Successful or Failed Rebellion? The Casamance Conflict from a Framing Perspective

Empirical evidence and theoretical work suggest that conflicts over self-determination are particularly likely to escalate into very violent and protracted civil wars. However, the intensity of the secessionist conflict in Casamance, Senegal, remained low. As prevailing theories on armed conflicts fail to explain the limited escalation in Casamance, this article resorts to framing theory. Framing helps to include a micro-approach towards conflict studies in order to overcome deficits of macro-approaches. It reveals how movements interpret and construct their environment in order to mobilise potential followers to participate in their activities with the help of strategic communication. However, framing only leads to collective action, if it effectively resonates with the population addressed. The article shows that the movement's framing successfully initiated rebellion in Casamance, but did not broadly resonate with the population, which accounts for the limited intensity of violence.     

Theory,Method, and the Mechanism of Framing: Reflections on the Syrian Civil War and Palestinian Intifada

This article bridges two literatures: research on social movements, in which framing is widely recognized as an important causal mechanism; and research in civil wars and insurgencies, which tends to deemphasize cultural-interpretative factors such as framing. We argue that it is important that insights of framing be applied to insurgencies because there is a fundamental framing action that often occurs. We have in mind civil wars in which oppositional activists, who previously had pursued nonviolent tactics, apply a prognostic frame of ‘what to do’ that specifies armed conflict. Drawing on methodologies of subject–verb–object grammars used to analyze political texts, this article elaborates a comprehensive approach to framing that involves not only shifts in the < verb>, or specifications of ‘what to do’, but also shifts in a < subject>, or definitions of ‘who we are’, and in an < object>, or the targets of ‘who the enemy is’. We use organizational texts from the first Palestinian Intifada to demonstrate the approach. We also consider frame shifts in the Syrian civil war, inferring the grammatical structures of the frame transformations for secularists and radical Islamists from events leading up to the outbreak of sustained violence. This article proposes that a three-part grammatical approach captures the interrelated elements of a full and robust framing mechanism that is generalizable. It represents an advance over framing perspectives that typically isolate identity and target components from action prognoses, therefore missing the synchronization among the three, and how limits and/or opportunities for one shape the definition of the others.     

Resource rents,institutions, and violent civil conflicts

Natural resources have been blamed for inducing slow growth and sparking civil conflicts and violence. This paper first develops a model to account for the hazard of armed civil conflicts as a manifestation of the natural resource curse, which is mediated by the quality of both economic and political institutions. We then use recently published data on institutional quality and natural resource rents to measure the potential impact of the resource curse on violent civil conflicts using a panel of data for over 100 countries in the period 1970–2010. Our model explicitly accounts for the role of good economic and political institutions in deterring the recourse to violence as well as the extent to which they might weaken the resource rents effect.     

Growth recovery after civil conflict: a fractional integration approach

Using recent econometric techniques based on fractional integration, we find that developing countries recover their economic growth faster than developed countries in response to a shock. Following this methodology, we find that longer civil conflicts are associated with a faster recovery process. We further investigate this issue by exploring correlations with components of GDP, military spending, institutions and aid and find heterogeneous effects of these channels by duration of conflict. Higher government spending is correlated with faster recoveries post longer conflicts, and higher consumption spending is linked to faster recoveries following shorter conflicts. Military spending appears to be driving the government expenditure that makes countries recover from longer conflicts. More democratic institutions are associated with faster recoveries post short wars but slower recoveries following long wars.     

Militias and the Politics of Legitimacy

Abstract

Militias and rebels depart from different angles when it comes to the politics of legitimacy. While rebels have to address the issue of legitimacy early on in order to gain popular support, militias can rely on some kind of ‘borrowed legitimacy’. Based on this observation, the paper introduces militias as special form of organised violence visible in many civil wars and fragile states as well as elaborates on the politics of legitimacy typical for militias. By distinguishing different forms of militia violence (counter-insurgency, counter-rival and counter-crime), the articles shows how militias respond to major challenges in legitimizing violent actions.     

The social structure of armed groups. Reproduction and change during and after conflict

Current research on civil wars and conflict increasingly turns to the inner structure and functioning of state and non-state armed groups and their impact on aspects such as violent practice, internal cohesion and the dissolution of these groups during the conversion to peace. The first aim of this introduction is to set out the theme of this Special Issue on the social structure of armed groups and previous research within the field. The second aim is to introduce the contributions within the Special Issue, alongside possible trajectories of future research on the ‘meso-foundations’ of civil war and conflict.     

Praying for Rain? Water Scarcity and the Duration and Outcomes of Civil Wars

Recent anecdotal evidence from the civil wars in Somalia and Yemen suggest that water scarcity may shape the dynamics of civil wars. While a considerable body of research has examined the connection between water scarcity (such as low rainfall) and the onset of civil war, very little research has examined how water scarcity may shape the duration and outcomes of civil wars. Looking specifically at rainfall, this paper argues that changes in access to water play a key role in the duration of civil wars. As rainfall declines, there is a reduction in resources available to both the government and the rebel group, leading to a stalemate in fighting. Furthermore, this paper argues that declines in rainfall are felt more acutely by rebel groups who seek to challenge the government through conventional warfare. This paper tests these propositions using hazard models. The results provide robust support for the propositions.     

HUMAN STABILITY AND CONFLICT IN THE HORN OF AFRICA: PART ONE

Human stability is rare in the Horn of Africa. The history of the countries of the Horn since the end of colonialism in the region has largely been one of violent repression and insurgency. Succession by peaceful election has been the exception. This paper looks at the internal conflicts in the Horn of Africa in terms of the balance of power between civil society and the state in the countries comprising the Horn. A relevant feature is the formation and disintegration of centralised states. Centralising states, affected by the lack of human stability which can lead to their fragmentation and demise, also contribute to the escalation of the crisis. The Horn of Africa, consisting of Djibouti, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, is a region of Considerable Strategic importance, even to nations far beyond its borders because of its strategic location, its diverse religious and ethnic groupings and its significant agricultural potential.     

Joining by Number: Military Intervention in Civil Wars

Understanding why and when states militarily intervene in civil wars is crucial. Intervention can increase civil wars’ severity and the strategies employed in civil wars are shaped by the possibility of military intervention. This article argues that potential military interveners react to information revealed about warring parties’ intentions and relative power. Without revealed information, potential military interveners are unlikely to reconsider their initial decision to remain out of the war. Revealed information causes non-belligerent states to update their expectations about the trajectory of the civil war causing them, at times, to change their calculus about the benefits of belligerency and thus intervene. This helps explain why civil wars spread and when they do so. This explanation is tested using generalised estimating equations on a new data-set of unexpected events for the civil wars in the Correlates of War Intrastate War and PRIO Armed Conflict data-sets.     

From Domestic to Regional: The Civil War Conundrum and the Cases of Syria and Algeria

This paper seeks to answer a simple question: When do regional powers get involved in civil wars? Some civil wars see a significant involvement of regional actors, while others show a remarkable level of isolation. What explains this difference? This research answers this question by looking at two case studies: the Algerian civil war (1991–2002) and the Syrian civil war (2011–up to date). The paper identifies and develops five factors of regional involvement. These are: capabilities, regional dynamics, country’s relevance, regional security issues/containment and domestic–external links. civil wars are today one of the most prominent and deadly forms of conflict, and this paper contributes to understanding the important but understudied issue of regional involvement.     

大力开展基于智能技术的数字化战例库建设

战例研究是进行军事问题研究的重要基础,也是汲取战争经验、深化军事斗争准备的现实需要。开展战例研究的前提是建立起知识体系完备、检索运用便捷的战例库。随着智能技术的发展,战例数据的标准化描述、规范化存储、智能化分析成为可能,极大地支撑了便捷、高效的数字化战例库系统开发工作。本文首先从战例研究的重要性入手,分析了当前战例运用和研究的基本现状,梳理了存在的典型问题;其次,从数字化技术对战例描述和战例库建设的影响角度剖析了数字化战例库构建的基本需求;最后,通过对智能技术的把握,分析了智能技术对数字化战例库构建的支撑作用,并对如何开展基于智能技术的数字化战例库建设提出了初步设想。     

Power-Sharing in Civil War: Puzzles of Peacemaking and Peacebuilding

Syria's slide into sectarian civil war in 2011 raises a new fundamental knowledge question about the conditions under which power-sharing pacts can be clinched as an approach to war termination. When intrastate conflicts escalate into violent sectarian struggles, power-sharing is a likely basis of an eventual political settlement in situations where partition is off the table. This article contends that there remain two puzzling knowledge gaps about power-sharing as the basis for peace agreements to end civil wars: first, the specific conditions under which elites find it in their own interest to share power with bitter adversaries rather than fight on the battlefield, and second, how war-ending elite-negotiated pacts may evolve into more enduring social contracts. These puzzles, critical for policymakers and still unresolved in the scholarly literature, suggest the need to develop more contingent- and context-specific knowledge if research findings are to more capably contribute to peacemaking efforts.     

Civil wars and economic growth: A regional comparison

The paper examines the impact of civil wars on income per-capita growth at home and in neighbors for four regional groupings of countries: Africa, Asia, Latin America, and a pooled Asian and Latin American sample. Both macroeconomic and civil-war influences on growth differ by region. With the use of a distance measure, we demonstrate that the spatial reach from the negative consequences of a civil war are region and time period specific. Generally, there was less dispersion in Africa than in Asia and Latin America. Moreover, Africa demonstrates a greater ability to recover from the adverse effects of civil wars than the other regions tested.     

A Review of Recent Advances and Future Directions in the Quantitative Literature on Civil War

This paper reviews the booming literature on civil war. It presents the major theoretical perspectives and key empirical results on the determinants of civil war. The paper identifies controversies in the field and suggests ways to improve and organize our research. The conclusion outlines possible future directions for research on civil wars.     

Between the Cracks: Actor Fragmentation and Local Conflict Systems in the Libyan Civil War

Abstract

After nearly four years of civil war, Libya continues to be described as an ‘ungoverned space’ where the collapse of state institutions reignited tribal, political, religious and ideological tensions. These accounts, however, obscure Libya’s complex subnational governance, and the role of non-state armed groups in shaping the emerging political orders. By contrast, we contend that distinct subnational political orders have emerged in Libya since 2014 in which actors engage in state-making practices driven by local interests. Using empirical evidence to explore the activity of non-state armed groups during the Libyan civil conflict, we highlight that the local conflict environments in eastern, western and southern Libya provide specific incentives that shape the process of armed group splintering and patterns of violence. The findings demonstrate that claims to authority and notions of statehood extend far beyond the state whereby governance relations are negotiated between state and non-state actors. Conflict patterns, (in)stability and the prevailing political order are therefore conditional on the nature of the dominant actor, their strategies and modes of violence within their areas of influence. Through this analysis, the paper provides a more granular understanding of the local political dynamics that drive violence in Libya and civil wars more generally.     

Conflict and fiscal capacity

We examine the role of war in retarding state fiscal capacity in developing countries, measured by tax revenue ratios to GDP. We build a simple theoretical model of a factionalized state, where patronage substitutes for common interest public goods, along with violent contestation over a rent or prize. Our dynamic panel empirical analysis applied to 79 developing countries, during 1980–2010, indicates that war, especially civil war, retards fiscal capacity, along with imperfect democracy, political repression, poor governance, and dependence on oil and macroeconomic mismanagement. High intensity conflict is particularly destructive of state capacity. In countries experiencing low intensity wars, other institutional factors may matter more than war. The diminution of fiscal capacity due to war appears less pronounced after the end of the cold war.     

War,vagueness and hybrid war

It has frequently been observed in the literature on hybrid wars that there is a grey zone between peace and war, and that hybrid wars are conflicts which are not clear cases of war. In this paper, I attempt to illuminate this grey zone and the concept and nature of war from the philosophical discussions of vagueness and institutional facts. Vague terms are characterized by the fact that there is no non-arbitrary boundary between entities which lie in their extension, and entities which do not lie in their extension. I apply a theory of vagueness to notions such as “war” and “peace” and go on to suggest that the exact boundary for what counts as a war or not is arbitrary. However, the context in which the conflict occurs determines a range of possible locations for this boundary. The most important contextual parameter is in this respect how the parties to the conflict themselves conceptualize the conflict. I suggest that this can in various ways help us understand grey-zone conflicts.     

‘Fighting for peace’

In Africa, most of the present conflicts are civil, intra-state wars where belligerent groups use guerrilla tactics to achieve various political, economic or ideological objectives. The atrocities and the effect of these on-going wars on innocent civilians, human suffering, poverty and development are beyond comprehension. Not surprisingly, the majority of current peace operations are in Africa, with more than 70 countries contributing forces to these conflict zones. On the continent, South Africa has come to assume a leading role in peace operations and is now a major troop-contributing country to UN and AU missions. In the past 11 years, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has taken part in no fewer than 14 peace missions. This article provides a brief background of the conflicts in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan, the different United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU) mandates under which peacekeepers had to operate as well as their objectives, and the extent of South Africa's involvement in the various missions. In the last section, the major challenges, that these operations have posed are highlighted.     

BUTTER,GUNS AND ICE‐CREAM THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM SUB‐SAHARAN AFRICA

This paper is intended to complement the existing literature on civil wars. First, it presents a simple theoretical model of conflict that defines a two‐sector economy. In a contested sector, two agents struggle to appropriate the maximum possible fraction of a contestable output. In an uncontested sector, they hold secure property rights over the production of some goods. Agents split their resource endowment between ‘butter’, ‘guns’ and ‘ice‐cream’. Following the theoretical insights the empirical analysis focuses on the relationship between civil wars and different sectors of the economy. In particular, a panel probit specification shows that the incidence of a civil war decreases in the size of manufacturing sector.     

An overview of conflict in Africa in 2014

Violent conflict escalated in Africa in 2014, with five sub-Saharan states – the Central African Republic (CAR), Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan – accounting for an estimated 75% of all conflict-related deaths on the continent. This paper provides an overview of the five major sub-Saharan African conflicts in 2014 and considers the underlying causes and dynamics in the Seleka/anti-Balaka conflict in the CAR, the Islamist threats of Boko Haram and al-Shabaab in Nigeria and Somalia, the civil war in South Sudan, and the long-running conflict between Sudan's government and southern and Darfuri rebels. The paper unpacks the general trends evident in these conflicts and the implications for the settlement thereof, including the targeting of civilians, ethnic and religious mobilisation and the state as epicentre of violence. The paper concludes with a brief look ahead to 2015.