The Geography of Insurgency: An Urban Network Insurgency Model of the Viet Nam War

This study is a quantitative and spatial analysis of the Viet Nam War and examines the process through which insurgent movements challenge and contest the ruling authority for power within a politically defined territory. Using data collected by the U.S. Department of Defense during the war, this research proposes and tests a theoretical framework which considers an insurgency as a conflict over nodes within the urban network and hypothesizes that we can expect to observe different stages of conflict (types of political activity and violence) in different parts of the urban hierarchy at different times. The hypothesized relationships were generally found to hold true, but this framework revealed distinct variation in conflict patterns at the regional and local scales. The results suggest this framework provides a valuable perspective through which to understand how an insurgency evolves across time and space.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Geography

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Lohman, Andrew Davies

Contributors dc:contributor

• Flint, Colin

• Political Science, International Relations

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3395574

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/85155