The internationalization of intrastate conflict: A network perspective on empirical evidence and theoretical explanations

Religion, Civilization, and Civil War: 1945 Through the New Millennium. By Jonathan Fox. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004. 312 pp., $75.00 (ISBN: 0-7391-0744-5). The broad question motivating Jonathan Fox's Religion, Civilization, and Civil War: 1945 Through the New Millennium is interesting, both theoretically and empirically: What is the overall influence of religion and civilizational divides on intrastate conflicts? Fox begins by noting that the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, brought renewed attention to the role of religion in conflict and highlighted the inadequacies of our understanding of this relationship. He argues that much of the conflict literature on the causal impact of religion—as well as its kin: civilization—suffers from ad hoc analyses, too little large-N empirical testing, and too little theorizing. Thus, Fox sets out to correct these shortcomings by examining the role of religion and civilizational divides in intrastate conflicts between 1945 and 2001, utilizing both the Minorities at Risk data on ethnic conflicts and the State Failure data on civil wars, mass killings, and revolutions. The primary achievement of Religion, Civilization, and Civil War is to establish correlations between a number of religious variables and types of intrastate conflict. Indeed, to this end the book contains 188 tables and figures as well as a detailed data appendix. Fox expands the Minorities at Risk and State Failure datasets, both of which are frequently used in conflict studies, by collecting information on several religious indicators that are hypothesized to cause conflict: religious identity, religious grievances, demands for religious rights, official religion, and religious institutions. The book falls short of providing convincing causal accounts of how these religious variables affect intrastate conflicts as well as why this relationship has, as the data indicates, changed over time, but the hypotheses and findings are a fruitful point of …

Introduction

This volume explores the nature of civil war in the modern world and in historical perspective. Civil wars represent the principal form of armed conflict since the end of the Second World War, and certainly in the contemporary era. The nature and impact of civil wars suggests that these conflicts reflect and are also a driving force for major societal change. In this sense, Understanding Civil Wars: Continuity and change in intrastate conflict argues that the nature of civil war is not fundamentally changing in nature. The book includes a thorough consideration of patterns and types of intrastate conflict and debates relating to the causes, impact, and ‘changing nature’ of war. A key focus is on the political and social driving forces of such conflict and its societal meanings, significance and consequences. The author also explores methodological and epistemological challenges related to studying and understanding intrastate war. A range of questions and debates are addressed. What is the current knowledge regarding the causes and nature of armed intrastate conflict? Is it possible to produce general, cross-national theories on civil war which have broad explanatory relevance? Is the concept of ‘civil wars’ empirically meaningful in an era of globalization and transnational war? Has intrastate conflict fundamentally changed in nature? Are there historical patterns in different types of intrastate conflict? What are the most interesting methodological trends and debates in the study of armed intrastate conflict? How are narratives about the causes and nature of civil wars constructed around ideas such as ethnic conflict, separatist conflict and resource conflict? This book will be of much interest to students of civil wars, intrastate conflict, security studies and international relations in general.

Book Summary: This comprehensive new Handbook explores the significance and nature of armed intrastate conflict and civil war in the modern world. Civil wars and intrastate conflict represent the principal form of organised violence since the end of World War II, and certainly in the contemporary era. These conflicts have a huge impact and drive major political change within the societies in which they occur, as well as on an international scale. The global importance of recent intrastate and regional conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Nepal, Cote d'Ivoire, Syria and Libya – amongst others – has served to refocus academic and policy interest upon civil war. Chapter Summary: This chapter provides an assessment of current theories regarding peacebuilding efforts following civil war, evaluates UN peacebuilding efforts over the past 20 years, and offers suggestions regarding future research on the topic.

As the essays in this special issue amply demonstrate, realism and Reconstruction are inextricable. In the U.S., realism was born in the crucible of the Long Civil War, 1 emerging as a vital mode for apprehending and describing a "reality" shorn of Idealisms and Transcendentalisms. That is one of the many reasons the Civil War and Reconstruction repeatedly appear in realist art and literature, from novels such as Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, Henry James' The American, and W. D. Howells' The Rise of Silas Lapham (all of which are about soldiers or former soldiers), 2 to the poems of Sarah Piatt and Frances E. W. Harper and the paintings of Winslow Homer. Many of the writers primarily known for their commentary about Reconstruction, like Albion Tourgée and George Washington Cable, developed a realist style and philosophy which they saw as a natural expression of Reconstruction's aims and effects. 3 And such connections merely hint at the range and variety of mutual influences that linked realism to Reconstruction, both of which were rooted in a similar system of print networks, historical conditions, and cultural values. Recent scholarship, however, has made it abundantly clear that realism and Reconstruction were complex, protean movements. Realism arose in Europe in the early-nineteenth century, acquired a variety of proto-forms in the antebellum U.S., and spawned an eclectic range of literary, philosophical, and artistic forms, from Pragmatism (a metaphysical realism) to Naturalism (an offshoot of realist fiction), and appeared in a kaleidoscopic array of media, from paintings to magazines, photographs, sculptures, poems, and short stories. This is one of the guiding threads of criticism on realism,

Civil wars have occurred often in the post–World War II era. Their frequency of initiation decreased after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but the persistence of these conflicts meant that there was not a dramatic decline after the end of the Cold War. The causes of civil wars and their consequences for the stability of the international environment have, however, changed dramatically in the last two-and-a-half decades. During the Cold War, most civil wars were proxy battles between the Soviet Union and the United States; both superpowers were interested in maintaining regimes that were sympathetic to their side. The Soviet Union was never interested in the promotion of democratic regimes. The United States professed a commitment to democracy, but when faced with a choice between a Communist or even left-leaning democracy and an autocrat who aligned his state with the West, the United States chose the latter. The strongly positive statistical relationship between per capita income and democracy, which holds for most of the period between 1820 and 2000, disappears during the Cold War, when both superpowers were more interested in external alignment than in democracy.1The impact of civil wars on the stability of the international system has increased during the twenty-first century. September 11, 2001, marks a watershed because, for at least some observers in the advanced industrialized world, the ability of transnational terrorists to destroy two of the tallest buildings and kill thousands of people in the commercial center of the most powerful country in the world, as well as to fly a commercial airliner into the command center of the most powerful military (an event that one of us witnessed first-hand from inside the Pentagon and the other witnessed from the State Department across the Potomac River) represented a sea change in the extent to which developments in poor and remote countries could affect even the strongest and most powerful. September 11 created an urgency that was absent during the 1990s, when major powers believed that they could walk away from war-torn countries such as Somalia with limited consequences for their own polities.Greater urgency however, has not led to agreement, even in the academic world, on two critical issues: First, what are the potential threats to stability that might emanate from civil wars and weak governance in poor and remote areas of the world? Second, what policy instruments, if any, can be deployed to treat civil wars and reduce the downstream effects on other states and global order? There are no consensus answers to any of these fundamental issues.Rather than trying to identify some common ground, which we do not believe exists, we offer our own assessment of the consequences of civil wars, the nature of civil wars, and possible interventions that external actors might most effectively pursue. Our judgments have been informed by the essays in this issue of Dædalus and in the previous issue, but are not dictated by them.Civil wars can impact the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world. The most consequential potential impacts are transnational terrorism and pandemic diseases, global crises that could be caused by intrastate conflict. Civil wars might also lead to large-scale migration, regional instability, and potential great-power conflict. And high levels of intrastate violence and loss of government control can often give rise to massive criminality, though this is most effectively addressed through domestic law enforcement rather than international initiatives.The nature of civil wars varies. The most important distinction is between civil strife that is caused by the material or political interests of the protagonists and civil strife that is caused by transnational ideological movements. The latter, if successful, might threaten regional stability and even the stability of the contemporary international system that is based on sovereign statehood. Transnational ideological movements, which in the contemporary world are almost all associated with particular versions of Islam, base legitimacy on the divine and reject both existing boundaries and secular authority. While transnational movements claiming divine authority are more threatening to the existing international order, it is very difficult for such movements to secure material resources. Institutions that control these resources, primarily states but also international organizations, NGOs, and multinational corporations, are manifestations of the extant global order. When combatants in civil wars are motivated by material incentives and accept the principles of the existing international order, then the “standard treatment” for addressing civil strife- UN peacekeeping plus some foreign assistance-is the most effective option if combatants believe that they are in a hurting stalemate, and if there is agreement among the major powers. If, however, combatants reject the existing order, then the standard treatment will not work.Finally, based on most, but not all of the essays in these two issues of Dædalus, the opportunities for external interveners are limited. Countries afflicted by civil strife cannot become Denmark or be placed on the road to Denmark; they cannot be transformed into prosperous democratic states. The best that external actors can hope for is adequate governance in which there is security, the provision of some services especially related to health and possibly education, and some limited economic growth. This is true whether the standard treatment is applied or if one side can win decisively. More ambitious projects aimed at consolidated democracy, sustained economic growth, and the elimination of corruption are mostly doomed to fail and can be counterproductive regardless of whether the combatants are interested in seizing control of an existing state or are motivated by some alternative, divine vision of how political life might be ordered. National political elites in countries afflicted with civil strife will be operating in limited-access, rent-seeking political orders in which staying in power is their primary objective. National elites will not accept accountability, legal-rational bureaucracies, or free and fair elections, all of which would threaten their power.The essays in these two issues of Dædalus and the literature more broadly identify six threats from civil strife that might directly impact the wealthy and more powerful polities of the world, or the nature of the postwar liberal international order. The first two-pandemic diseases and transnational terrorism-are potentially the most consequential, although neither poses the kind of existential threat presented by war among nuclear armed states.Pandemic diseases. As the essay by Paul Wise and Michele Barry points out, since 1940, some four hundred new diseases have emerged among human populations.2 Most of these diseases have been zoonoses: disease vectors that have jumped from animal populations, in which they may be benign, to human populations, in which they might cause serious illness. Most of these outbreaks have occurred in a belt near the equator, where human beings intermingle more closely with animals, such as bats and monkeys. The main impact of civil wars is, however, not in increasing the number of new diseases, but rather diminishing the capacities of health monitoring systems that could identify, isolate, and possibly treat new diseases. Effective detection requires constant monitoring, which is extremely difficult in areas that are afflicted by civil war. Epidemics, or at least disease outbreaks, are inevitable given the ways in which human beings impinge more and more on animal habitats, but allowing an epidemic to evolve into a pandemic is optional. If effective detection and monitoring are in place, a disease outbreak will not turn into a pandemic that could kill millions. So far, the world's population has been spared such an outbreak. If, however, a disease can be transmitted through the air, and if civil strife or something else prevents effective monitoring, the likelihood of a pandemic increases.Transnational terrorism. Terrorism, which in recent years has primarily, but not exclusively, been associated with Islamic jihadism, can arise in many different environments. At the time of the September 11 attacks, Al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden were resident in Afghanistan, a very poor, land-locked country. Before that, Bin Laden had found refuge in Sudan. Most of the participants in the September 11 attack, however, were born in the heart of the Arab world, namely in Saudi Arabia, and had resided for a number of years in Germany. The perpetrators of the July 7 attacks on the mass transit system in London were Muslims of Somali and Eritrean origin, raised and schooled in the United Kingdom. The bomber, whose efforts to bring down an airliner headed for Detroit were frustrated by a courageous and alert passenger, was a Nigerian citizen who had spent time with jihadi ideologues in the Middle East. The attacks in Paris and Nice in 2015–2016 were carried out by individuals born in North Africa, but who had lived for many years in Western Europe. The murders of fourteen people in San Bernardino, California, were perpetrated by a U.S. citizen born in Chicago, whose parents were from Pakistan and who was educated at California State University, San Bernardino, and his wife, who was born in Pakistan but spent many years in Saudi Arabia. The massacre at the Orlando, Florida, night club in 2016 was carried out by the American-born son of a man who had emigrated from Afghanistan and had lived for many years in the United States.While terrorism associated with Islamic jihadism is hardly an exclusive product of safe havens in countries afflicted by civil strife or poor governance, the existence of such safe havens does, as Martha Crenshaw argues, exacerbate the problem.3 Safe havens are environments within which would-be terrorists can train over an extended period of time. A number of terrorists, even those raised in Western, industrialized countries, have taken advantage of such training. Transnational terrorist organizations might or might not secure weapons of mass destruction; they might or might not develop more effective training; their operatives might or might not be discovered by intelligence services in advanced industrialized democracies. Civil war and weak governance, however, increase the likelihood that transnational terrorist groups will find safe havens, and safe havens increase the likelihood of attacks that could kill large numbers of people.Global pandemics and transnational terrorism are the two most serious threats presented by civil wars. The probability that either will significantly undermine the security of materially well-off states is uncertain, but both are distinct sources of danger. Civil wars and weak governance increase the likelihood that large numbers of people could be killed by either threat. Neither is an existential threat, but both could have grave consequences for advanced industrialized democratic states. Hundreds of thousands or millions of people could die from a pandemic outbreak resulting from an easily transmissible disease vector or from a transnational terrorist attack that could involve dirty nuclear weapons, an actual nuclear weapon (still quite hard to obtain), or artificial biologics (increasingly easy to produce).Either a global pandemic or terrorist attack, possibly using weapons of mass destruction, would almost certainly lead to some constraints on the traditional freedoms that have been associated with liberal democratic societies.Migration, regional instability, and great-power conflict. Civil wars are also dangerous because they could lead to greater refugee flows, regional destabilization, and great-power conflict. Not every civil war has the potential for generating these global crises, but if generated, they would be a product not just of civil strife but also of policy choices that were made by advanced industrialized countries. In this regard, they should be contrasted with possible pandemics and transnational terrorism that, arguably, would occur regardless of the policies adopted by wealthy democratic states.As Sarah Lischer's essay shows, the number of migrants–especially people displaced by civil wars–has increased dramatically in recent years.4 Most of these migrants have been generated by three conflicts, those in Afghanistan, Syria, and Somalia. The wave of migrants entering Western Europe has destabilized traditional politics and contributed to the success of Brexit in the UK, the increased share of votes secured by right-wing parties in a number of Western European countries, and the electoral gains of a number of right-wing parties in Eastern Europe. Anxiety about immigration contributed to Donald Trump's victory in the United States. European countries, even those on the left like Sweden, have responded to rising numbers of refugees by tightening the rules for potential migrants. The European Union reached a deal with Turkey in 2016 to provide financial resources in exchange–among other things–for an increase in acceptance of refugees. At the same time, the sheer number of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon can potentially undermine government control in those countries.The impact of civil wars in one country can spread to surrounding areas. ISIL's ambitious campaigns have afflicted Syria and Iraq. Civil strife in Somalia has, as Seyoum Mesfin and Abdeta Beyene write, influenced the policies of Ethiopia.5 The FARC insurgency in Colombia impacted Venezuela and Ecuador. Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) drew in several neighboring states. Some regional conflicts have resulted in millions of deaths, most notably the war in the DRC, with limited impact on and attention from wealthy industrialized countries. Wars in the Middle East, however, have been more consequential because they have led to the involvement of Russia and the United States, they are closer to Europe and have therefore generated more refugees, and Middle Eastern oil is a global commodity on which much of the world depends. Regional destabilization in the Middle East does matter for the West; regional destabilization in Central Africa may only matter for those who live in the neighborhood.Direct confrontation between major powers has not occurred since the end of World War II. In well-governed areas, where civil wars are absent, the likelihood of great-power conflict is small. Territorial conquest has been delegitimized (though Russia's annexation of Crimea stands as a recent exception to this norm). The existence of nuclear weapons has removed uncertainty about the costs of a confrontation between nuclear-armed states with assured second-strike capability. Great-power confrontations are, however, more likely in areas that are afflicted by civil strife, because instability and appeals from local actors could draw in major state actors with vested interests. This is especially true for the Middle East. Moreover, in countries on the periphery of Russia that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, especially those with sizeable Russian ethnic populations, the government in Moscow has demonstrated that it can increase the level of internal unrest. There is no guarantee of stability, even in countries that might have been stable absent external support for dissident groups that would otherwise have remained quiescent.As Barry Posen suggests in his essay, multipolarity makes all aspects of external involvement in civil wars more fraught, including the possibility of a conflict among the major powers.6 In a multipolar world, no single pole is likely to be able to dictate outcomes to potential combatants. The possibility of a hurting stalemate declines because all sides hope that their fortunes could be resurrected by some outside power. Absent a hurting stalemate, which makes the standard treatment including UN Peacekeeping Operations (UN PKOs) and other forms of assistance attractive to major combatants, civil wars are more likely to continue. The contemporary international environment is more multipolar than was the case during the bipolarity of the Cold War or the unipolarity of the United States that lasted for a little over a decade after the Soviet Union collapsed. Managing civil wars will now be more difficult. The possibility of great-power conflict has increased. And because wars will prove harder to end, refugee flows will persist.Criminality. Criminality is a final area in which there may be some association between civil wars and weak governance, and the well-being of individuals in advanced industrialized countries. Because of the ease of transportation and communication, criminality is not limited to specific countries. Internet theft can originate from and impact many different countries. The loss of billions of dollars a year, drug smuggling, and human trafficking are familiar manifestations of transnational criminality. As Vanda Felbab-Brown writes, large-scale criminality can greatly exacerbate the challenges states face in defeating insurgencies and ending civil wars.7Addressing criminality associated with civil wars is fraught with difficulty. The association between criminal gangs and the state may be uncertain. National elites may protect criminal organizations. Some criminal organizations may generate revenues that help national elites stay in power. Yet while transnational criminality does affect individuals and institutions in the wealthier democracies, it is not a threat to their domestic political orders. The problem is best dealt with through national and international law enforcement.The most important conclusion that emerges from the discussions at the core of our project is that the policy options for addressing civil wars are limited. The essays in these two issues suggest that there are four factors that external actors must take into account when considering responses to intrastate warfare in weakly governed polities: the extent to which the interests of external and national political elites are complementary; the presence of irreconcilable groups in a civil conflict; the threat of great-power conflict; and the costs of intervention.Alignment of interests. Of these four factors, the greatest impediment to successful interventions is the misalignment of domestic and external elites' interests. Domestic elites governing an area afflicted by civil strife will be primarily interested in keeping themselves in power. The path to Denmark is paved with free and fair elections, rational-legal bureaucracies, and the rule of law, all of which are antithetical to the interests of those who hold power in closed-access or exclusive polities.The best that external actors can hope for is to bring some degree of security to areas that are afflicted with civil strife, which is easier to accomplish if none of the combatants are motivated by ideologies that cannot be reconciled, and if competing major or regional powers are not in proxy wars. even if irreconcilable and states are not part of a civil ambitious for and will fail because domestic elites are primarily interested in staying in not in and security assistance has been effective in a limited number of state institutions and the of civil but then only and only to some assistance might of but these are likely to or away when foreign assistance is the support of domestic external actors will fail to civil wars or effectively deal with from such of the world's especially polities by intrastate are rent-seeking states in which the political in power through foreign assistance and will not lead to into the night the number of votes the number of that political to stay in power. The in which the government is to but to within a is not the of almost all of human in almost all in the world, were and If individuals could the of the state they some external actors might be able to the incentives of national elites in the which this might are elites in countries by civil war are almost in what and political have an exclusive Their primary is to stay in power. This requires the and of of their support Most they must have command over of those who control the of violence that they cannot be in exclusive or rent-seeking orders are on the loss of and even life that would from a loss of will efforts for hold free and fair or to corruption as existential more like which are often sources for elites in exclusive might be as actors are only likely to have if domestic elites are on foreign as essay is often the and if external actors can threaten to which is often not the If domestic have sources of such as from or if the state is will not be able to threaten to assistance as government and have constraints were in Afghanistan, where the United States, billions of dollars in elections, and was to the of the rather than efforts to the fundamental of because such his The were because could not (though corruption on all to the of some from the of were by because the his and his in his essay, a for the that occur when the interests of external and internal actors are which will be the case when external actors to in rent-seeking on security that an effective national security at least effective in the of external is much harder than has been or As interests of domestic elites are often different from the interests of external The on power and domestic threats to their while the more on international or transnational threats that could their is, as a problem that cannot be the United States is most likely to provide security assistance to states that are governed if these polities were they would not external security In rent-seeking political will not the military as an the armed will be as as a potential that must be through some of and military in that to the of the A military of effectively in the is what in rent-seeking states do not As it would be almost for an external to such as with military or or which would be in the interests of national but not in the interests of external actors to an effective national military this the collapse of the in in one decade of U.S. military and billions of dollars of was hardly The United States that to effectively its ideological an that would not threaten and their on wars do not the that countries to stable polities and significantly the economic of large of the As with to the Middle East, the rent-seeking that were the conflict are likely to be during of civil is a that elites to those with they to stay in the of the external powers is the problem of to when the challenges of monitoring the of security assistance actors are not likely to be able to or even the interests and of actors in countries by civil may be may be power and their live in and for a while foreign and often for one at if the of the United States or other external is to help countries that have been afflicted with civil war consolidated democracy and there will be between the of domestic and foreign presence of and powers. If one or more of the major are or if two or more major powers have and interests conflict policy options to treat civil wars will be terrorism has been motivated primarily by ideological movements that reject the extant rules and of the global order. As the essays by and motivated have a that is antithetical to the almost of in the contemporary international the sovereign state The principles and associated with and international are to those that have been and by Islamic jihadi Islamic as points out, other authority is from not from some Islamic there is a fundamental distinction between the world of by Muslims and by Islamic law, and the of or where Islamic law is not to some of Islamic law, Islamic states can only with other Islamic with the world, are limited to the most contemporary of Islamic jihadi has that its is to a in the Middle East. a would state and the and rules of an secular who to a sovereign state the same to external powers that a on the of the contemporary international system and the of existing state cannot be with foreign assistance and they will not accept such the most policy option for those to the of the might be to war a As the armed were able to the while to the international order, from the of the may however, be to may have to be as the of Afghanistan and when with a a or parties are a more attractive as the misalignment of domestic and external interests has policy do the misalignment of major interests. The presence of major powers in a civil as can potentially threaten the security of as well as the international the

PATH DEPENDENCE IN INTRASTATE CONFLICTS: RESOURCES, REGIMES, AND INTERVENTIONS Ivan Medynskyi Old Dominion University, 2015 Director: Dr. David C. Earnest This dissertation investigates the patterns of path dependence in intrastate conflicts. It is motivated by three research questions: What factors determine a particular outcome of a civil war? How strong is their impact? What are the causal mechanisms in play? To examine these questions, this study introduces a theory of path dependence to the study of intrastate conflicts that bridges the gap between analyses of the phases of contention. First, it examines the broad understanding of path dependence that highlights the impact of initial conditions on civil war outcomes. Then, this dissertation explores the narrower notion which focuses on the role of timing and sequence of internal factors and intervening events in shaping different resolutions to intrastate conflicts. Using multinomial logistic regression and event history models to analyze initial conditions, intrinsic features, and intervening factors in influencing the probability of particular civil war outcomes, this study identifies relevant agencies that can be utilized to shape solutions for current and future instances of armed civil conflicts. Finally, three case studies test the applicability of the path dependence theory through outlining the narratives, incorporating quantitative findings, and identifying causal mechanisms. The empirical findings of the initial conditions models emphasize the relevance of conflict spillover, non-lootable resources, and structure of bipolarity. An investigation into the factors that ‘lock in’ a particular civil war outcome highlights the role of UN and regional intergovernmental organizations in accelerating a compromise outcome; explains the variation in dynamics behind democratic and autocratic regimes; but surprisingly finds no support for the relationship between the size of the armed forces and conflict outcome. Although case study analysis supports the validity of the empirical results, it also points at the potential limitations of the quantitative design. Since this study follows a mixed methods approach, it effectively compensates for the drawbacks of different types of analysis.

The Systemic Dimensions of Intrastate Conflict: Assessing the Impact of Polarity on Civil War Duration

We have seen recent massive intervention by the United States and its allies in Europe in internal conflict in Bosnia and Kosovo. In Outside Intervention in Intrastate Conflict, Patrick Regan systematically answers the question about the conditions under which third parties intervene in civil conflicts to stop the fighting. It uses data on all civil conflicts since 1945 to identify those conflicts that are amenable to outside interventions and the types of interventions that are more likely to be successful.Outside Intervention in Intrastate Conflict is a book about how governments can help facilitate the end of civil conflicts. In a time when internal conflicts appear to be increasing in number, and increasingly destabilizing, governments need to know what policies work and when. Interventions are generally of two sorts--unilateral, or when one state takes action, and multilateral, such as UN or NATO action. This book examines the conditions under which each form of intervention is most likely and most effective. The analysis suggests that three conditions associated with multi-lateral interventions will increase the likelihood of success: mutual consent of the parties involved; impartiality on the part of the intervenors; and the existence of a coherent intervention strategy. The questions are posed from the perspective of the decision maker and the answers offered are framed in a language familiar to the decision-making community. The book mixes descriptive case material with systematic statistical analysis of a unique data set of all civil conflicts since World War II, providing contemporary examples to illustrate overall trends in the data. Beyond the policy implications this work is also rich in theoretical development about issues of conflict and conflict management.This book will appeal to students of international conflict, civil war, ethnic conflict, and those who are concerned with developing policy in the post-cold war world to deal with intrastate conflict.Patrick M. Regan is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Binghamton University.

There is a scarcity of systematic data regarding the military equipment of rebel groups engaged in intrastate conflicts. This empirical gap has impeded the rigorous evaluation of (formal) theories concerning militarized interactions between governments and rebel groups. To address this deficiency, we have developed the Rebels' Armament Dataset (RAD). This dataset provides detailed information on the military arsenals of 270 groups over the period from 1989 to 2020, categorizing 15 different types of small arms, light weapons, explosives, and major weapons. In this article, we introduce RAD, compare it with existing datasets, elucidate the data collection process, present an initial overview of the information contained in it, and apply the data to examine civilian suffering in civil wars. Although this dataset is merely an initial step that can be expanded as additional public information becomes available, RAD offers the first organized compilation of data on the armament levels of rebels.

Intrastate conflicts have been endemic in Pakistan since its independence in 1947. The most disastrous for the country was the civil war in former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The concentration of political power and government-initiated programs and investments in the western part of the country and the increasing regional disparities led to the alienation and resentment of the people in the eastern part. The triggers for the intrastate conflict were the unwillingness of the military regime to hand over power to the democratically elected leader from East Pakistan and long periods of military rule that deprived the country of democratic mechanisms to reconcile political and economic differences. Another long-simmering intrastate conflict in Pakistan is Balochistan—the largest province of the federation in area and the smallest in population. The demand of the local Baloch population for regional autonomy, their resentment at the slow pace of provincial economic development, the influx of people from other provinces, and the exploitation of the extensive natural resources of the province without equitable distribution of benefits have led to political and social tensions and the insurgency. Four waves of violent unrest took place during 1948, 1958–1959, 1962–1963, and 1973–1977. In early 2005, tensions in Balochistan again increased, with numerous clashes reported between security forces and the Baloch tribesmen.KeywordsDevelopment StrategyCentral GovernmentFederal GovernmentProvincial GovernmentSocial DisparityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Despite considerable interest in the relationship between Islam and political violence, there is little systematic empirical research that explores the intrastate conflict proneness of Muslim countries, and existing studies provide mixed results. This article examines the causal factors that explain the prevalence of intrastate conflict in Muslim-plurality states and the conditions under which Islam may influence civil war onset. Further, following Ward, Greenhill, and Bakke’s (2010) suggestion, the effects of Islam and other socioeconomic and political factors in actually predicting civil wars are examined by utilizing ROC curves and cross-validation exercises. Utilizing the Uppsala Conflict Data Program’s data for the 1981–2009 period, the findings indicate that Muslim-plurality countries are indeed disproportionately involved in intrastate conflicts, but these countries are also characterized by lower GDP per capita, oil dependency, state repression, autocracy, and youth bulges, all of which correlate strongly with intrastate conflict onset. The significance of Islam disappears when controls for such factors are included in the statistical model. The variable of Islam does not make any significant contribution to either the in-sample or out-of-sample predictive power of models. Among the factors that increase the risk of intrastate conflict, the presence of a youth bulge has the greatest impact in Muslim-plurality countries.

Recent research in the civil war literature has focused on how and when external actors intervene. However, to date, systematic data have not existed on diplomatic efforts in conflict management. This article fills this gap and introduces a dataset on 438 diplomatic interventions in 68 conflicts stretching from 1945 to 1999. The authors briefly outline previous research on third-party interventions in civil wars, describe the dataset in some detail, including some initial patterns in the data, and describe how this dataset contributes to research into conflict processes. The authors also demonstrate how diplomatic interventions can be incorporated into other research agendas by merging this dataset with Doyle & Sambanis's peacekeeping data and replicating their analysis to examine the role of external diplomacy on peacebuilding success. These data on interventions, moreover, can be merged with commonly used datasets on intrastate conflicts, which promises a wide range of application in civil war studies. Developing a greater understanding of when and how civil wars end, scholarship needs to take into account efforts to arrive at diplomatic solutions. And if, as the results demonstrate, externally driven diplomacy facilitates the termination of civil wars, then the policy implications are quite important.

Why do some states emerging from civil war take significant strides toward democracy while others do not? The existing literature comes to contradictory and puzzling findings, many of which, we argue, are driven by methodological problems. We examine the determinants of democratization in the short, medium, and long term after civil wars ending between 1945 and 1999. Other than a short-term effect of negotiated settlements, we find little support for the prominent claim that the outcome of the war shapes the prospects for postwar democratization. Neither does peacekeeping foster democratization. Meanwhile, consistent with the more general democratization literature, we find that economic development aids democratization while oil wealth hinders it. In short, we find the determinants of democratization to be much the same for post-civil war societies as for other societies.

Over the past decade, a new awareness of the relationship between conflicts and development has grown. Developmental factors can act as a trigger for violence, as well as for ending violence and for triggering post-conflict reconstruction. This book explores the complexity of the links between violent conflict (usually civil wars) and development, under-development and uneven development. It emphasizes the connections between stable developed economies and civil wars in other parts of the world, and examines how structural factors (such as the organization of the global economy) virtually condemn some regions to conflict and under-development. This valuable introductory text explains, reviews and critically evaluates this complex relationship. It focuses on intra-state conflicts and complex political emergencies that combine transnational and internal characteristics. Attention is also given to inter-state conflicts. Chapters emphasize how the relationship between conflict and development traverses many scales (macro, meso and micro) and dimensions (economic, political and cultural). Furthermore it explains how different developmental challenges and opportunities emerge along the full life-cycle of conflict. Specifically, the role of poverty, state, market, civil society, globalization, humanitarian aid, refuges, gender and health within conflict dynamics are examined. The book also investigates specific developmental issues emerging during conflict management and post conflict reconstruction. Both authors have a background in conducting research in deeply divided societies, and argue that many of the processes connected with war and peace making deliberately write people out of the equation. This book attempts to ‘write people in’. By drawing on contemporary theoretical debates and examining current policies and events, the text unpacks the difficult and complex aspects of the relationships between armed conflict and development and makes them accessible, interesting and policy relevant. It considers how peace making, peace building, and post-war reconstruction are usually more sustainable and successful if politicians, policy makers, entrepreneurs and those working for international NGOs take on board local opinion and capacity. Written in an accessible style, the book considers the main contemporary theories and arguments on conflict, development and the interactions between the two. The text is illuminated throughout with case studies drawn from Africa, the Balkans, Asia and the Middle East.