Civil War Exam 2

Why democracies might be less likely to experience civil war

They rely on norms of compromise and peaceful conflict resolution, offer opportunities to voice grievances, and provide channels to participate in the political process.

How democracy might make civil war more feasible

Ethno-religious conflicts can heighten during elections in divided societies when losing groups feel policy exclusion, destabilizing democratization processes that lack strong institutions, while guarantees of free assembly and speech lower coordination costs for rebels.

Vulnerability of semi-democracies/anocracies to civil war

Political parties often campaign on sectarian grounds to exacerbate polarization, and these regimes lack both the robust peaceful institutions of democracies and the extreme repressive capacity of autocracies.

Why civil wars in democracies are often longer, but less deadly than in autocracies

Democracies lack an autocratic leader who can unilaterally enforce a quick end to conflict, and democratic norms emphasize diplomatic engagement and regulated talks that prolong negotiations without reaching immediate solutions.

Why new democracies often experience civil unrest and war

Weak state institutions, corruption, and deep collective identity divisions cause rapid political changes to produce clear winners and losers, amplifying sectarian differences in an environment lacking established trust.

Real-life example of democracy and conflict

Sri Lanka post-1948, where democratic electoral practices led sectarian politicians to manipulate intercommunal friction, heightening minority Tamil resentment and contributing to the 1983 civil war outbreak.

Constituents of state repression

Harassment, surveillance/spying, suppression of nonviolent protest, arbitrary arrests, torture, and mass killing.

Substitution model of repression

A framework where governments strategically substitute between repression and accommodation based on dissident actions; increased nonviolent action by dissidents may trigger increased state repression or accommodation depending on relative costs and risks.

Deterrence versus opposition encouragement from repression

Repression discourages nonviolent protest but encourages violent opposition because it destroys popular support, triggers elite/security force defections, and creates a backfire effect through moral outrage.

Real-life example of repression

Egypt in 2011, where high-intensity police repression against nonviolent protesters backfired, degrading state legitimacy and escalating anti-regime mobilization.

Corruption and its measurement

The abuse or misuse of entrusted official power for private gain, measured using perceptions collected via expert assessments, citizen surveys, and evaluations by international business professionals.

Why corruption leads to conflict

It degrades state capacity, generates intense public grievances, and undermines government legitimacy.

How corruption exacerbates existing conflicts

It diverts resources away from public services and defense, feeds greed and grievance dynamics, and entrenches patronage networks that exclude marginalized groups.

Negative effects of corruption on post-conflict societies

It prevents the establishment of positive peace, deepens gender inequality, and increases the risk of conflict recurrence.

How corruption can prevent conflict

In specific contexts where elites use corrupt payouts or bribes to buy off potential violent rivals.

Real-life example of corruption

Afghanistan, where surveys showed corruption became a major daily problem for over 60% of citizens, eroding faith in the central government and empowering opposition/insurgent forces.

How globalization makes civil war less likely

It promotes economic development, expands democratic governance, increases state security budgets, and creates global investment ties that raise the opportunity costs of conflict.

How globalization makes civil war more likely

It increases local inequality and exploitation, drives cultural pushback against perceived imposed uniformity, and facilitates transnational crime, diaspora funding, and easier rebel mobilization.

Globalization and identity politics (Kaldor)

Globalization breaks down traditional socio-economic structures and triggers an identity crisis, which political entrepreneurs exploit by mobilizing around fixed identities to capture state power amid declining state legitimacy.

Real-life example of globalization and conflict

New Wars dynamics, where parallel informal shadow economies and transnational networks fund identity-based rebel factions.

Lootable resources

Natural resources that are cheap and easy to extract and sell due to low market entry barriers, such as gemstones or alluvial diamonds.

Why oil-producing countries experience more conflict

Non-lootable oil fosters the resource curse because governments rely on external oil revenues rather than citizen taxation, eroding state-citizen accountability, weakening institutions, and creating incentives to capture the state.

Resource wealth versus resource exploitation versus resource discovery

Resource wealth causes high inequality and weak state-society contracts; resource exploitation creates localized environmental/economic grievances and territorial disputes in extraction zones; resource discovery rapidly alters power balances, leaving fragile states vulnerable to price shocks.

Resource curse

The paradox of plenty, wherein countries rich in natural resources tend to experience lower economic growth, weaker democracy, and higher conflict risks than resource-poor countries.

State capacity model of civil conflict and natural resources

The model posits that weak state capacity creates opportunities for rebellion; in resource-rich states, governments collect revenues from extractive industries rather than citizens, leading citizens to stop monitoring spending, which weakens political institutions.

How natural resources lengthen ongoing civil wars

They provide revenue to pay combatants, buy weaponry, cause internal factional splitting, and give leaders financial incentives to keep fighting rather than agree to peace.

Conflict diamonds

Rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments.

Kimberley Process

A joint multilateral trade regime established in 2003 to certify rough diamond origins and prevent the flow of conflict diamonds.

Real-life example of natural resources

ISIS in Iraq and Syria, which exploited oil production sold on the black market to fund terror operations and territorial governance.

Link between environmental degradation and conflict

Deforestation, soil erosion, and freshwater scarcity generate severe grievances against governments and drive internal migration, resulting in sons-of-the-soil conflicts over land.

Relationship between climate change and civil conflict

Climate change acts as a threat multiplier by indirectly triggering conflict through crop failures, livestock deaths, and food price spikes that strain weak states and exacerbate communal frictions.

Climate change reductionism

The problematic practice of attributing complex political conflicts entirely to climate change, which risks ignoring root political, structural, and institutional causes.

Real-life example of climate change

Syria, where severe droughts from 2006 to 2011 caused widespread crop failures and mass rural-to-urban migration, worsening social frictions prior to the 2011 uprising.

Important aspects of the definition of terrorism

Violence or the threat of violence directed against civilians, calculated to create fear or alarm to influence policy, driven by political or social motives, and characterized by unequal capabilities and lower overall destructive power relative to civil war.

Strategic use of terrorist tactics during civil conflict

Weak actors use terror tactics to intimidate potential defectors, signal government weakness, provoke indiscriminate state counter-attacks to drive civilians toward rebels, or diminish the rebel support base.

Which rebel groups are more likely to use terrorist tactics

Resource-wealthy or opportunistic groups, militantly motivated groups, weaker non-state factions facing extreme capability asymmetries, or groups with degraded central leadership.

Effectiveness of terrorist tactics during civil war

Terror tactics gain media attention and impose political costs, but empirical findings show they generally fail to secure major concessions or rebel victories, drastically reducing the likelihood of negotiated peace agreements.

Spoilers

Factions or leaders who use violence to sabotage a peace process because they fear losing status, spoils, or power, or because they are excluded from negotiations.

Why spoilers use terrorist tactics and their effectiveness

Spoilers use terror to destroy trust between negotiating main parties; it successfully spoils peace agreements and prolongs conflict, though it rarely helps spoilers achieve their long-term political aims.

Real-life example of terrorism

The LTTE in Sri Lanka, which pioneered systematic suicide bombing tactics during civil conflict to target government leadership and signal commitment.

Factors that prolong civil wars

Territorial incompatibilities, ethno-religious fractionalization, high rebel fighting capacity and guerilla tactics, natural resource funding, external veto players, foreign intervention, and spoilers.

Veto players

Key political actors or factions whose agreement is strictly required to change the status quo or approve a peace accord.

Intractability and conflict duration

Intractability refers to a long-standing, highly violent conflict between major identity groups that resists repeated attempts at settlement, which drastically lengthens conflict duration.

Real-life example of prolonged conflict

The Sri Lankan Civil War, which lasted over 25 years due to territorial incompatibilities, guerilla and terror tactics, and failed peace accords.

Sociological thesis of civil war violence

Pre-war societal polarization drives the severity of violence.

Hobbesian thesis of civil war violence

The collapse of state authority and the resulting anarchy drives self-help violence.

Military thesis of civil war violence

Structural vulnerability of target populations dictates where and how violence is deployed.

Rebel violence as an organizational by-product

Resource-wealthy groups attract opportunistic combatants leading to lax discipline and higher civilian abuse, whereas resource-poor groups rely on committed recruits, resulting in strict discipline and lower civilian abuse.

War crimes

Large-scale human rights violations during war violating the Fourth Geneva Convention, including willful killing, torture, mutilation, humiliation, unlawful transfers, and collective punishment.

Genocide

Acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, such as mass killings, preventing births, or forced child transfers.

Examples of genocide

Rwanda (1994), Srebrenica (1995), and Darfur (2004).

Wartime rape as a strategic tool

It is used for ethnic cleansing, terrifying populations, disrupting social and family structures, exercising territorial control, and building unit cohesion among combatants.

Fighter recruitment mode and wartime rape (Cohen 2013)

Voluntary recruitment relies on strong social ties and yields high cohesion with infrequent costly group abuses, whereas forced recruitment through abduction or pressganging creates weak social ties and relies on wartime rape as a socialization ritual to build unit cohesion.

Real-life example of war crimes/genocide

Darfur, where government-backed Janjaweed militias utilized strategic sexual violence and forced displacement targeting non-Arab populations.

Refugees contributing to civil war in home country

Non-state actors exploit refugee populations through refugee warriors, using refugee camps as base camps for cross-border logistics, recruitment, and launching attacks, while diaspora networks supply military funding.

How refugees spread conflict

Mass refugee influxes do not automatically cause conflict; rather, they interact with the host country's existing political stability, ethnic balances, and administrative capacity, potentially triggering conflict if local balances are altered.

Real-life example of refugee spillover

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, where massive refugee flows following the 1994 Rwandan Genocide created militant bases in eastern DRC, directly triggering the First and Second Congo Wars.

Greed model

Explains combatant motivations based on material self-enrichment, where lootable resources and weak institutions provide predation opportunities to fund rebellion.

Grievance model

Assumes civil war is driven by social inequality, economic deprivation, and state repression.

Primordial model

Sees fixed, deeply rooted ethnic or religious identities as the fundamental drivers of conflict onset.

Instrumentalist model

Suggests that identity is deliberately manipulated by political entrepreneurs to mobilize support and capture state power for political objectives.

Modernization model

Assumes civil war emerges when rapid economic modernization destabilizes intergroup relations and creates institutional strain.

Repression and support for secession article finding

Soft forms of state repression significantly alter public attitudes and cause backfire effects that boost sympathy and mobilization for social movements.

Corruption and peacebuilding article finding

Corruption fuels violence by feeding greed and grievance; because positive peace requires eliminating structural violence, anti-corruption measures are essential to peacebuilding.

Refugees and conflict article finding

Conflict does not spill over automatically through displacement; host-country stability, ethnic dynamics, and leadership strategies dictate whether influxes remain peaceful.

Wartime rape article finding (Cohen 2013)

Armed groups recruiting via forced abduction or pressganging use wartime rape as an informal bonding ritual to build unit cohesion among hostile strangers.

Civil war duration gender view article finding (Giri & Haer 2021)

Female combatants shorten war duration by reducing power asymmetries between rebels and the state through expanding manpower, enhancing retention, strengthening civilian networks, and offering tactical advantages.

Globalization and New Wars article finding

Globalization shifts economic focus away from manufacturing, dividing regions into prosperous global enclaves and impoverished zones while fostering identity politics.

Climate change and conflict article finding

Climate change primarily operates indirectly as a threat multiplier by exacerbating economic deprivation, food price shocks, and resource competition in rain-fed agricultural zones.

Sri Lanka's civil war article finding

The war was primarily a consequence of post-colonial statebuilding choices, elite political strategies, and clientelist politics rather than an inevitable clash of fixed identities.

Corruption and gender article finding

Gender inequalities, corruption, and violent conflict are mutually reinforcing, with patronage networks excluding women and placing the heaviest burdens of corruption on marginalized populations.

Bosnia conflict details

An ethnic and secessionist civil war among Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats over territory and ethnic domination, highlighted by the Srebrenica genocide.

Colombia conflict details

A long-standing leftist insurgency civil war involving the Colombian government, FARC, ELN, and paramilitaries fighting over ideology, land distribution, and control of coca/contraband markets.

Democratic Republic of Congo conflict details

A complex regional and resource civil war involving the DRC government, foreign powers (Rwanda, Uganda), and armed groups (RCD, M23, FDLR) fighting over state power, territory, and lootable minerals like coltan and gold.

Sri Lanka conflict details

An ethnic and secessionist civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE over a territorial Tamil homeland (Eelam), characterized by suicide terror tactics and ending in military victory.

Syria conflict details

A complex anti-regime civil war involving the Syrian government, opposition forces, ISIS, and foreign powers fighting over government control, political freedom, and sectarian dominance, influenced by climate shocks, oil funding, and mass displacement.