1 / 11

Civil Wars

Civil Wars. PLSC 370 Lecture 9. Why Study Civil Wars?. Civil wars are widespread 70% of wars since WWII have been internal Becoming more common (although not increasing in frequency. How is that possible?) Generates suffering 1 million dead in the Chinese civil war

paul
Télécharger la présentation

Civil Wars

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Civil Wars PLSC 370 Lecture 9

  2. Why Study Civil Wars? • Civil wars are widespread • 70% of wars since WWII have been internal • Becoming more common (although not increasing in frequency. How is that possible?) • Generates suffering • 1 million dead in the Chinese civil war • Maybe as many as 500,000 in a short time in Rwanda • Famine • Blocks economic development • Often spreads to other states and can undermine regional stability • Engages the interest of distant powers and international organizations • Policy decisions for how states and organizations should deal with civil wars are being reassessed

  3. What is a Civil War? • Armed conflict • At least 1,000 deaths • Challenges the sovereignty of an internationally recognized state • Occurs within the borders of a state • The state is an actor • Rebels are an actor • 127 events matching this definition occurred between 1945 and 2000

  4. A Few Trends • Civil war is primarily the problem of developing nations • The most common region for civil wars is Sub-Saharan Africa, followed by Asia (especially South-east Asia) and the Middle East (which includes North Africa) • Civil wars tend to last quite a bit longer than international wars • Explanations for the causes of civil wars have tended to fall into one of four categories: economic, rational choice, IR theory, and constructivism

  5. Economic • Modernization: rapid economic growth leads to greater competition for resources • But … • Greed: sometimes the costs of fighting (and opportunity costs) can be outweighed by the economic gain that civil war can bring. War as a business • Opportunity: does the government have the resources to stop a civil war?

  6. Rational Choice • Expected utility. Consider 2 cases: • A strong (rich) state. The likelihood you could defeat the state is low, but the reward would be very high. • A weak (poor) state. The likelihood you could defeat the state is higher, but the reward is lower. • Expected utility balances out the likelihood you could win and the rewards that would bring, with the likelihood you would lose and the costs that would bring. • In case you forgot: • u(WIN) * p(WIN) + u(LOSE) * p(LOSE) - costs

  7. IR Theory • Neorealism might argue that the distribution of power in the system affects civil war (for example, you might expect less civil war in a bipolar system). Not much evidence here • Civil war occurs when internal anarchy develops • The security dilemma • Liberal theory explains how government institutions provide legitimacy • A democratic civil peace?

  8. Constructivism • Ethnicity: primordial or constructed? • Ethnic entrepreneurs and mobilization

  9. New and Old Civil Wars (Kalyvas) • Old wars: • Cause: collective grievances • Support: broad/popular • Violence: controlled • New Wars • Cause: Private loot • Support: limited support • Violence: Rambo-style

  10. Civil War Termination • Civil Wars last much longer than interstate wars • Mason and Fett • E(U)fight < E(U)settlement • For all involved parties • BUT … civil wars seem to persist in a state of “mutual hurting stalemate” • Walter • Prisoner’s dilemma • No total disarming • Third parties

  11. Intervention and Peacekeeping • We are not very good at this… (yet?) • Somalia → Rwanda → Kosovo • Liberal approach (politics and economics) • Paris • Liberal politics and economics are based in conflict, and may be a bad idea for post-civil war states • How would realists think about intervention? Can you come up with a realist argument FOR intervention?

More Related