Iris Volg) - published by Research & Politics, [Open access journal version]

Disaggregating the relationship between mediation and conflict intensity

Conflict management attempts tend to be initiated when conflicts escalate. The project looks into this endogenous process of violence and conflict management and analyzes the relationship between the short-term dynamics of intrastate conflicts and third party mediation attempts. It ties together the literature on conflict management and disaggregated conflict research. On a larger scale, the project tests the central role of information asymmetries postulated by the bargaining theory of war. Using a combination of empirical work and computational modelling I am able to show that, first, short-term conflict events strongly predict the decisions to initiate and accept mediation onset. Second, these association undermine our ability to estimate mediation effects in existing country-year or conflict-level data. Third, once mediation is initiated and addresses the main conflict incompatibility, mediation is associated with a strong reduction in conflict intensity. Overall, the empirically observed pattern of conflict reduction is substantively similar to the theoretical prediction of the computational model.

Project papers:

  • Anticipating mediated talks: Predicting the timing of mediation with disaggregated conflict dynamics – published by the Journal of Peace Research
  • Impeding fatal violence through third party diplomacy: The effect of mediation on conflict intensity – published by the (Journal of Peace Research)
  • Simulating the unknown: Illuminating unobserved selection biases in temporally aggregated studies of mediation

Temporal dynamics of one-sided violence (2009-2012)

During my BA and MA studies, I worked as a research assistant with the Konstanz One-Sided Violence Event Data (KOSVED) Project and assisted with coding and data management. The project motivated both my bachelor's and master's thesis. The BA thesis examined the effect of various external interventions on the level of violence against civilians using an interrupted time series design. A related paper was eventually published (joint work with Gerald Schneider and Margit Bussmann). My master's thesis examined our ability to predict one-sided violence. The resulting paper demonstrates that both the number of acts and the intensity correlate with other conflict events and enable fairly accurate predictions.

Project papers:

  • The Dynamics of Mass Killings: Testing Time-Series Models of One-Sided Violence in Bosnia (with Gerald Schneider and Margit Bussmann) – published by International Interactions
  • Predicting atrocities. Statistically modeling violence against civilians during civil war – NEPS Working Paper

Selected conference presentations

(*denotes co-authored papers presented by co-author)

2022

 

Forecasting peace agreement content: How conflict events predict the substance of peace settlements, Symposium "Thinking ahead: avenues and challenges in crisis forecasting" des Kompetenzzentrum Krisenfrüherkennung, November 7 – 8.

Political institutions along SSPs and SDP, Joint Workshop of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, the Peace Research Institute Oslo, the V-Dem Institute and Stockholm Environment Institute on “State of the science of 'political futures' -- Exploring how to improve the representation and usability of socio-political factors in the SSPs", October 24 – 25.

*Negotiating complex issues with little fervour? Why peace processes in territorial conflicts tend to produce incomplete outcomes EPSA 2022 12th Annual Conference, June 23 - 25.

*How mediators shape the content of peace agreements: A theoretical framework of negotiations over issues 21st Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference, June 20 - 22.

Negotiating complex issues with little fervour? Why peace processes in territorial conflicts tend to produce incomplete outcomes Jahrestagung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (AFK), March 17-19.

2021

 

Who intends to leave? Global survey evidence how individual migration intentions differ between conflict-affected and peaceful contexts German Development Economics Conference 2021, June 17-18.

Facilitating negotiations on complex, controversial and salient topics: How mediators shape the content of peace agreements European Political Science Association (EPSA) Annual Conference, June 24-25.

Many hurdles to take: Explaining peacekeepers' ability to implement human rights activities on the ground International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference April 6 - 9.

Facilitating negotiations on complex, controversial and salient topics: How mediators shape the content of peace agreements International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference April 6 - 9.

Many hurdles to take: Explaining peacekeepers' ability to implement human rights activities on the ground Jahrestagung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (AFK), March 17-19.

2020

 

Determinants of human rights activities in United Nations peacekeeping operations. Sektionstagung Internationale Beziehungen, Universität Freiburg October 7 – 9, Freiburg.

- planned presentations, all conferences cancelled due to Corona virus pandemic -

Who chooses to leave? Heterogeneous migration decisions in conflict and non-conflict settings. International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference March 25 – 28, Honolulu.

Roundtable: The Future of Forced Displacement: Getting from empirics to policy outcomes. International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference March 25 – 28, Honolulu.

Who is willing to fight? Panel survey evidence of ethnic mobilization and individual inclinations to violence during political conflict. International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference March 25 – 28, Honolulu.

Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (AFK) Kolloquium, March 12 – 14, Schwerte.

2019

 

Who is willing to fight? Panel survey evidence of ethnic mobilization and individual inclinations to violence during political conflict. Network of European Peace Scientists (NEPS) Annual Jan Tinbergen Conference, Institute of Social Studies, June 24 – 26, the Hague.

Should Mediators Shy Away From Employing Carrots and Sticks? Comparing the Relative Effectiveness of Mediator Strategies. International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference March 27 – 30, Toronto.

How Do Migration Intentions Change During Periods of Political Instability and Violence: Panel Survey Evidence From Urban Kenya. International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference March 27 – 30, Toronto.

Selected conference presentations prior to affiliation with Goethe University

(*denotes co-authored papers presented by co-author)

2018  

*American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Conference August 30 – September 2, Boston, MA.

Network of European Peace Scientists (NEPS) Annual Jan Tinbergen Conference, Universität Verona, June 18 – 20, Verona.

2017  

European Political Science Association (EPSA) Annual Conference June 22 – 24, Milano.

*Network of European Peace Scientists (NEPS) Annual Jan Tinbergen Conference, University of Antwerp, June 26 – 28, Antwerp.

Sektionstagung Internationale Beziehungen, Deutsche Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft (DVPW) October 4 – 6, Bremen.

2016  

Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (AFK) Kolloquium March 3 – 5, Bonn.

European Network of Conflict Research (ENCoRe) Conference January 21 – 22, Geneva.

2015  

European Political Science Association (EPSA) Annual Conference June 25 – 27, Vienna.

European Network of Conflict Research (ENCoRe) Conference October 1 -2, Barcelona.

Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) Annual Conference April 16 – 19, Chicago, IL.

2014  

Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM) Summer Institute, Duke University, June 16 - July 11, Durham, NC.

European Network of Conflict Research (ENCoRe) Conference October 16 – 18, Koc University, Istanbul.

International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference March 26 – 29, Toronto.

2013  

Conflict Research Society (CRS) Annual Conference September 16 – 20, University of Essex, Colchester.

2012  

Network of European Peace Scientists (NEPS) Annual Jan Tinbergen Conference, Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW) Berlin, June 25 – 27, Berlin.

scurve_tvc a Stata command to calculate survival functions from Cox models with time-varying coefficients published in the Stata Journal 16(4), 867-879. To install the package, type „search scurve_tvc“ in Stata and click on the search result to install the package. You may also type „net install st0458“ and it will install the package automatically.

bsurvci a Stata command to calculate bootstrap pointwise confidence intervals for survival functions from Cox models. published in the Stata Journal 19(1), 185–199. To install the package, type „search bsurvci“ in Stata and click on the search result to install the package. You may also type „net install st0553“ and it will install the package automatically.

Please cite user-written software when you use it in published research. Thank you!

Contact

Prof. Dr. Constantin Ruhe

Goethe University Frankfurt
Faculty of Social Sciences
Institute for Political Science

Campus Westend - PEG-building
Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6
Room 3.G 113 (3rd floor)
60323 Frankfurt am Main

Tel: +49 (0)69 798-36580
ruhe@soz.uni-frankfurt.de

Office
Agnes Jäger (starting March 1st)
Room 3
Tel: +49 (0)69 798-