1Online Appendix for:
Motivation and opportunity for conflict-inducedmigration: An analysis of Syrian migration timing

In the table below, I summarize the interview methods. This follows the guidelines of Bleich andPekkanen (2013). These interviews were mostly conducted in Arabic with a translator, but some werealso conducted in English without a translator. For all interviews, refugees were treated as a vulnerable
population.
Table AI. Interview methods for Syrians in Turkey
Source of Respondents
Snowball Sampling inIzmir
Snowball sampling inIstanbul
Students at five
universities in Istanbul:
Koc, Bogazici, Bilgi,Sehir, and Ozyegin
Parents, teachers, andprincipals at Syrian
schools and language
academies in theIstanbul neighborhoodsof Fatih, Kadikoy,
Esenler, Esenyurt,
Basaksehir, andZeytinburnu

Saturation
Saturation wasachieved for Sunni Arab
Syrians living in Istanbul
at the time of research
who are secular, young,urban, educated,wealthy, and oppose
the Assad government.
Substantial variation inage, gender, educationlevel, and wealth werealso captured, but notto the point ofsaturation.
Some variation wascaptured across origin
and destination
locations.

LengthIn-person interviews
were usually between
60 and 90 minutes.
There was one 5
minute interview as a
low outlier. There were
two interviews thatlasted just over 2 hours
and one interview thatlasted about 4 hours.

RecordingHand-written notesfor 129 interviews.
Typed responses on
the survey documentthat was sent by email
for 50 interviews.

2

Additional information on variable operationalization
This appendix section provides additional details on the operationalization for the Armed GroupTies, violent experiences variables (Violence Received, Violence Witnessed, and Violence to Family), andmigration route violence variables (Obstacles and Facilitators). Readers interested in other variables or
the full questionnaire are welcome to contact me.
Measuring the number of armed groups with which civilians are connected is a way topotentially measure variation in the amount of information civilians can access about security
conditions. The Armed Group Ties variable asks the following question with ten line items:
Before you left Syria, did you know someone who participated, willingly or unwillingly, in the following
organizations?
YesNo Don’t Know Refused
Syrian Government Military
ShabihaNational Defense Forces
Hezbollah
Other Pro-Government Militias or Armed Groups
Free Syrian Army
Nusra Front
ISIS (Daesh)
YPG
Other Group Opposed to Bashar Assad
Name of Group______________________________

The wording of this question merits consideration. In order to prevent respondents from placing
themselves at risk, they were not asked whether they themselves had participated in an armed group.
Instead, the question uses the language “did you know someone who participated,” following theconvention of previous conflict research (Weinstein and Humphreys, 2006). At the same time, Syrian
refugees come from a context where the security services frequently ask similar kinds of questions(Respondent T002). This motivated the inclusion of an additional qualifier, “willingly or unwillingly.” This

3
qualifier is particularly appropriate for the Syrian context due to the prevalence of forced recruitment(Davison, 2016).
Then, the violent experiences variables are based on the Survey of War Affected Youth (SWAY)(Blattman, 2009). SWAY was conducted in northern Uganda with the goal of understanding the causes
and consequences of civil war violence and child soldiering. Violence to Family is the same as Blattman’svariable, except for a question about whether a family member received a war injury. Early Motivation
also has fewer line items than Blattman’s violence witnessed variable. Line items about witnessing
gunfire and massacres were removed because they are redundant with other items that were included,
specifically witnessing battles and killings. As a general rule, interviews did not involve questions aboutwitnessing rape due to the sensitive nature of the topic. They also did not include a question about thetorching of homes because it is much less relevant for Syria than for Uganda. Violence Received is alsosimilar to Blattman’s variable. The specific line items for each violent experiences variable are in thetable below.

4Table AII: Violence variables
VARIABLE
Violence Received

LINE ITEM
Someone took or destroyed your personal property
You heard gun fire regularly
Someone shot bullets at you or your homeYou received a severe beating to the body by someone
Someone attacked you with a knife or blunt object
You were kidnapped or detained as a prisoner
You received a serious physical injury during a battle
You received a serious physical injury during a bombing

Violence Witnessed

You witnessed beatings or torture of other people
You witnessed a killing

Violence to Family

A parent was murdered or died violently
A parent disappeared or was abducted
Another family member was murdered or died violently
Another family member disappeared or was abducted

The Obstacles and Facilitators variables come after the following prompt to introduce thesection in the survey:
Now I am going to ask you a series of questions about the activities of armed groups alongroads, in nearby towns, and at checkpoints or roadblocks. I’m also going to ask you about
perceived risks of movement.
Obstacles is an index of six indicators:(1) Did the government, rebel groups, organized criminal groups, local protection units, ormilitias do anything to make your movement harder? ; (2) Did you encounter checkpoints or
roadblocks? ; (3) From the time that you began to think about moving until your movement wascomplete, did you hear about violence on the roads you used? ; (4) From the time that you
began to think about moving until your movement was complete, did you encounter violence on
the roads you used? ; (5) Before you left your home, did you know anyone who had died whilemoving? ; and (6) Before you left your home, did you think that any property you left behindwould be seized or looted?
Facilitators is a categorical variable with an index of three dichotomous indicators:(1) Did the government, rebel groups, organized criminal groups, local protection units, ormilitias do anything to make your movement easier? ; (2) Did anyone offer you protection as
you moved? ; and (3) Before you left your home, did you know anyone who wanted to move,
but was killed before they were able to move?

5
There are also many variables relating to trust, which may affect civilian willingness to take therisk of sharing information and engaging in conflict-induced migration. From SWAY, the variable Betrayal
is a dichotomous variable indicating whether respondents answered yes to the following war
experience: “Someone you know betrayed you and put you at risk of death or injury.”
Furthermore, there were many control variables. This included a variety of generalized andparticular trust questions. Social trust uses the World Values Survey question and answer choices, withthe modification that it focuses on trusting people in the village or neighborhood only, rather thanincluding the need for prudence as well. The trust component is referred to as Neighborhood Trust. The
need for prudence component is referred to as Neighborhood Alert.
The Ties to Police and Ties to International Company variables are dichotomous variables. They
are line items for the question: “When you were inside Syria before March 2011, did you know someone
who worked for…” Here, Police Ties refers to “Police” and Ties to International Company refers to an“international Company like General Motors, Microsoft, or Coca Cola.” This question remained general,and respondents were reassured that names and the proximity of the connection, whether they were aclose friend or loose acquaintance, did not need to be specified.
Finally, there were also control variables that captured income, age, computer ownership, andwhether the respondent had a college education. In order to address concerns about potential
collinearities, I include a correlation matrix of model variables in the tables below.1 All of thecorrelations have an absolute value below 0.6, and the correlations between the variables for different
types of violent experiences are all quite low. For No Violence Witnessed (the flipped version of ViolenceWitnessed) and Violence Received, the correlation is 0.2197. No Violence Witnessed and Violence to1I do not include Variance Inflation Factors (VIFs) because they are calibrated for linear regression, not Cox
models.

6Family have a correlation of 0.0775. For Violence Received and Violence to Family, there is a correlationof -0.1597.

7
Table AIII: Correlation matrix for Cox models with controls
ArmedGroup Ties
Armed Group Ties

No ViolenceWitnessed

Wasta

Violence
Received

Violence
to Family

Neighborhood
Trust

Neighborhood
Alert

IncomeCollege
Educated

Age

BetrayalComputer1

Wasta-0.0375

1

No Violence Witnessed

0.0494-0.1735

1Violence Received

0.0438-0.05930.21971

Violence to Family-0.3275

0.13630.0775-0.15971

Neighborhood Trust-0.1234

0.2917-0.1234-0.2277

0.2696Neighborhood Alert-0.1504

0.09980.0048-0.19160.0446

0.4813

1

Income0.2105-0.0424-0.14450.1826-0.0887-0.0749-0.17231Age0.16320.023-0.2497-0.0608-0.0190.023

0.24360.1026

1

College Educated-0.0398-0.129-0.0228

0.19240.0239-0.1643-0.1657-0.1374-0.26621

Betrayal

0.0319-0.31210.2215-0.3506-0.1083-0.1667

0.0219-0.185-0.0553-0.00791

Computer-0.1569-0.0144-0.0921-0.38310.04530.34030.1912-0.20870.1302-0.3451

0.09391

Tie to International Company-0.08480.1888-0.3145-0.0594-0.05540.0333

0.09610.08410.0904-0.1176-0.0631-0.1014

Tie to Police-0.1722-0.36270.24390.20290.082

0.00630.17

0.11750.0818-0.1324-0.0149-0.0423High Obstacles, Low Facilitators-0.0174-0.0652

0.3324-0.05410.09580.15340.018-0.2185-0.3423-0.06680.1278-0.0242

Low Obstacles, High Facilitators-0.04230.02520.2988-0.0192

0.095

0.01820.0794-0.0536-0.0777-0.0901

0.14380.011

High Obstacles, High Facilitators-0.0589-0.0210.1594-0.2306

0.08980.14470.0016-0.0312-0.0978-0.2969

0.0677

0.105

Male

-0.0258

0.0531-0.158-0.0664-0.00220.0772

0.199-0.16730.25030.1518-0.2009

0.157818
Table AIV: Correlation matrix for Cox models with controls (Continued)

Tie to InternationalCompany
Tie to International Company

Tie toPolice

High Obstacles, LowFacilitators

Low Obstacles, HighFacilitators

High Obstacles,
High Facilitators

Male1

Tie to Police-0.27741High Obstacles, Low Facilitators-0.0953

0.0374

1

Low Obstacles, High Facilitators

0.03690.07360.3316

1

High Obstacles, High Facilitators-0.13590.129

0.50680.27051

Male-0.0818-0.027-0.0909-0.1762-0.1814

Alternative specifications
For the interaction term presented in the main text, the reference category is people whowitnessed violence and did not have wasta. By varying the reference category, I find additional nuancein the interaction between witnessing violence and wasta. The table below displays Model 4 from themain text, labelled Model 4a here, as well as models using each permutation of the interaction as thereference category.

1

9Table AV. Determinants of Migration Timing(4a)
No Wasta, Violence Witnessed
No Wasta, No Violence Witnessed
Wasta, Violence Witnessed
Wasta, No Violence Witnessed
Violence Received
Violence to Family
Armed Group Ties
High Obstacles, High Facilitators
High Obstacles, Low Facilitators
Low Obstacles, High Facilitators
Time-varying covariate
Male

Other ControlsN(4b)-0.285(0.30)(4c)-0.390(0.36)-0.104(0.44)(4d)-1.254***(0.37)-0.969*(0.38)-0.864(0.47)

0.285(0.30)
0.390(0.36)
1.254**(0.37)
0.042(0.11)-0.070(0.14)-0.056(0.06)
0.164(0.34)-0.191(0.28)
0.202(0.53)

0.104(0.44)
0.969*(0.38)
0.042(0.11)-0.070(0.14)-0.056(0.06)
0.164(0.34)-0.191(0.28)
0.202(0.53)

0.864(0.47)
0.042(0.11)-0.070(0.14)-0.056(0.06)
0.164(0.34)-0.191(0.28)
0.202(0.53)

0.042(0.11)-0.070(0.14)-0.056(0.06)
0.164(0.34)-0.191(0.28)
0.202(0.53)

0.002(0.01)

0.002(0.01)

0.002(0.01)

0.002(0.01)

YES
111

YES
111

YES
111

YES
111

Cox model coefficients are reported. Standard errors are in parentheses.
* p<0.05 ** p<0.01 *** p<0.001

10
In these models, I find additional support that wasta and witnessing violence do not
independently influence migration timing. Opportunity facilitates earlier migration timing when people
have early motivation to migrate. Early motivation does not facilitate earlier migration for people withopportunity. These results support the argument that people need both early motivation andopportunity to migrate sooner. They add the insight that opportunity only facilitates early migration forpeople with early motivation.
I also test for the possibility that receiving violence has conditional effects on migration timing
based on whether people have opportunity. I provide the table below to display results from theinteraction between receiving violence and wasta. Since Violence Received is a continuous variable andWasta is a dichotomous variable, I can display the coefficients for increasing the number of received
violence events with and without wasta. These results do not support any relationship between
receiving violence and migration timing that is conditional upon wasta.

11
Table AVI. Determinants of Migration Timing

No Wasta*Violence Received
Wasta*Violence Received
Violence Witnessed
Violence to Family
Armed Group Ties
High Obstacles, High Facilitators
High Obstacles, Low Facilitators
Low Obstacles, High Facilitators
Time-varying covariate
Male

Other Controls
N

(5a)
0.027
(0.11)
0.221(0.13)-0.400(0.27)-0.095(0.14)-0.056(0.06)
0.225(0.33)-0.206(0.28)
0.226(0.52)(5b)0.033(0.09)
0.149(0.09)-0.463*(0.23)-0.111(0.12)-0.062(0.05)
0.154(0.29)-0.092(0.23)
0.441(0.47)

0.001(0.01)-0.007(0.01)

YES111

NO
122

Cox model coefficients are reported. Standard errors are in parentheses.
* p<0.05 ** p<0.01 *** p<0.001

12These alternative specifications reinforce the results from the main text. Witnessing violence,and not receiving violence, affects migration timing. Early motivation and opportunity are both needed
for migration to occur earlier. This appendix provides the additional layer that opportunity influences
people with early motivation. Early motivation does not influence people with opportunity or people
without opportunity.

Gendered migration timing
In the main text, I state that the gender variable, Male, violates the proportional hazards
assumption. This is because, rather than men just migrating earlier or later than women, men andwomen actually display fundamentally different migration timing patterns. In Cox proportional hazard
models, forming a time-varying covariate by interacting gender with time can address the proportional
hazards assumption. While this technique allows me to proceed with the analysis, it effectively setsaside the issue of gendered migration timing. Additional research is needed to understand gendered
migration timing.
In this appendix section, I offer a potential answer for why men and women exhibit different
migration timing patterns: the timing of indiscriminate forced conscription in Syria. The figure below
displays the comparison of migration timing between men and women. Here, it becomes clear that men
leave their homes much more rapidly than women beginning in October 2014. The gendered variation inmigration timing corresponds with the timing of escalations in conscription efforts by the Syrian Arab
Army (SAA). Conscription targets men, not women, so it is understandable that men would perceive
increased threats as conscription efforts increase (Carpenter, 2006).

131.00

Kaplan-Meier survival estimates

0.00

0.25

0.50

0.75

October 2014

02040
Months since beginning of conflict
Female60

MaleFigure A1: Gendered migration timing

Conscription into the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) began as a selective act, but over time its use
expanded to threaten all young men who had not already joined the government military or a progovernment militia. Early in the conflict, civilians could use wasta to avoid military service. An accountdocumenting the experience of a former Damascus resident named Hazem illustrates this:Hazem rarely had to worry about this [conscription] during the early years of the war, because
he could pay off people. In its initial stage, he gave an officer in the Damascus militaryrecruitment office roughly $100 a month to alert him whenever his name appeared on the list ofsoldiers who would be called for duty. A second person in the police department would get paid
to make sure his name never made it to the pro-regime forces manning the checkpoints,
meaning he could continue freely moving around Damascus despite being a draft dodger. (Masi,2015)

14
By the end of 2014, wasta could no longer protect people from conscription (Kozak, 2015). Thiswas prompted by a massive loss of military manpower, as the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) fell from a prewar high of 300,000 soldiers to a 2014 estimate of 150,000-170,00 soldiers (Kozak, 2015). While
providing open-ended responses on why they migrated, 17 respondents asserted that fear ofconscription motivated their migration. This included 5 respondents who had perceived that they had
wasta in Syria.
In the first seven months of 2014, the Syrian Network for Human Rights documented over 5400
arrests for military conscription. These men are often given minimal training, even when they are
immediately placed on the frontlines. Crackdowns on young men attempting to avoid military service
were particularly severe around Damascus and Syria’s heavily Alawite ‘central corridor,’ which includes
Homs, Hamaa, Latakia, and Tartous (Kozak, 2015). These areas have men who may have wasta throughmoney, personal connections, or ethnic connections. Such men should be safe from state violence, butthey clearly are not. If conscription were truly selective, then wasta should protect people from it. As thefigure below suggests, fear of conscription became a key motivation for migration in 2014 and 2015,
when conscription transitioned into an act of indiscriminate violence.

15Migration timing by fears of conscription
No conscription fear

010Frequency

2030Conscription Fear

Feb 2011

March 2013
April 2015

Feb 2011
May 2017

April 2015
March 2013

May 2017

MonthFigure A2: Migration timing by expressed fear of conscription

To fully explain gendered patterns in migration timing during conflict, it is necessary to conduct
systematic, in-depth interviews with men and women. Male researchers alone will most likely be unable
to accomplish this. Instead, men and women need to engage in collaborative field research. Suchcollaboration can help respondents of both genders feel comfortable in sharing their experiences andovercome the challenges that often exist in male-female interviews.

16Works cited
Blattman C. (2009) From violence to voting: War and political participation in Uganda. American Political
Science Review 103: 231-247.
Bleich E and Pekkanen R. (2013) How to report interview data. Interview research in political science: 95116.
Carpenter RC. (2006) Recognizing gender-based violence against civilian men and boys in conflictsituations. Security Dialogue 37: 83-103.
Davison J. (2016) Seeing no future, deserters and draft-dodgers flee Syria. Available at:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-armyidUSKCN1001PY?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaig
n&utm_term=%2ASituation%20Report.
Kozak C. (2015) "An army in all corners": Assad's Campaign Strategy in Syria. Available at:
http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/An%20Army%20in%20All%20Corners%20
by%20Chris%20Kozak%201.pdf.
Masi A. (2015) Syrian Men Conscripted in Bashar Assad's Army Choose Escape Over 'Kill or Be Killed'.
Available at: http://www.ibtimes.com/syrian-men-conscripted-bashar-assads-army-chooseescape-over-kill-or-be-killed-1919724.
Weinstein J and Humphreys M. (2006) Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War. American
Political Science Review 100: 429-447.