Why They Fight Hypotheses on the Causes of Contemporary Deadly Conflict

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Why they fight: Hypotheses onthe causes of contemporarydeadly conflictDaniel Byman a & Stephen Van Evera ba Policy analyst at the RAND Corporation,b Associate professor of political science,Massachusetts Institute of Technology,Published online: 24 Dec 2007.

To cite this article: Daniel Byman & Stephen Van Evera (1998) Why they fight:Hypotheses on the causes of contemporary deadly conflict, Security Studies, 7:3, 1-50,DOI: 10.1080/09636419808429350

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WHY THEY FIGHT:HYPOTHESES ON THE CAUSES

OF CONTEMPORARY DEADLY CONFLICT

DANIEL BYMAN AND STEPHEN VAN EVERA

THE COLD WAR'S end in 1989 evoked both euphoria and gloom aboutthe prospects for a peaceful world. Many greeted the fall of theBerlin Wall as a harbinger of a tranquil new millennium. Then anopposite view emerged as violence erupted in the Persian Gulf, the Balkans,the Caucasus, Central Asia, and elsewhere: the world was falling into a "newworld disorder." One scholar claimed in 1992 that "while the end of diecold war has greatly reduced the chance of global nuclear catastrophe, ithas, inadvertendy, increased the chances for lesser disasters such as regionalwars."1 Anodier argued in 1993 that "the key narrative of the new worldorder is the disintegration of nation-states into ethnic civil war."2

What pattern has in fact emerged? Specifically, has violence increased ordiminished since die end of die cold war? Where is postcold war violencelocated, and what form does it assumecivil or international? What are itscauses? What future for war can we extrapolate from current conditions?These are the questions diis paper addresses.

We argue that the optimists of 1989 were closer to the truth than theCassandras: there is no "new world disorder." While the post-cold war

Daniel Byman is policy analyst at the RAND Corporation; Stephen Van Evera is associateprofessor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The authors would like to thank Michael Brown, Taylor Seybolt, Jeremy Shapiro, BenjaminValentino, and the reviewers of Security Studies for comments on earlier versions of this work.

1. Kim R. Holmes, "The New World Disorder," The Heritage Lectures no. 42, 22October 1992.

2. Michael Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging (New York: Noonday Press, 1993), 5. DanielSchorr likewise noted in 1994 that the cold war's end had spawned "conflict and miserymore horrible than the theoretical visions of superpower collision. The danger now is notbombs but people, people in rage against each other and people fleeing from the rage"(Daniel Schorr, "End of Cold War Leads to Ethnic Strife," 6 September 1992, broadcast onNational Public Radio).

SECURITY STUDIES 7, no. 3 (spring 1998): 1-50Published by Frank Cass, London.

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2 SECURITY STUDIES 7, NO. 3

world is hardly tranquil, the number of active wars worldwide has fallenmarkedly since 1989. The number of civil wars has fallen significantlyeleven states experienced civil wars in 1996 compared with seventeen in1989and international conflict has nearly vanished, at least for now.

We hypothesi2e that seven causes of civil violence stand out inimportance (that is, in their potence and prevalence) in the cold war andpostcold war periods. They are: 1. The collapse of postSecond WorldWar empires; 2. A lack of regime legitimacy; 3. State weakness; 4.Communal hegemonism; 5. Revolutionary ideology; 6. Aristocraticintransigence; 7. Superpower proxy wars. Together, we argue, these sevencauses account for most civil violence in recent times. These hypotheseswere inferred by studying all the civil wars that have occurred since 1989.Some also were borrowed from existing works on civil violence.

Our first hypothesis is that the collapse of empire, embodied in the 1991collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, generated a number of recentwars. Imperial collapse spawns successor states that are primed for civilwar. These states often have illegitimate regimes, commingled hostilepopulations, and contested borders. Moreover, no "rules of the road"define the rights and responsibilities of the former metropole or otherexternal powers in the former imperial zone; hence outsiders oftenintervene to claim a sphere of influence or to disrupt another power'ssphere, sparking civil conflict. These dangers caused considerable carnageafter many past imperial collapses. Massive killing occurred after the

3. We use the terms "civil war," "civil violence" and "civil conflict" interchangeably inthis paper. By these terms we include political conflicts with the following attributes: (1) atleast 1,000 deaths during the total span of the conflict; (2) the people involved in the violenceare geographically contiguous (to exclude European colonial wars); and (3) the peopleinvolved are concerned about living together in the same political unit. This definitionincludes organized civil wars and also communal riots, pogroms, ethnic cleansing, and otherinstances where bloodshed was high but only one side was responsible for the killings whilethe other side (or sides) suffered disproportionately.

This definition resembles the definitions other scholars use for civil war but is broaderthan two commonly accepted definitionsthose of Roy Licklider and of J. David Singer andMelvin Small. See Roy Licklider, "How Civil Wars End," in Roy Licklider, ed., Stopping theKilling (New York: New York University Press, 1993), 9, and Melvin Small and J. DavidSinger, Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816-1980 (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982), 210.Licklider defines civil war to include "large-scale violence among geographically contiguouspeople concerned about possibly having to live with one another in the same political unitafter the conflict." For Licklider, however, civil war must also involve multiple sovereigntya fact that distinguishes civil wars from other types of domestic violence. We do not,however, include multiple sovereignty in our definition. In their definition of civil war, Singerand Small are careful to exclude both "regional internal war"a situation where subnationalgovernments clashand communal violence, where there is no government. Our definitionof civil conflict would include both of these phenomena. Small and Singer also limit the casesthey examine to wars where over 1,000 people died in one year, while we also examine caseswhere 1,000 people died during the total span of the conflict.

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Hypotheses on the Causes of Contemporary Deadly Conflict 3

British, French, Ottomans, and Portuguese withdrew from their empiresearlier in this century. Chaos likewise followed the collapse of ancientempires from China to Rome. The collapses of the Soviet and Yugoslavempires resulted in massive bloodshed for similar reasons: they spawnedfrail successor governments that ruled hostile intermingled populations andoften faced destructive interference by the former metropole.

A lack of regime legitimacy caused many civil wars both during and afterthe cold war. Civil-war-causing crises of government legitimacy have sprungfrom two main causes: the growth of restive middle classes in authoritarianstates, and a lack of regime accountability, which leads in turn to corrupt orincompetent state policies. Such legitimacy crises cause violence both whena regime tries to regain legitimacy and when a regime tries to suppressdissenta dilemma we label "the reform trap."

To regain legitimacy, besieged authoritarian regimes may move todemocratize. Democratization, however, can spawn conflict as old elitesinflame and manipulate hatreds in an effort to gain or remain in power.Democratization can also spawn conflict if majoritarian democratic rulesare adopted that cast all power to tyrannical majorities, driving oppressedminorities to rebel. Finally, democratization can spawn war by givingpolitical space to hardened secessionist groups that cannot be appeased bypower-sharing and instead exploit democratic freedoms to organize forwar. Democracy causes peace between mature democracies, butdemocratization is a dangerous cause of war in multiethnic authoritarianstates; hence crises of regime legitimacy that trigger democratization arealso causes of war.

Alternately, regimes that eschew democratization and instead attempt tosuppress dissent often "hunker down," relying on an increasingly narrowcore to defend them. Hunkering down may enable a regime to survive ashort-term challenge to its legitimacy, but it can cause violent resistance byexcluded social groups and does little to ease the original legitimacy crisis.

4. For works on the politics of empire, see Michael W. Doyle, Empires (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 1986); D. K. Fieldhouse, The Colonial Empires: A Comparative Survey from theEighteenth Century (New York: Dell, 1966); Richard L. Rudolph and David F. Good, eds.,Nationalism and Empire: The Habsburg Monarchy and the Soviet Union (New York: St. Martin's,1992); and Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1991). For an examination of the relationship between the collapseof empires and war, see Jonathan Ladinsky, "After the Fall: The Collapse of Empires and theCauses of War" (Ph.D. diss., MIT, forthcoming).

5. The "reform trap" is similar to the "King's dilemma" analyzed definitively by SamuelHuntington. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1968), 177-91. Huntington argues that a traditional leader seeking tomodernize may inadvertently create instability that, in the end, causes the collapse of thetraditional order.

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This second war-cause grew more prevalent with the cold war's end, asthe collapse of communism and the triumph of free-market liberalismdiscredited repressive and statist ideologies throughout the world. Regimesthat embraced these ideologies lost legitimacy and often undertookdestabilizing reforms.

A third leading cause of civil conflict is state weakness. The spread ofmodern small arms among Third World populations has weakenedgovernments' relative position vis-a-vis potential civil opponents over thepast few decades. The end of superpower aid to beleaguered governmentshas further weakened many authoritarian regimes since 1989. Thisweakening, in turn, has made it easier for groups to challenge governmentsby force.

A fourth cause is communal hegemonism the aspiration of ethnic,religious, clan or class groups for hegemony over other groups. Violenceoften results when hegemonistic groups seek to impose their way of life onothers, particularly on peoples that have a well-developed group identity oftheir own. Peace is strongest when groups adopt a live-and-let-live stancetoward others.

The war-causing effects of communal hegemonism are catalyzed by thefirst three causes. Submerged hegemonistic groups are freer to go on arampage, and are more likely to provoke defensive violence by others, whenan empire collapses, regime legitimacy declines, or central power weakens.

Fifth, revolutionary political ideas have caused civil war by leadinggroups to adopt extreme goals and tactics that precluded peacefulcompromise with others. Marxist-Leninist ideas have fueled civil warsworldwide since 1917, by leading movements of the disenfranchised toembrace extreme communist political programs. Muslim revolutionarymovements have likewise triggered civil violence in the Arab world andSouth Asia in recent years. By delegitimizing Marxist-Leninist politicalideas, the Soviet collapse vastly reduced the prevalence of this importantcause of war.

Sixth, aristocratic intransigencethe refusal of elites in some steeplystratified states to share power and wealthhas triggered several recentcivil wars (for example, in Nicaragua in the 1970s and in El Salvador and

6. We use the term "communal" in this essay to encompass ethnic, religious, tribal, andlinguistic groups. A communal group is a group of people bound together by a belief ofcommon heritage and group distinctiveness, often reinforced by religion, perceived kinshipties, language, and history. Examples of communal groups are Turks (a common language,perceptions of a shared history) and Jews (belief in common ancestry reinforced by acommon religion and history). Large tribal groups and clans that perceive themselves ashaving a common identity fall under this category as well.

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Guatemala in the 1980s). This danger has diminished with the cold war'send, as democratic norms have spread to conservative elites and as theseelites have lost unqualified U.S. backing. This loss has forced them tomoderate their behavior.

The fourth, fifth and sixth causes are all examples of a more generalphenomenonextremism in political ends and means. Peace amonggroups, classes and movements is most threatened when they insist ondominance and adopt take-no-prisoners tactics.

Seventh, the superpower competition for influence in Third World stateswas a major cause of civil conflict during the cold war. A number of ThirdWorld states (Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Nicaragua, El Salvador,Guatemala, and Ethiopia, among others) became cold-war battlegroundswhen one or both superpowers backed proxies or directly intervened tosupport client groups. The cold war's end stopped this competition andslowed or ended the civil violence it spawned.

All seven causes operated both during and after the cold war, but somewere more prevalent during the cold war while some have been moreprevalent afterward. Specifically, the first three causes listed above (collapseof empire, regime illegitimacy, and state weakness) grew more abundantafter 1989, the fourth (communal hegemonism) stood roughly constantacross both periods, and the last three (revolutionary ideology, aristocraticintransigence, and superpower competition) abated sharply after 1989. Theabatement of these last three causes largely explains the net decline in civilviolence since 1989.

The most important of these causes of war since 1989 were the loss ofgovernment legitimacy and communal hegemonism. Of thirty-sevencountries that have suffered conflicts since the fall of the Berlin Wall,conflict between a hegemonistic ethnic group and other groups helped fueltwenty-five conflicts. The loss of regime legitimacy was a major cause ofnineteen wars. In fourteen conflicts the governments were too weak tosuppress or appease even minor rebellions, a weakness that led to a largerconflagration. The collapse of empire also helped precipitate thirteen recentconflicts, including five of the eleven "new" conflicts which were not activebefore 1989. Revolutionary ideologies were a major cause of elevenconflicts (with communism being the culprit ideology in five of theseeleven). Superpower competition was a major causes of eight conflicts;aristocratic intransigence a major cause of four.

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Table 1

LOCATIONS OF RECENT CIVIL VIOLENCE

Conflictlocation

AfghanistanAlgeria

Angola

Azerbaijan/ArmeniaBurma

Burundi

CambodiaChad

Colombia

El Salvador

Ethiopia

Georgia

GuatemalaHaiti

1989

Yes

Yes

No*

Yes

?*

Yes

Yes

Yes

No*

1990

Yes

Yes

?*

No*

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No*

1991

Yes

Yes

?*

No*

No*

No*

Yes

No*

?*

Conflict active in year

1992 1993 1994

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No*

Yes

Yes

?*

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No*

Yes

No*

Yes

Yes

No*

?*

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No*

No*

?*

No*

?*

1995

Yes

Yes

No*

P*

Yes

No*

No*

No*

1996

Yes

Yes

No*

Yes

No*

Yes**

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India***

IndonesiaIraq

Lebanon

Liberia

Mozambique

Pakistan

Peru

Philippines

Romania

Russia (Chechnya)Rwanda

Sierra Leone

Somalia

SouthAfrica****Sri Lanka

Yes(Pun-jab)No*

No*

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No*

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No*

Yes

?*

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No*Yes**

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes(Kash-mir)

Yes**

?*

Yes

No*

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No*

Yes**

?*

?*

No*

No*

Yes

?*

?*

Yes

Yes

No*

Yes**

?*

Yes

No*

Yes

Yes

?*

?*

Yes

?*

No*

Yes'

?*

No*

No*

Yes

Yes

?*

?*

Yes

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Conflictlocation

Sudan

TajikistanTurkey

Uganda

Yemen

Yugoslavia(and successorstates)Zaire

Total Wars

Total conflictsactive*****

1989

Yes

No*

Yes

17

23

Table 1 (continued)

1990

Yes

?*

?*

17

23

1991

Yes

?*

Yes

Yes

14

23

Conflict active in year

1992

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

20

23

1993

?*

Yes

Yes

Yes

17

24

1994

?*

No*

Yes

Yes

Yes

12

25

1995

Yes

No*

Yes

Yes

11

23

1996

Yes**

No*

Yes

?*

Yes

11

22

Countries in italics are home to recurring or constant conflicts (that is countries that suffered internal wars on and offor continually in the 1970s and 1980s.) Of the thirty-sevn conflicts listed above, twenty-six were recurring or constantconflicts.

* Conflict was active in the year in question but probably did not reach 1,000 deaths a year. A "no" in the boxindicates that data are available, while a "?" indicates that precise figures are not available. Conflicts with a "?"and a "no" are not included in the "Total Wars" figure, but are included in the "Total Conflicts Active" box.

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** Conflict deaths probably reached 1,000 deaths a year, but precise figures are unavailable. In some cases, suchas the Sudan, it is highly likely that deaths from civil violence, exceeded the 1,000 death figure considerably.

*** India is home to both recurring conflicts (Punjab) and nonrecurring ones (Assam).**** The South African conflict changed from an ANC-government struggle to one between Zulu groups and

ANC partisans.***** An "active" conflict includes conflicts that reached the 1,000 deaths a year criteria and those that did not

reach this level but were not completely resolved.

We list each conflict by location even though several locations (such as India) are home to multiple conflicts that oftenhave highly different causes. When a conflict occurred in an area under different sovereignties (for example the Croat-Serb conflict occurred in both "Yugoslavia" and "Croatia") we list it according to where the conflict began. Thus,conflicts in the former Soviet Union are generally listed under their successor states, as the fighting did not break outuntil after the Soviet Union collapse. On the other hand, we count the former Yugoslavia as one location because thefighting began there when the union was intact. Thus, other descriptions of civil violence might list more conflicts orfewer, depending on how they code various conflicts. A change in coding, however, would not significantly change theconclusions of this paper.

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The next section defines civil violence and describes post-cold wartrends in its incidence and location. The subsequent section describes theseven prime causes of recent (that is, since 1989) civil violence. Ourconclusion argues that civil war seems likely to diminish further in thedecades ahead, but one major cause of civil wardemocratization inmultiethnic stateswill raise serious risks down the road.

There is no widely used source that codes the causes of the civil wars wediscuss. Lacking such a source, our judgments on these wars' causes areauthors' estimates based on our survey of mainstream press accounts andother secondary sources. Others would code many of these casesdifferently, but we think our coding fairly reflects press and othersecondary accounts.

RECENT TRENDS IN THE INCIDENCE OF CIVIL CONFLICT

J-ylHREE SEPARATE measures of civil conflict indicate that it brieflyJ . increased after the cold war ended, but it then quickly faded back to

levels at or below those of the late cold war. Although each measure usesdifferent criteria, all three show the same overall trend. The "new worlddisorder" was short-lived, and the world today is becoming more peaceful.

The number of states experiencing civil conflict. It offers our count of thenumber of states with major civil conflicts under way.8 Table 1 reveals thatthe number of states with ongoing conflicts increased right after the end ofthe cold war but then declined sharply, falling to levels well below late cold-war levels by 1995. In 1989 seventeen countries suffered civil conflictsinvolving more than 1,000 deaths. The number of states with active civilconflicts peaked in 1992, when twenty countries had major civil conflictsunder way. By 1996, however, the total number of countries experiencing

7. We examine all the instances of widespread civil violence active after the end of thecold war. For the purposes of this article, the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 marksthe end of the cold war. Any widespread civil violence that broke out after that point isexamined in this study.

8. Our count was compiled primarily from descriptions in The Europa World Book series,the Economist, the New York Times, Jane's Intelligence Review, articles in academic journals such asProblems of Communism, Conflict Studies, and Current History, and selected works notedspecifically in the text. We also drew on Peter Wallensteen and Margareta Sollenberg, "TheEnd of International War? Armed Conflict 1989-95," Journal of Peace Research 33, no. 3(August 1996): 353-70; Patrick Brogan, The Fighting Never Stopped: A Comprehensive Guide toWorld Conflicts Since 1945 (New York: Vintage, 1990); Ruth Leger Sivard, World Miltary andSocial Expenditures 1996 (Leesburg, VA: WMSE Publicaitons, 1996); SIPRI Yearbook 1996 (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1996); and R. J. Rummel, Death by Government (NewBrunswick: Transaction, 1996).

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such major conflicts had fallen to eleven. Civil warfare had hardlydisappeared, but it was down from late cold war period.

The number of separate civil conflicts. A count of the number of dyadic civilconflicts (that is, a count of each separate feud) by Peter Wallensteen andMargareta Sollenberg reveals the same pattern. They report that the numberof civil conflicts under way rose from forty-four in 1989 to forty-six in1990 and fifty in 1991, and then peaked at fifty-four in 1992. (See Table 4below.) The number of conflicts then fell to forty-six in 1993, to forty-twoin 1994, and to thirty-fourwell below the 1989 countin 1995.9

Table 2WORLDWIDE REFUGEES, 1980-9510

Year

1980198119821983198419851986198719881989199019911992199319941995

Number ofrefugees

(in millions)5.78.29.8

10.410.910.511.612.413.314.814.917.217.018.216.414.4

9. Wallensteen and Sollenberg, "The End of International War?" table 2 on p. 354. Theirwar-count is higher than ours because they count war-dyads instead of states with wars andbecause they use a more inclusive definition of civil conflict than we do, including someminor wars involving fewer than 1,000 total deaths.

10. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, The State of the World's 'Refugees: InSearch of Solutions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 248.

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Table 3

CAUSES OF RECENT CIVIL CONFLICTS

ConflictLocation Major Parties Involved Causes of the Conflict

Afghanistan

Algeria

Angola

Azerbaijan/Armenia

1. Mujahedin v. Soviet-backed government

2. Mujahedin v. otherMujahedin factionsIslamist (FIS, GIA) v.government (FLN)UNITA v. government(MPLA)Armenians v. Azeris

Collapseof empire(post-1945)

Yes

Yes

Lack ofregimelegitimacy

Yes

Yes

Stateweakness

Yes

Yes

Super-Communal Aristocratic Revolutionary powerhegemonism intransigence ideology proxy*

Yes Yes Yes(v. Sovietsonly)

Yes

Yes Yes

Yes

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Burma 1. Government v. Yesdemocratic opposition

2. Government v.Karen ethnic group

3. Government v.Mong Tai Army

4. Government v. otherethnic groups

Burundi Hutu v. Tutsi Yes

Cambodia Khmer Rouge v. rivalorganizations (KPNLF,FUNCINEC)

Chad 1. Government versusmilitary faction andMovement for theNational Salvation ofChad

2. Clan infighting

Yes(crushingdemocracyforces)

Yes(Karen, MongTai, otherethnicstruggles)

Yes

Yes Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

Yes(clan fighting)

(see key on p. 21)

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Table 3 (continued)


Colombia 1. Government v. M-19,FARC, EPLO, ELN, andsplinter groups

2. Guerrilla groupsfighting one another

El Salvador FMLN v. government

Ethiopia 1. Government versus YesEritrean People'sLiberation Movement

2. Government versusTigray People'sLiberation Front

3. Government versusother communalfactions

Collapseof empire Lack of(post- regime State1945) legitimacy weakness

Yes Yes

Communalhegemonism

Super-Aristocratic Revolutionary powerintransigence ideology proxy*

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

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Georgia

Guatemala

Haiti

India

Indonesia

Iraq

1. Abkhaz v. Georgians Yes Yes2. Ossetians v.Georgians

Government v. leftistguerrillas

Military government vs.Aristide supporters

1. Government v. Yes YesKashmiri separatists (Kashmir) (Kashmir)2. Hindu v. Muslim3. Government v.Assamese separatists(and Bengalis v.Assamese)

1. Aceh separatists v.government forces

1. Kurds (PUK, KDP) v. Yes**Sunni Arab government2. Shi'a v. Sunni Arabgovernment

Yes

Yes(Assam,Hindu-Muslimfighting)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

Yes

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Table 3 (continued)


Collapseof empire Lack of Super-(post- regime State Communal Aristocratic Revolutionary power1945) legitimacy weakness hegemonism intransigence ideology proxy*

Lebanon Sunnis, Shi'a, Druze, Yes Yes YesMaronite Christians,others against oneanother and themselves

Liberia Krahn, Gio, Mano, and Yes Yes Yesother tribes and theirassociated militias

Mozambique RENAMO vs Yes Yesgovernment (FRELIMO)

Pakistan 1. Violence among Yes Yespolitical parties, often (politicalethnically linked violence2. Ann-mobajir violence onty)

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Peru

Philippines

Romania

Russia

Rwanda

Sierra Leone

Government versusShining Path, TupacAmaru RevolutionaryMovement1. Government v. NPA2. Government v.Muslim groups (MNLF,MILF)

Armed forces/securityservices v. NationalSalvation Front andpopular backers

Russia v. Chechen Yesseparatists

1. Hutu v. Tutsi Yes2. interha/mMuxn v.Hutu moderates

Government versusRevolutionary UnitedFront forces

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes(Hutuv.Hutu)Yes Yes

Yes(v. Musigroups)

Yes

Yes(Hutuv.Tutsi)

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

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Table 3 (continued)

ConflictLocation Major Parties Involved

Collapseof empire Lack of(post- regime1945) legitimacy

Causes of the Conflict

Super-State Communal Aristocratic Revolutionary powerweakness hegemonism intransigence ideology proxy*

Somalia Clan-based politicalfighting (USC factions,SSDF, SPM)

South Africa 1. Apartheidgovernment versusANC, other anti-apartheid forces

2. ANC-Inkatha fighting

Sri Lanka 1. Government v. Tamilinsurgents (LTTE, etc.)2. Government v.Sinhalese radicals (JVP)

Yes Yes Yes

Yes

Yes

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Sudan Islamist, Arab Yes Yes Yesgovernment v. Christianand animist AfricanSPLA

Tajikistan Tajik "old guard" and Yes Yes YesUzbeks v.democratic/religiouscoalition (United TajikOpposition)

Turkey Govt. v. Kurds (PKK) YesUganda 1. Government v. Yes Yes

Uganda People's (Holy SpiritDemocratic Army Movement)2. Government v. HolySpirit Movement

Yemen Former North Yemen Yesv. forces of formerSouth Yemen

(see key on p. 21)

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Table 3 (continued)


Collapseof empire Lack of Super-(post- regime State Communal Aristocratic Revolutionary power1945) legitimacy weakness hegemonism intransigence ideology proxy*

Yugoslavia(andsuccessor

states)

Zaire

Total number

1. Croat governmentand militias v. Serbforces2. Serb paramilitaryforces v. Muslimmilitias and govt. forces3. Muslim governmentand militias v. Croatgovernment and militias

Government v. Kabila'smovement.

37

Yes

13

Yes

19

Yes

14

Yes

Yes

25 11

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* We consider a conflict to be caused by a superpower proxy struggle if the superpower intervention caused, widened, or sustained the civilwar in question.

** The Iraqi state in general was strong, but it hovered on the brink of collapse in 1991 after the Gulf War. This weakness encouragedseveral repressed minorities to rise up.

The causes identified above were major and active factors at the time of the outbreak of the latest round of fighting. As such, they played aimportant role in the concerns or motivations of the combatants. Determining the cause of a conflict is difficult and involves subjective judgments.Moreover, several of the causes we identify function concurrently, making it hard to decide which one was the most important. To avoid "doublecounting," we do not list "lack of regime legitimacy" as a cause when the lack occurs because an empire has collapsed, leaving illegitimate successorstates, or because hegemonistic communal groups or intransigent aristocrats hold power, alienating other groups. If these excluded cases were doublecounted as cases of "lack of regime legitimacy," that category would be much larger.

The list of major parties involved includes only the primary movements or groups involved in the fighting. Many, indeed perhaps most, conflictsinvolved a staggering array of small militias and factionsan array we often agglomerate into broad descriptive communal or political labels. Separategroups are noted if the country experienced multiple, largely unrelated conflicts or if the groups in question had highly different motivations or areeasily distinguishable. Thus Burma, where the government v. democratic opposition conflict is quite different in nature from the government'sstruggle against the Karen people, has multiple listings. Colombia's many guerrilla groups, while quite different in their particular agendas, all felt theregime was illegitimate, considered themselves revolutionary, and took advantage of state weakness to carry out their struggle. Thus we list them asone entry while noting the major groups. When a conflict cause applies to only one of the parties involved in the fighting, it is so noted in the table.The purpose of this list is to describe the current state of violence and to help the reader understand our coding of certain conflicts, not to provide acomprehensive account of the identity of the parties in each conflict.-)-

. Although the patterns in this table might be examined further by more sophisticated quantitative techniques, we have chosen not to do so given theambiguous nature of the data and the high degree of uncertainty regarding many of the conditions necessary for the various causes to function. SeeGary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative 'Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1994), 44, for an argument that quantitative indexes that do not relate closely to the events in question can actually increase measurement and causalinference problems.

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Total casualties, measured by counting total refugees. Counts of civil warsmeasure global civil violence imperfectly because great and small warsweigh the same in the measure. Estimates of total worldwide civil warcasualties would be a better measure, but casualty figures are unavailable orunreliable for most civil wars. Hence any measure of total worldwidecasualties is also unreliable.

Global casualties can be measured indirectly, however, by counting theglobal war refugee population. The refugee population is a useful surrogatemeasure of war casualtiespeople flee in rough proportion to the violencethey sufferand like our "number of states with wars" measure it indicatesthat the "new world disorder" is a myth. As Table 2 reveals, the globalrefugee population rose slightly after the end of the cold war, from 14.8million in 1989 to a peak of 18.2 million in 1993.11 Then the refugeepopulation fell back to 14.4 million in 1995, that is, roughly to late cold warlevels. Thus this refugee measure, like our "number of states with wars"measure and Wallensteen and Sollenberg's "number of wars" measure,indicates that the "new world disorder" was a spike phenomenon of theearly 1990s that quickly faded. Specifically, it suggests that violence in themid-1990s was above mid-1980s levels but slightly below the level of 1989.

Are the conflicts of the mid-1990s old or new? Of the thirty-seven warsduring the period 198996 listed in Table 1, twenty-six are "recurring orconstant," meaning that they easily span the cold war and postcold warperiods. The remaining eleven are "new" conflicts, meaning that they brokeout after the cold war ended and their causes are not rooted deeply in pre-1989 events in their countries. Five of these eleven new conflicts erupted inthe former Soviet and Yugoslav empires and reflect the war-causing effectsof imperial collapse.

11. Refugee flows are a crude measure of civil violence. One important measure ofrefugeesinternally displaced refugeesis not listed here though a more complete accountof refugee totals would include these individuals. Civil wars often generate massive refugeeflows within a country's borders, as individuals flee areas of fighting for relatively saferregions. Historic data on such flows, however, are incomplete and probably would bemisleading for comparison purposes, as flows in wealthier states that receive more mediaattention are more likely to be recorded. Moreover, refugees often remain in the country ofrefuge even after a civil war in their country of origin ends. Furthermore, many refugees fleefor economic reasons, not because of civil violence. Refugee flow data also may be biaseddue to changes in the policies of receiving states, which may take fewer refugees even thoughthe number of people wanting to flee remains unchanged. In general, however, there is ahigh correlation between internal wars, particularly ethnic conflicts, and refugee flows. SeeMyron Weiner, "Bad Neighbors, Bad Neighborhoods: An Inquiry into the Causes ofRefugee Flows," International Security 21, no. 1 (summer 1996): 5-42.

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Hypotheses on the Causes of Contemporary Deadly Conflict 2 3

Table 4

INTERSTATE AND INTRASTATE ARMED CONFLICT, 1989-95

Type of Conflict

IntrastateIntrastate withforeign intervention

InterstateAll armed conflict

1989

431

3

47

1990

44

2

3

49

1991

491

1

51

1992

522

1

55

1993

42

4

0

46

1994

42

0

0

42

199

34

0

1

35

Source. Wallensteen and Sollenberg, "The End of International War?" 354.

Where are recent civil wars occurring? Africa and Asia have had the most(thirteen states in Africa and eleven in Asia have experienced civil warssince 1989). Trailing are the Middle East (five states), the Westernhemisphere (five states), and Europe (three states).

What proportion of total warfare do these civil conflicts represent? Inrecent years, civil war has replaced international war as the dominant formof war and has nearly replaced it as the only form of war. Wallensteen andSollenberg report that purely intrastate wars outnumbered purely interstatewars worldwide by 43-3 in 1989, 44-3 in 1990, 49-1 in 1991, 52-1 in 1992,42-0 in 1993 and again in 1994, and 34-1 in 1995.12 Moreover, most ofthese few interstate wars were small affairs: the Persian Gulf war of 199091 has been the only major old-fashioned interstate war since 1989.

12 .Wallensteen and Sollenberg, "The End of International War?" 354. Wallensteen andSollenberg also classify several wars as "intrastate with foreign intervention" and count themas follows: one in 1989, two in 1990, one in 1991, two in 1992, four in 1993, and none in1994 and 1995 (ibid.). For other works noting the importance of internal conflict since theend of the cold war, see Ted Robert Gurr, "People Against States: Ethnopolitical Conflictand the Changing World System," International Studies Quarterly 38, no. 3 (September 1994):347-77; Stephen R. David, "Internal War: Causes and Cures," World Politics 49 0uly 1997):552-76; Ted Robert Gurr, Minorities at Risk: A. Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts(Washington: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1993); and S'laughter Among Neighbors: The PoliticalOrigins of Communal Violence, Human Rights Watch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).Good discussions of the interplay between international conflict and internal conflict can befound in Michael E. Brown, ed., Ethnic Conflict and International Security (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1993); Myron Weiner, The Global Migration Crisis: Challenge to States and toHuman Rights (New York: HarperCollins, 1995); Ted Robert Gurr and Barbara Harff, EthnicConflict in World Politics (Boulder: Westview, 1994); and Michael E. Brown, ed., TheInternational Dimensions of Internal Conflict (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996).

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This pattern continues a striking change in the nature of warfare thatbegan in the 1960s, a change revealed in data collected by Frank WhelonWayman, J. David Singer, and Meredith Sarkees and summarized in Table5. It reveals a sharp drop in the number of international wars beginning inthe 1980s and a sharp rise in civil warfare beginning in the 1960s, causing amarked rise in the proportion of all warfare worldwide that is civil innature. Some 60 percent of the 171 wars of the nineteenth century wereinternational. Some 51 percent of the 115 wars of 1900-60 wereinternational. The percent of wars that were international then plummets to36 percent in the 1960s, 26 percent in the 1970s, and 17 percent in the1980s. Only 10 percent of the conflicts in the 1990s were international. Thewar problem is now largely synonymous with the civil war problem.

CAUSES OF CONTEMPORARY CIVIL CONFLICT

CIVIL VIOLENCE has many causes, but several stand out in importance.This section examines seven common and potent causes that togetherexplain the bulk of civil conflict since 1989. These seven causes are notwholly exclusive or unrelated. Several overlap or cause each other in waysnoted below.

13 .The count of recent civil wars by Wayman, Singer, and Sarkees is lower than oursbecause they define civil war more restrictively than we do. See Frank Whelon Wayman, J.David Singer, and Meredith Sarkees, "Intra-State, and Extra-Systemic Wars, 1816-1995"(paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, San Diego,Calif., April 1996), Table 1, 10.

14. Scholarly work on the causes of civil conflict is vast. Recent works include RoyLicklider, "The Consequences of Negotiated Settlements in Civil Wars, 1945-1993,"American Political Science Review 89, no. 3 (September 1995): 681-90; Chaim Kaufmann,"Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars," International Security 20, no. 4(spring 1996): 136-75; Stuart J. Kaufman, "Spiraling to Ethnic War: Elites, Masses, andMoscow in Moldova's Civil War," International Security 21, no. 2 (fall 1996): 108-38; David A.Lake and Donald Rothchild, "Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of EthnicConflict," International Security 21, no. 2 (fall 1996): 41-75; Barry R. Posen, "The SecurityDilemma and Ethnic Conflict," in Brown, Ethnic Conflict and International Security, 103-24; andStephen Van Evera, "Hypotheses on Nationalism and War," International Security 18, no. 4(spring 1994): 5-39. Classic works of value on internal war include Donald Horowitz, EthnicGroups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Myron Weiner, Sons of theSoil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); and Robert H. Bates, "Modernization,Ethnic Competition, and the Rationality of Politics in Contemporary Africa" in State VersusEthnic Claims: African Policy Dilemmas, ed. D. Rothchild and V. Olorunsola (BoulderWestview, 1985).

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COLLAPSE OF EMPIRE

Much post-cold war violence has occurred in the successor states offormer empires, especially the Soviet and Yugoslav empires.15 The reasonlies in the powerful war-causing effects of imperial collapse. Before the endof the cold war, the collapse of the British, French, Portuguese, and othercolonial empires caused many conflicts in Asia and Africa, including someconflicts that continued into the 1980s and 1990s. Imperial collapses alsoaccount for a large share of recently erupting deadly conflicts. Specifically,wars caused by the 1991 collapse of the Soviet and Yugoslav empiresexplain much of the "spike" in conflict observed in 1992 and 1993.16

The collapse of an empire can cause conflict in five ways. (1) Thegovernments that emerge in the successor states often lack legitimacy,hence suffering the neuroses of illegitimate regimes. (2) The successorstates' governments, even if legitimate, are often too weak to deter citizensfrom violence or to reassure them that they need not use violence in self-defense. (3) Successor states often have artificial borders that are unrelatedto local demography and are unsetded by formal agreement; this generatesborder quarrels. (4) The populations of successor states are oftencomprised of hostile groups who intermingled during imperial times. Theirproximity breeds mutual fear, hostility, and violence. (5) The rights andduties of major powers in the zone of imperial collapse are often undefined.As a result the former metropole and other outside powers often collide asthey contend for power in the zone of imperial retraction. The metropoleinterferes to recover lost influence; outside powers interfere to preventdisorder or to expand their influence. These causes are detailed below.

Illegitimate governments. Many of the successor governments that emergedafter the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Yugoslavia had littlelegitimacy. This lack of legitimacy encouraged a violent scramble for poweramong leaders and interest groups and encouraged minorities to resistincorporation into die successor state.

During the days of empire, local leaders depended on ties to themetropole, not local communities, for their power and authority. When theempires collapsed, these leaders suddenly found themselves governingwithout institutions or a popular mandate, under challenge from rival elites.

15. For a complete treatment of the relationship between the collapse of empire and theoutbreak of war, see Ladinsky, "After the Fall."

16. Thus Kim Holmes notes that "we have witnessed the collapse of the world's greatestland empire. As with the demise of other great empires in historywhether they be Spanish,French, Turkish, Austro-Hungarian, Germany, or Britishwar is the fruit of disorder"(Holmes, "The New World Disorder").

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In Tajikistan, for example, Rakhmon Nabiyev and associated apparatchiksessentially stumbled into power after his predecessor left due to popularprotests following the failed coup in Moscow. To stay in power, Nabiyevplayed up nationalism, armed selected followers, suppressed opposition,and otherwise strove to find substitutes for his regime's lack of legitimacy.These substitutes failed to satisfy many residents. Democrats, Islamists, andrival communal groups all rejected Nabiyev's bona fides and took up armsto oust his government.

This lack of legitimacy invites rebellion by minorities in the new states.Minorities that accepted a subordinate status in a large, multiethnic empireoften reject a minority status when an empire's collapse empowers anethnic rival. In Georgia, for example, Georgian nationalists led by ZviadGamsakhurdia took power as the Soviet Union collapsed, with widespreadsupport among ethnic Georgians. Two large minority communities inGeorgia, however, that had apparently accepted their minority status in theSoviet Unionthe Abkhaz and the Ossetianstook up arms to preventtheir incorporation into the Georgian-dominated state. Similarly,Moldova's nationalist movement alarmed residents in the Transdniesteriaregion, which is 60 percent ethnic Russian and Ukrainian. TheseTransdniestrian Russians and Ukrainians proclaimed the TransdniesterianMoldovan Soviet Socialist Republic and tried to remain attached to theSoviet Union. Only the dispatch of Soviet troops prevented massiveviolence.20 The Chechens in Russia and the Armenians in Azerbaijan alsoresisted incorporation into a new state dominated by what they fearedwould be their community's persecutors. In all these cases, minorities in amultiethnic empire sought their own state after the empire collapsed in partbecause they rejected the legitimacy of the successor government. (For a

17. Due to this illegitimacy problem, some parts of the Soviet empire resisted the empire'scollapse.

18. See Barnett Rubin, "The Fragmentation of Tajikistan," Survival 35, no. 4 (winter 1993-1994): 71-91; and "Tajikistan: Islam wins," Economist, 21 October 1992, 32.

19. For an analysis of minority tension in the Georgian quest for independence, seeDarrell Slider, "The Politics of Georgia's Independence," Problems of Communism 40, no. 6(November 1991): 63-79.

20. V. Solnar, "Hatred and fear on both banks of the Dniester," New Times International,no. 14 (April 1992): 8-9; and William Crowther, "Moldova after Independence," CurrentHistory 93, no. 585 (October 1994): 342-47. The Gagauzi, a Turkic-speaking, OrthodoxChristian people from Bulgaria, also resisted incorporation into the new state and proclaimedtheir independence.

21. See Mark Saroyan, "The 'Karabakh Syndrome' and Azerbaijani Politics," Problems ofCommunism 39, no. 5 (September 1990): 14-29, for information on the origins of the conflictin Azerbaijan. For background on the conflict in Chechnya, see Christopher Panico, Conflictsin the Caucasus: Russia's War in Chechnya, Conflict Studies no. 281 (Research Institute for theStudy of Conflict and Terrorism, 1995).

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more detailed discussion of the problems that illegitimate governmentsface, see "Loss of Legitimacy" below.)

Weak governments. Even legitimate successor governments often emergefrom collapsed empires in a frail condition. State security services and themilitary must often be purged, reformed, or created out of whole cloth.Frequently, the successor state relied on subsidies from the metropole andnow must do without. Thus, successor regimes often lack the resources todeter, suppress, or buy off dissent. Tajikistan, for example, becameindependent without a clear national identity, a strong economic base, ornational security forces.22 It quickly collapsed into civil war.

Successor governments also may have little control over governmentinstitutions. In Georgia, the nationalist successor governments often lackedcontrol of the military and other institutions. Tengis Kitovani, whocontrolled the Georgian National Guard, deployed troops to the capital ofAbkhazia and shelled the capital of South Ossetia, despite GeorgianPresident Shevardnadze's desire for peace talks. Similarly, paramilitaryleaders in Georgia often controlled the supply of food, fuel, and othernecessities. (We examine government weakness as a source of conflict ingreater detail in the section "Weak States" below.)

Artificial borders. Successor states often inherit artificial borders thatcorrespond poorly to natural boundaries or to local demography and havenot been settled by agreements with neighbors. These borders often followadministrative boundaries that were imposed by the metropole withoutregard for local feelings. As a result these borders bisect national groupsand create ethnic-minority enclaves. Thus, the European powerspartitioned Africa at the 1878 Congress of Berlin with little regard for theunity of African peoples, drawing lines that seldom followed geographic orcommunal boundaries.2 Later, Stalin drew borders that split the Turkic andMuslim peoples of the Soviet Empire into different administrative units inorder to weaken their political strength.

Cursed with such borders, several successor states to the Soviet andYugoslav empires have fought bloody wars to resolve questions raised by

22. See Rubin, "The Fragmentation of Tajikistan," 75-78.23. For an assessment of these divisions on conflict in Georgia, see "Georgia: Unholy

Trinity," New Statesman and Society 5, no. 219, 11 September 1992, 19-20; and "Georgia:Tearing Apart," Economist, 3 October 1992, 55.

24. At the conference, German chancellor Otto von Bismarck "continually warned therepresentatives of the Great Powers that their principal business was to reach a settlementamong themselves and not to worry unduly about the happiness of lesser breeds without thelaw" (Gordon A. Craig, Germany: 1866-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978],112). For more on the European role in the creation of borders in Africa, see ThomasPakenham, The Scramble for Africa (New York: Avon, 1991).

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maldesigned boundaries. The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict stemmed fromArmenian demands that Nagorno-Karabakhan Armenian enclave withinAzerbaijanbe transferred to Armenia. The Serb-Croat-Muslim war of199195 likewise stemmed from arbitrary borders that bisected the Serbianand Croat nations, leaving each with large diasporas living as minoritiesoutside the national state. Each then fought to recover its diaspora.

Intermingled populations. Empires foster national intermingling that canplague the politics of their successor states. During the imperial era,individuals can more easily move about within the empire, causingintermingling. Moreover, some empires deliberately intermingle theempire's national groups by inducing or compelling cross-migration amonggroups. As a result, the empire's successor states may have populationscomposed of mutually antagonistic peoples. Stalin's forced marches ofmillions of subjects are the most famous example of such enforcedintermingling, and they sowed the seeds of current conflict. The recentconflict in Chechnya, for example, stems from Stalin's 1944 deportation ofthe Chechens. Moscow allowed these Chechens to return to Chechnya in1956, but on returning they met a hostile welcome from new, largelyRussian setders, who had been encouraged by Moscow to migrate there.This settler-native tension fueled Chechen nationalism and secessionism.

Intermingling causes conflict by shoving antagonistic groups togetherand by producing an ethnic security dilemma between diem (mat is, asituation where the security of two groups is mutually incompatible, andeach group's efforts to secure itself reduce the other's security). Hostileintermingled groups each must fear that the other may turn on them at anopportune moment, leading each to think in turn that it should strike at atime of its own advantage. Such thinking played a major role in fuelingSerbia's attacks on the Croatians and Bosnians in 199192 and inmotivating Armenia's war against Azerbaijan.

Metropole interference. Former metropoles often intervene in dieir formerempire, sometimes triggering new colonial wars. The metropole may beanimated by perceptions of a security threat, by claims to a sphere ofinfluence, or by the need to protect or recover diaspora populations in theperiphery. Moscow today, for example, claims the right to intervene in

25. "Azerbaijan," Europa World Book 1994 (London: Europa Publications Limited, 1993),438-40.

26. For works noting the importance of the security dilemma, see Posen, "The SecurityDilemma and Ethnic Conflict"; James Fearon, "Rationalist Explanations for War,"International Organization 49, no. 3 (summer 1995); Kaufmann, "Possible and ImpossibleSolutions to Ethnic Civil Wars"; and Barbara F. Walter, "The Resolution of Civil Wars: WhyNegotiations Fail" (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1994).

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parts of its former empire to protect Russian citizens. Many Russiannationalists also assert that this area remains their sphere of influence, andsome Russians fear the possibility of former republics allying with outsidepowers. Such thinking led Russia to intervene in conflicts in Moldova,Georgia, and Tajikistan. In Moldova, Russian intervention probablyreduced civil violence, but in Tajikistan it probably fed a bloody civil war.In Georgia its effects were mixed, sometimes fueling violence byencouraging Abkhaz separatism, yet intervening in the end to help enforcea cease-fire after Schevardnadze agreed to join the Commonwealth ofIndependent States.

External intervention. Outside powers intervene in collapsed empires forthree reasons. First, these powers often see the successor states of acollapsed empire as easy prey for their imperial ambitions. After thecollapse of the Ottoman Empire, for example, Britain quickly abandonedwartime promises to Middle Eastern leaders and divided much of theOttoman lands with France.29 Similarly, the European powers often clashedover the Balkansmost notably in 1914after the Balkan states escapedOttoman rule. In 1975 Indonesia seized East Timor after the Portuguesewithdrawal, triggering a bloody neocolonial war.

Second, outside powers may intervene to avert threats that the imperialcollapse creates. Thus, after Portugal abandoned its empire, South Africafought bloody interventionary wars in Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique,largely because it feared that the new black-ruled governments wouldsupport South Africa's antiapartheid resistance.

Finally, outside powers may intervene to protect embattled co-ethnics inthe former empire. Thus, ethnic Tajiks in Afghanistan have lately providedarms and a haven for Islamic rebels in Tajikistan, while Uzbekistan hasbolstered the Tajik government for fear that any alternative regime wouldoppress ethnic Uzbeks living in Tajikistan. Mozambique supported blackliberation forces waging war against the white minority regime in Rhodesiaduring the 1970s. This spurred Rhodesia to create the Renamo insurgencythat spread death and destruction in Mozambique into the 1990s.

27. Bruce D. Porter, "A Country Instead of a Cause: Russian Foreign Policy in the Post-Soviet Era," in Order and Disorder after the Cold War, ed. Brad Roberts (Cambridge: MIT Press,1995), 7-8.

28. Although accurate information is scarce, it appears that local Russian forcesperhapswith encouragement from Moscowaided Ossetian and Abkhaz separatists in their struggleagainst Georgian forces.

29. A good account of this process is David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall ofthe Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (New York: Avon, 1990).

30. See Rubin, "The Fragmentation of Tajikistan."

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Table 5

CIVIL AND INTERNATIONAL WARS, 1816-1995: WARS INITIATED PER DECADE

Decade

1816-19

1820-29

1830-39

1840-49

1850-591860-69

1870-79

1880-89

1890-99

19th Ctotal

1900-1909

1910-19

1920-29

1930-39

1940-49

1950-59

1960-69

1970-79

1980-89

Inter-statewar

0

2

0

4

5

8

4

3

4

30

2

8

3

3

6

7

4

Extra-systemic(largelycolonial) Subtotalinter- for inter-national nationalwar

2

6

57

9

510

12

16

72

4

6

6

2

5

6

3

2

0

war

(2)(8)(5)

(11)(14)(13)(14)(15)(20)

(102)

Intra-statewar

1

7

10

9

7

15

8

3

9

69

Grandtotal

3

15

15

20

21

28

22

18

29

171

Percentof allwars

that areinter-national

67

53

33

55

67

46

64

83

69

60

(10)(14)

(8)(10)

(8)(9)(9)(9)(4)

7

10

12

8

9t

10

16

25

19

17

24

20

18

17

19

25

34

23

59

58

40

56

47

47

36

26

17

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1990-95 2 0 (2) 19 21 10

20th Ctotal 49 34 (83) 135 218 38

Grandtotal 79 106 (185) 204 389 48

Source: Frank Whelon Wayman, J. David Singer, and Meredith Sarkees, "Inter-State, Intra-State, and Extra-Systemic Wars 1816-1995" (paper presented at the annual meeting of theInternational Studies Association, San Diego, Calif., April 1996), Table 1, p. 10.

LOSS OF LEGITIMACY

Much of today's violence occurs in states whose governments havesomehow lost their legitimacy. ' This section discusses how legitimacy islost and why such losses cause civil conflict.

Causes of Legitimacy LossFour factors are frequent sources of lost legitimacy in states recently at war:the discrediting of the Soviet model; poor economic performance; a lack ofregime accountability (which gives rise in turn to incompetent and corruptgovernance); and the rise of a restive new middle class that seeks a greaterpolitical power. Each of these underlying factors, alone or in conjunctionwith others, can discredit a regime and lead to civil violence.

The discrediting of the Soviet model. When the Berlin Wall fell, regimes thatrelied on the Soviet Union as a model for their economies and politicssuffered a blow to their legitimacy. Indeed, throughout the Third World thecollapse of Communism discredited authoritarian regimes of all stripes,33for example, many regimes in sub-Saharan Africa, and also those in Algeria

31. An illegitimate regime is one broadly believed by the public to have lost its right torule because of its perceived failure to provide for the common good.

32. Defeat in a war can also cause a government to lose its legitimacy. The dearth ofinternational war in the post-cold war period, however, has reduced the importance of thiscause of regime legitimacy loss.

33. Peter W. Rodman, More Precious Than Peace (New York: Scribner's, 1994), 532-33.Rodman notes that Syria's dictator Hafez al-Asad was equated with Romanian dictatorNicolae Ceaucsescu and East Germany's Erich Honecker. Similarly, the collapse of EasternEuropean regimes strengthened African democratic forces and disheartened Africa'sautocrats. See Copson, Africa's Wars in the 1990s, 167. For information on the impact of thespread of the liberal democratic model, see Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave:Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).

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and the former South Yemen, which relied heavily on the state-led34

economy and society.Poor economic performance. Regimes that preside over stagnating or declining

economies may lose legitimacy. Poor economic performance directlygenerates popular unhappiness. Remedies to poor performance can also stirpublic opposition if they require bitter medicine, such as trimminggovernment subsidies and payrolls. Such measures further decrease aregime's legitimacy.

A lack of regime accountability. Regimes that are not accountable to theirpopulations have less incentive to serve their publics well, so they servethem poorly. Incompetence and corruption are their hallmarks.3 Theyoften cannot be removed peacefully, moreover, compelling their opponentsto resort to force.

The rise of a middle class and resulting demands to democratize. Industrializationand the spread of literacy are potent causes of democracy. The literatemiddle classes that these processes create nearly always demand politicalpluralizationa reality reflected in the close correlation worldwide betweenlevels of democratization and the size of literate middle classes.37 Theemergence of educated middle classes in authoritarian states is thereforeregime-delegitimating: it brings on the scene middle-class voices that willreject the authoritarian old political order.

Response to Legitimacy Loss

The loss of legitimacy is the underlying cause of conflict, but the conflict'sproximate causes are the regime's responses to this loss of legitimacy.Regimes losing their legitimacy often choose between two responses:

34. George Joffe, "YemenThe Reasons for Conflict," Jane's Intelligence Review (August1994): 369; John P. Entelis, "The Crisis of Authoritarianism in North Africa: The Case ofAlgeria," Problems of Communism 41, no. 3 (May 1992): 71-82.

35. Corruption often comes with a lack of accountability. In Pakistan and the Philippines,for example, widespread corruption has discredited governments and led to the growth ofopposition movements. Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos stole with such abandon thathe became one of Asia's most wealthy men before he was ousted in 1986. In 1996Transparency International ranked Pakistan the second most corrupt country in the worldafter Nigeria. New York Times, 28 November 1996, C1.

36. In short, regime accountability often determines whether "voice" is expressed inballots or bullets. The definitive description of this tradeoff remains Albert O. Hirschman'sExit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organisations, and States (1970; Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1981).

37. Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1971), 62-80; Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics, exp. ed.(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 27-63.

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democratizing in an attempt to gain broader support and hunkering downin order to weather any disgruntlement. 8

By democratizing, regimes can increase government accountability andpopular participation and thus dampen dissent. Democratization, however,can also raise the risk of civil war. A large political science literature hasshown that democracy causes peace among mature democracies.Democracy, however, is a Janus-faced phenomenon: democratization isalso a potent cause of civil conflict in multiethnic authoritarian states.Democratic institutions are often poor vehicles for organizing the equaldivision of power and privilege among hostile ethnic groups. Hence loser-groups are often even more dissatisfied under democracy than they wereunder the previous authoritarian regime. Democratic freedoms (of speech,press, assembly, etc.) also give political space to determined secessionistgroups, allowing them more room to organize for war. Hencedemocratization can unleash communal conflicts that lay dormant underprevious authoritarian regimes.

The alternative to democratization is hunkering down: relyingincreasingly on one edinic, tribal, or religious group or one sector ofsociety, such as the military or members of wealthier social classes.Hunkering down, in the short term, can allow a regime to weather a crisisas it can count on the loyalty of key elites. In the long term, however,hunkering down can provoke greater popular discontent with the regime.

Democratization

Democratization offers four paths to civil war. Incumbent authoritarianelites may crush emerging democratic forces because they fear that the firstdemocratic victors will exploit state power to impose a new dictatorship)what has been called "one person one vote once." Minorities may fightbecause they fear that majority rule would install in power a permanentelected majority that allows the minority no voice in decision making. Afterdemocratic transitions, victorious groups may fight over the division ofspoils. Finally, democratization may empower hardened secessionists whoexploit democratic freedoms to organize secessionist rebellion. Severalrecent conflicts, including those in .Algeria, Azerbaijan-Armenia, Chechnya,Georgia, India (Kashmir), Pakistan, South Africa, Tajikistan, and the united

38. Regime responses to legitimacy loss are not limited to democratizing and hunkeringdown. Regimes at time promote economic reform to recover their legitimacy. Other,bloodier, alternatives include provoking an international conflict and blaming problems onminorities or other scapegoats at home.

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Yemen, stemmed in part from attempts at democratization and followedone of these paths from democratization to war.

The Algerian case suggests a general lesson noted by Adam Przeworski,who argues that a necessary condition of successful democratization is therealistic expectation that relinquishing power now will not require doing sofor ever. In Algeria the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) elites refusedto concede a lost election in 1993 in part from fear that the Islamistwinners would impose a dictatorship once in power. This led the FLN tohunker down instead of accepting the results of democratization.

In Georgia, democratization produced war by causing minority fears ofmajority tyranny.40 As noted above, the minority Abkhaz feared that theirdistinct cultures would be overrun by a power-monopolizing Georgianmajority. Hence they opted for violent resistance when Georgiannationalists appeared poised to win elections. The experiences of Sri Lankaand Northern Ireland teach the same lesson. In Sri Lanka, the majoritySinhalese long monopolized power at the expense of the minority Tamils,provoking the bloody Tiger rebellion.41 In Northern Ireland, the Protestantmajority monopolized power at the expense of the Catholic minority during192269, provoking violent Catholic nationalism.

The victors of democratization can also quarrel over the spoils. SouthAfrica's transition to democracy led to increased tension between Inkathaand the ANC over the division of power within the victorious African

39. Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1991), 26-34. The fear of the FLN was not without some merit. For discussions of whyAlgeria's leaders were reluctant to surrender power and doubted the good faith of theIslamists, see "Shooting or voting for Islam," Economist, 28 August 1993, 39; and ClaireSpencer, "Algeria in Crisis," Survival 36, no. 2 (summer 1994): 149-63. For an overview onthe general question of the tension between democratic ideals and Islamic movements, seeJohn L. Esposito and John O. Voll, Islam and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press,1996). The authors discuss Algeria on pages 151-72.

40. Discussion of majority tyranny traces back to James Madison, "The Same SubjectContinued..." (Federalist no. 10), The Federalist Papers, intro. Clinton Rossiter (New York:New American Library, 1961), 77-84. Madison discusses the risks that arise when "a majorityis included in a faction" (80) and the dangers of tyranny by "the superior force of aninterested and overbearing majority" (77). Discussing remedies are Arend Lijphart, "ThePower-Sharing Approach," in Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies ed. Joseph V.Montville (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1990), 491-509; Kenneth D. McRae,"Theories of Power-Sharing and Conflict Management," in Montville, Conflict andPeacemaking, 93-106; Jurg Steiner, "Power-Sharing: Another Swiss 'Export Product?" inMontville, Conflict and Peacemaking, 107-14; and Timothy D. Sisk, Power Sharing and InternationalMediation in Ethnic Conflicts (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1996), 34-45,58-63.

41. An account is Brogan, Fighting Never Stopped, 221-34.

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community. In Yemen, the former southern leaders felt cheated out of theirshare of power after elections there.

The Chechen experience illustrates the risk that hardened groups willexploit democratic freedoms to promote separatism. After sufferingrepeated cruelties by Russian rulers, many Chechens want no part of theRussian state, regardless of its government type or its respect for minorityrights. When given the right to assemble and speak freely, they found aconsensus on rejecting any ties to Moscowa position that triggered abrutal Russian crackdown in which tens of thousands of Chechens andRussians died.

Hunkering Down

Instead of democratizing, some regimes respond to pressure to pluralize by"hunkering down"relying on a narrower base of support to stay inpower. Such a move, however, can provoke further dissent and violence.The very problems that provoke a legitimacy crisis in the first placecorruption, a lack of accountability, demands for a say in decision making,etc.are exacerbated by the hunkering-down process. Thus, even thoughin the short term a regime may survive a challenge, in die long term diescope and scale of dissent is likely to grow.

Hunkering-down behavior fueled many current disputes, including bodithose that began before and after the end of die cold war. In Rwanda andBurundi, for example, regimes have relied increasingly on edinic kinsmenwith no pretense of including others. Similarly, regimes in Burma, Chad, ElSalvador, Ediiopia, Guatemala, Iraq, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Pakistan, thePhilippines, Somalia, Uganda, and Zaire have relied more and more on oneparticular ethnic, religious, or tribal group or one sector of society, usually

42. Joffee, "YemenThe Reasons for Conflict," 370-71.43. The road to democracy contains other potential perils. In their work discussing the

relationship between democratization and interstate war, Mansfield and Snyder note that theinitial stage of democratization is extremely dangerous for several reasons. First, threatenedelites from the autocratic regime often use chauvinistic rhetoric as they compete for alliesamong the populace. Second, social groups that might be losers in a mature democracy oftenmanipulate information and otherwise distort the democratic process. Third, a lack of stronginstitutionsthe checks and balances that places power in the hands of a responsible, well-informed votercan further increase the chances of war. All these reasons whydemocratization can cause interstate war apply to internal conflict as well. Elites' chauvinisticrhetoric can be targeted at ethnic minorities, particularly if they are traditional enemies, aswell as other countries. Beleaguered social groups often manipulate information anddemonize their opponents, making power-sharing extremely difficult. The lack of stronginstitutions can allow a small number of individuals to take the steps necessary to bring aboutinternal war. Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, "Democratization and the Danger ofWar," International Security 20, no. 1 (summer 1995): 5-38.

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the military, to govern after challenges to their legitimacy arose. Thisreliance has created a self-sustaining cycle: as dissent increases, regimes fallback more and more on "trusted" individuals from the same communalgroup or sector; this reliance in turn increase resentment among theexcluded groups and engendered charges of corruption and favoritism.

The "Reform Trap"Hunkering down often follows democratization when regimes face alegitimacy challenge. Efforts to democratize lead to a growing governabilitycrisis, which in turn leads the regime to hunker down and abort itsdemocratization experiment. This "reform trap" generates further dissentand leads to civil war.

The democratization process and subsequent hunkering down oftenshare the same cause: a regime attempting to stay in power while gainingpopular support for painful reforms. Algeria, for example, began itsdemocratization process after food riots in 1988, and Sierra Leone allowedelections after it adopted unpopular economic reforms under IMFpressure. The pain engendered by the economic reform process, however,often leads the regime to lose the elections, causing it to hunker down inorder to stay in power.45

The "reform trap" is a common factor in civil wars throughout the worldtoday. Algeria, Burma, Pakistan, Somalia, and Tajikistan all initiatedhesitant democratization and then, when the results were not to the likingof the regime or a powerful group, chose instead to hunker down andignore the elections. Algeria's experience illustrates the reform trap neatly.In 1989 the ruling FLN leaders authorized elections in order to reach out toa hostile society disgruntled by regime corruption, a lack of accountability,

44. On Sierra Leone, see Christopher Clapham "Recent History," Europa World BookAfrica 1995 (London: Europa Publications Limited, 1994), 803-7.

45. Angola's recent return to violence in 1992 illustrates the other side of this coin. ThereUNITA, the leading opposition group, expected to defeat the government in elections andreturned to violence when it lost. For articles that note Savimbi's reluctance to accept theobvious verdict of the polls, see Alex Vines, Angola and Mozambique: Aftermath of Conflict,Conflict Studies 280 (Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism, 1995); andAndrew Meldrum, "Lessons from Angola," Africa Report 38, no. 1 Qanuary-February 1993):22-24.

46. Such a tension is common in collapsed empires. As noted above, the governments ofthe successor states often lack legitimacy and thus face the choice of democratizing to try togain popular support or hunkering down if they fear popular rejection. Furthermore, manyformer empires, including both the Yugoslav and the Soviet Empire, often contain hostileminorities. Thus, the polarization that makes democratization extremely difficult often ispresent.

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and economic stagnation. Reformers within the FLN hoped to use electionsto regain popular support and to acquire a mandate to carry out difficulteconomic changes. Not surprisingly, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) wonthe elections, much to the horror of the FLN. The FLN then decided to"hunker down." It nullified the elections and tried to disband the FIS.Bloody civil war soon followed as the FIS resisted these measures.

WEAK STATES

Weakness in the capacities of states has been an important cause of currentcivil violence. Defeat in war, loosened central control over economicactivity, and other factors that lessen a state's strength can spark civilviolence. Recently, states have been weakened by the end of the cold war,which ended superpower aid to client Third World regimes, and by thespread of powerful small armaments. The weakening of the state increasedthe incidence of civil war in two ways: it decreased the state's coercivepower, and reduced its ability to co-opt opponents and rival groups.

A decrease in a state's coercive ability fosters civil conflict in two ways.First, if the state is weak, restive ethnic groups or other threats to peace areno longer reassured or deterred from organizing. Predatory groups plot warbecause they are less deterred by fear of state repression. This alarms othergroups who then mobilrze for war in self-defense, taking security into theirown hands because they no longer trust the central state to provide it. Thusas the weakness of the state in Lebanon became apparent in the early1970s, various communal groups began forming militias for self-defense.The second, related, impact of decreased state coercive ability is an inabilityto defeat groups committed to violence. Even unpopular regimes canstamp out potentially violent opposition when they have enough resourcesto overwhelm the insurgents directly, arrest their leaders, or otherwise

47. A weak state is one that lacks financial, military, and institutional resources toimplement its policies. For works that note the importance of the strength of the state, seePeter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringing the State Back In(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Charles Tilly, ed., The Formation of NationStates in Western Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975); and Joel S. Migdal,Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).

48. One traditionally important cause of government weakness is defeat in aninternational war. In the post-cold war period, however, only the Iraqi case fits thispatternan unsurprising development given the overall dearth of international conflict inthis period. The Second World War era conflicts in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, and Greece,however, are examples of how an international conflict can weaken (or remove) stategovernments, thus catalyzing groups for civil conflict.

49. Dilip Hiro, Lebanon: Fire and Embers (New York: St. Martin's, 1992), 12.

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interfere with group organization before the violence becomes widespread.When the state weakens, however, insurgencies become more difficult todefeat. In Iraq, for example, Shi'a Muslim organizations had long opposedthe Ba'athist regime, but it was only after the near collapse of SaddamHussein's government following Operation Desert Storm that they gainedwidespread support and almost toppled the government.50

Weakened states also have fewer resources with which to buy offopposition.51 Somalia's economy collapsed in the 1980s as income fromremittances fell and the regime's appalling human rights record led to adecrease in international aid.52 Hence, Siad Barre's government lost itsability to play off various clans by dangling aid in front of them. As a result,he was forced to consider elections, and the country soon unraveled.

Cold war factors. During the cold war both superpowers bolstered frailThird World client regimes with arms, military training, money, and attimes troops. This aid lost its rationale as the cold war faded, hence thesuperpowers sharply reduced their largesse. This caused a marked decline inthe strength of the superpowers' client regimes.53 Between 1981 and 1984,the United States gave or sold $800 million (in current dollars) in arms toAfrica, while the Soviet Union delivered $11.1 billion. This patterncontinued from 1985 to 1988, widi Moscow sending over $13.5 billion inarms and Washington sending $900 million. Deliveries plummeted after thecold war ended. Between 1992 and 1994, the United States delivered $395million in arms to Africa, while Russia sent $610 million worth of arms.54

If Western aid was given, it was now often conditioned on democratic ormarket reforms. This reform pressure, in turn, often precipitated

50. For a discussion of the impact of the Gulf War on Iraqi Shi'a, see Yitzhak Nakash, TheShi'is of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 273-81. For a detailed analysis ofpolitical Shi'ism in Iraq, see Joyce N. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi'as (BoulderLynne Rienner, 1992).

51. If governments can win elites to their side and prevent them from encouragingconflict, fighting may be mitigated despite widespread hostility on the part of the populationat large. Robert Dahl notes the importance of political activists in the stability

Why They Fight Hypotheses on the Causes of Contemporary Deadly Conflict

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