A Geospatial Analysis of a Bangladeshi Insurgency
Open AccessThis thesis utilizes spatial and nonspatial statistics to identify where in Bangladesh recruits of the Jamaat-ul Mujahideen fi Balad-al Bengal (JMB) violent Islamist insurgent movement cluster and why they are from these areas. The study argues that the historical and geographic context of Bangladesh continues to play an important role in extremist violence in Bangladesh as evidenced by the JMB. Drawing upon a wide variety of studies, this thesis evaluates the applicability of the political, economic, demographic, human development and physical geographic on the local conflict environment. Using a combination of spatial statistics, Moran's I and Getis-Ord GI*, and spatialized statistics, the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests, it finds that there are significant concentrations of JMB recruits originating in the northwestern region of Bangladesh and that there is a significant lack of recruits originating in the area south of Dhaka. Using a series of regression models, this study finds that distance to the capital district, Dhaka, is the most important explanatory variable for the different amounts of JMB recruits in the "hot spot" and "cold spot" clusters. The study notes that human development, as measured by the 1991-2001 growth rate in female literacy, is negatively correlated with JMB recruits and the best explanatory variable of differences in the numbers of JMB recruits in these two regions.In addition to calling for additional research into other religious and ideological insurgencies in Bangladesh and elsewhere, this study argues that military counterinsurgency operations must include human development programs to be effective.
- All rights reserved
Notice to Authors
If you are the author of this work and you have any questions about the information on this page, please use the Contact form to get in touch with us.