Lecture 10: Civil war Flashcards
Political Instability Task Force
- CIA-sponsored academic research project
- Originated in mid-1990s as State Failure Task Force
- Examined every country except the US
- 2 factors highly predictive of political instability and violence (civil war probability)
- Anocracy
- Political parties mostly grouped around identity (race, ethnicity or religion) rather than ideology
Civil Wars Research Boom
Due to 4 converging trends:
* Collapse of USSR
* Development failure in Africa
* Decline of interstate wars
* 9/11 aftermath
Different Approaches to the Study of Civil Wars
- Used to be examined only on an individual basis (e.g. study of Spanish civil war, Russia civil war, etc.)
- Unlike political scientists, historical studies avoided cross-case comparison and theory-building
- Historians tend to focus on cases that are called civil wars rather than meeting a definition of civil war
- Political scientists prefer large comparisons + post-1945 bias
Why study civil war?
Since 1945, average duration 4+ years (prior to 1945 average duration 1.5 years)
Since 1945 civil wars resulted in deaths of 25+ million people, as well as forced displacement of millions more, economic collapse, etc.
According to the UCDP/PRIO data, from 1946 to 2011 a total of 102 countries experienced civil wars. Africa witnessed the most with 40 countries experiencing civil wars between 1946 and 2011.
civil wars have changed in type
New wars motivated by greed whereas old wars motivated by political or social grievances – other scholars argue that post-Cold War wars result of ethnic hatred
What are “New Wars” and how have they changed post-Cold War?
Cold War Geopolitical Equilibrium:
Kept ethnic tensions in check, but collapse of USSR led to a rise in civil wars.
Post-1991 Trends: Initial rise in civil wars, but numbers don’t support a major continuous trend.
Types of Civil Wars: New wars are driven by greed (economic motives) vs. old wars driven by grievances (political/social issues).
Ethnic Hatred vs. Political Power: Some argue wars are driven by ethnic hatred; others, like Kaldor, argue they involve identity politics where elites use ethnicity/religion to maintain power.
Political Economy of War: New militaries (decaying state armies, militias, mercenaries) engage in violence, including ethnic cleansing and population expulsions.
Civilians as Victims: 80% of war victims today are civilians (compared to 80% military in earlier wars).
“the Conflict Trap”
Pattern of civil war recurrence or an enduring cycle of violence has been called
Hobbes and Civil War
Hobbes argues that civil war occurs when sovereign authority breaks down, leading to an anarchic state where chaos prevails. In this environment, elite actors exploit ideological narratives to incite rebellion among ordinary people. Critics contend that the real issue is not the absence of authority, but the proliferation of competing authorities, which creates conflict.
what is a civil war?
In simplest terms civil war is a violent conflict between a government and an organized rebel group, although some scholars also include armed conflicts primarily between non-state actors within their study
Civil war: key characteristics
- Key characteristics
- The goal of armed entities in civil war is power
- The entities that participate in a civil war must be organized
- The means by which these goals are accomplished is violence
- The context in which a civil war takes place is the sovereign nation state
- One of the participants is usually a government
- “armed combat within the boundaries of a recognized sovereign unit between organized entities subject to a common authority at the outset of hostilities” (Stathis Kalyvas, 2006)
Intra-state wars are subdivided into three general types:
- Civil Wars: government vs non-state entity
- Regional Internal War: government of regional sub-unit against a non-state entity
- Intercommunal War: combat between/among two or more non-state entities within a state
Correlates of War Typology
- Civil wars subdivided into two types:
- Control of the central government: Conflict over who rules the entire country.
- Disputes over local issues: Fighting over regional autonomy, resources, or governance
- Central government defined as those forces that were at the start of the war in de facto control of the nation’s institutions, regardless of the legality or illegality of their claim
- For a state to be considered a war participant, the minimum requirement is that it has to either commit 1,000 troops to the war or suffer 100 battle-related deaths
- Since nonstate armed groups are generally smaller than states and have fewer resources than states, they can be considered a war participant if it either commits 100 armed personnel to the war or suffers 25 battle-related deaths
Sambanis (2004) categorizes a conflict as a civil war when:
- the conflict is in an independent state with a population of at least 500,000
- the parties are organized around political agendas
- the government takes part in the fighting
- the main insurgency is local – rebels can also operate outside the country but must have a physical presence in the country
- with some exceptions, in the start year there are at least 500 to 1,000 deaths
- the war maintains minimal levels of ongoing violence
- the weaker party must maintain an “effective resistance” as represented by at least 100 deaths inflicted
- peace treaties yielding at least a six-month peace spell indicate termination
- a military victory by the rebels associated with a new regime represents a termination
- a government victory followed by six months of peace also represents a termination
Key research findings civil war: The economists view
- Intrastate armed conflict is more likely to occur in poor, developing countries with weak state structures
- In situations of weak states the presence of lootable natural resources and oil increase the likelihood of experiencing armed conflict
- State weakness, especially those less able to cushion the impact of economic shocks
- While ethnic heterogeneity is not in isolation associated with a higher risk of armed conflict, ethnic or group domination of politics and economic opportunities does increase the risk
- Similarly, while absolute poverty – which affects a very significant proportion of the world, much of which does not experience armed conflict – may not in isolation be a reliable indication of conflict risk, inequalities across distinct identity groups and relative deprivation grievances are sources of armed conflict
other findings civil war
- Civil war can result from frustration if one group perceives an unfair advantage by another group in the political or economic realms
- Situations of partial or weak democracy (anocracy) and political transition, particularly a movement towards democracy in volatile or divided societies, are also strongly correlated to conflict onset
- The location of a society – especially if it has other vulnerability factors – in a region which has contiguous neighbors which are experiencing or have experienced armed conflict is also an armed conflict risk
- Spillover effect of Iraq war into Syria?
Paul Collier (World Bank), The Greed Thesis
Paul Collier’s Greed Thesis (early 2000s) argues that civil wars are driven more by economic incentives than political grievances. Conflicts, like those in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Congo, often revolve around control of natural resources to fund war, resembling large-scale organized crime rather than ideological struggles. These wars are marked by disorganized violence and extreme brutality, often lacking clear political motives.
Factors that increase or decrease risk of civil war
Geography
* Presence of natural resources/narcotics increases the risk of civil war
Wealth
* Civil wars more likely to start in poorer countries; the poorer the country, the higher the risk
Economic development
* Rapid social-economic change may mobilize social groups for conflict by enhancing competition for scarce resources
* On other hand, economic modernization and development should decrease inequalities within a society and increase political stability
Social fractionalization
* Ethnic, linguistic or religious differences may play an important role
* Political and economic tensions may contribute to ethnopolitical conflict in multi-ethnic societies
* Many civil wars in Africa – e.g. Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Eritrea – have religious component
* All civil wars in Africa have been substantially ethnic
Domestic governance
* Democracies generally allow for peaceful negotiation, especially highly institutionalized democracies, and therefore less likely to experience civil war than other political regimes
Scholarly consensus?
Scholarly consensus?
* YES: civil war afflicts poor countries (low GDP per capita important indicator)
* NO: unclear about the role of ethnic competition, foreign intervention, natural resources
* Indicators interpreted differently depending on approach
* E.g. many multiethnic states not embroiled in civil war, many resource rich states are not afflicted by civil war, foreign interventions don’t necessarily spark a civil war
* Grievances related to – for example – human rights abuse and social deprivation afflict a significant proportion of the world’s countries, and yet armed conflict occurs only in a certain number of these, and only at certain times.
* Debate whether these factors are underlying or immediate causes
* These factors may be present in cases of civil war but need to be linked to some other condition
