Trading coups for civil war

This paper investigates civil conflict as a product of the survival strategies of African leaders. Specifically, the paper offers a theory of risk substitution that predicts coup-fearing leaders will undermine the military effectiveness of the state when making an effort to extend their own tenure. While ‘coup-proofing’ practices have often been noted as contributors to political survival, considerably less attention has been paid to the influence of these strategies on other forms of conflict. Utilising data from a number of cross-national datasets, the analyses show that having a higher number of ‘coup-proofing’ counterweights significantly worsens a state's civil conflict prospects. A brief consideration of multiple episodes of conflict further suggests that in addition to coup-proofing undermining the counterinsurgency capacity of the state, some leaders are simply indifferent to – or can even potentially benefit from – the existence of an insurgency.     

The viability of civil war peace agreements

Civil war peace agreements are prone to collapse. While some research suggests that multiple layers of power-sharing provisions lead to more viable agreements, others have suggested that negotiated settlements are not only more likely to return to violence, but that those cases will be more deadly as a result. We suggest here that previous research has failed to address the various ways that peace agreements emerge and that this context is crucial in explaining peace agreement viability. In some situations, rebels are likely to earn those concessions through battlefield success. Governments may feel compelled to address underlying grievances in order to stop the bloodshed and ultimately maintain some political clout in the postwar regime. In other cases, however, governments may feel pressure to engage in discussions and to provide concessions by outside actors, whether in the form of diplomatic intervention, economic, or foreign military intervention. Hypotheses are tested on all civil war peace agreements identified by the UCDP Peace Agreement Data-set for 1975–2011. Findings from logit and hazard models suggest that agreements brought about in the aftermath of military intervention on behalf of rebels are more likely to endure while those earned on the battlefield (i.e., stronger rebels) do not. In addition, mediation enhances peace agreement viability, while interventions on behalf of governments tend to undermine it.     

Territorial contestation and repressive violence in civil war

This study models the structural sources of variation in the use of selective (discriminate) repression within 89 civil wars fought between 1981 and 2005. The severity of repressive violence is modeled as a function of the amount of territory being contested by the insurgents. This idea is operationalized using measures of the location, size, and density of insurgency violence. The analysis finds evidence that the repressive behavior of both governments and rebel groups is linked to conflict geography. Governments violate physical integrity rights more frequently and kill more civilians the greater the overall amount of territory under contestation. Rebels kill more civilians in highly dispersed insurgencies that lack a clear epicenter.     

Political influence on civil war mortality rates: The electoral college as a battlefield

This paper employs public choice analysis to explain certain kinds of military decision‐making during the Civil War. Specifically, the political costs and benefits which may have influenced policy with respect to casualty rates in the Union army are considered. A primary empirical finding is that electoral votes per capita are a strong explainer of casualties across Union states, all else equal.     

Z and other cinematic tales from the 30-year Greek civil war

Greek cinema has documented and debated the civil war and its repercussions under different angles, largely defined by censorship, the general political climate, and cinematic trends. This article, first, offers a retrospective that traces the evolution of Greek cinema's ‘takes’ on the civil war vis-à-vis the political changes. Second, it provides an in-depth analysis of Costas Gavras’s film Z, examining its relevance to Greece and how political conflict, in general, is cinematically depicted. The article argues that Z and Gavras’s cinema have been affected and have affected the Greek political situation. However, while Z has spearheaded an international cinematic genre (political thriller), it had minimal effect on the Greek cinema.     

Born violent: Armed political parties and non-state governance in Lebanon's civil war

We know little of the internal governing practices of non-state actors once in control of territory. Some territories have witnessed the establishment of new institutions of public goods remarkably similar to state institutions. This article compares four armed political parties governing territory during the Lebanese civil war. These non-state violent actors established complex political and economic institutions and administrative structures. Despite the wide range of ideologies and identities of these actors, they all converged in their institutional priorities, although not in their capacities or the particular ways of achieving those priorities. Data from interviews and the actions of the armed political parties suggest a combination of ideology and desire for control is causal in generating public institutions, partly attributable to the high degree of citizen activism marking the Lebanese case.     

Ethnicity,class, and civil war: the role of hierarchy,segmentation, and cross-cutting cleavages

Why are some countries prone to ethno-nationalist conflict, whereas others are plagued by class conflict? This is a question that has seldom been raised and rarely been examined empirically. This paper presents a social-structural theory to account for the variable incidence of these two forms of political instability. These two types of conflict result from distinct principles of group solidarity – ethnicity and class – and since each individual is simultaneously a member of an ethnic group (or many such groups) and a particular class, these two principles vary in the degree to which they are mutually exclusive or cross-cutting. The degree of economic stratification between groups and economic segmentation within them shapes the relative salience of each principle of group solidarity in any society and is associated with a characteristic form of political mobilization. In places where between-group inequalities are high, and within-group inequalities low, ethnicity should be the dominant principle of group solidarity and serve as the primary basis of group conflict. By contrast, in countries where between-group inequalities are low, and within-group inequalities high, class is more likely to serve as the dominant principle of group solidarity, and conflicts along class lines are more likely. We test these conjectures with data in over 100 countries on cross-cutting cleavages, ethnic war, and class conflict. The results are supportive of the theory, and provide evidence that how groups are stratified and segmented in societies shapes the type of civil war.     

Chief of staff in quest of a war: Moshe Dayan leads Israel into war

That Dayan was a central figure in Israel's formative years during the 1950s is beyond dispute. His star blazed particularly bright in the Sinai War of October‐November 1956. However, the roots of Dayan's extraordinary influence are to found in the period leading up to the Sinai War rather than in the war itself.

It is impossible to understand the Sinai War, particularly its Israeli aspect, without understanding the central role played by the army and its chief in the preparations and in lobbying for its execution. For the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the idea of an Israeli‐initiated war was neither a theoretical or a practical surprise. The IDF was prepared to launch an offensive against Egypt, and that fact was of major importance far beyond the Israeli government's decision to launch a war against Egypt.

It was Dayan who ensured full coordination between progress in the military preparations and progress in the diplomatic process (the negotiations with France and Britain), as he himself was at the center of events in both spheres of activity.     

Rubber match: a third Lebanon war

Israel and Hezbollah have applied the lessons learned from the 2006 Lebanon War and have been preparing for a future conflict with both sides aiming for a more decisive victory. With improved capabilities from 2006, future hostilities will be far more destructive. This article analyzes their performance in 2006 and the lessons they have drawn to predict what a future conflict is likely to look like. The article analyzes both parties in three categories: ground forces; rockets, missiles, and anti-armor weapons; and lastly, Israel's air and sea dominance and Hezbollah's efforts to counter that dominance. Finally, this article argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, a large-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is unlikely to become a larger regional conflict involving Syria and Iran.     

Evolutionary determinants of war

This paper considers evolutionarily stable decisions about whether to initiate violent conflict rather than accepting a peaceful sharing outcome. Focusing on small sets of players such as countries in a geographically confined area, we use the concept of evolutionary stability in finite populations. We find that players’ evolutionarily stable preferences widen the range of peaceful resource allocations that are rejected in favor of violent conflict, compared to the Nash equilibrium outcomes. Relative advantages in fighting strength are reflected in the equilibrium set of peaceful resource allocations.     

Operational aspects of a future war between Egypt and Israel

The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt has survived since 1979. Even so, following the events in Egypt, there is a growing tension between the two states, particularly surrounding the Sinai, which could cause a crisis and even a war. In such a case, the main battlefield would be in Sinai, and there would be several dominant aspects. Some of them would appear for the first time, compared with previous wars, such as a collision between Israeli and Egyptian units of around corps size. Other aspects would be more familiar, such as the ratio between the size of the forces to that of the battlefield, the “fog of war,” night fighting, “friendly fire” and deception.     

A theory of war finance

This paper analyses the financial and war‐spending policies of a state that faces a conflict in which defeat would result in the loss of sovereign power and in which the material consequences, conditional on avoiding defeat, are stochastic. The analysis takes explicit account of the historical experiences of lenders, who face debt repudiation if the state to whom they have lent is defeated and who also face partial default if the material consequences of the war are unfavorable for the debtor state, even if it avoids defeat. In this analysis, the state uses war debt to smooth expected consumption intertemporally in response to temporary war spending, and the state also uses contingent debt servicing to insure realized consumption against the risk associated with the material consequences of the war. An important innovation in the analysis is to treat the equilibrium amount of war spending, the state's resulting probability of avoiding defeat, as well as the equilibrium amount of borrowing as a set of endogenous variables to be determined simultaneously.     

A theory of war economies

This article presents a proposed theory of how war economies are formed and maintained, as well as an integrated policy framework to guide the dismantling of war economies emanating from the proposed theory. Additionally, six potential areas for future research pertaining to the dismantling of war economies are also presented.     

Police Corruption: Towards a Working Definition

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) publication Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law, all civilians (including child soldiers) lose their immunity from direct targeting ‘for so long as’ their actions amount to direct participation in hostilities. All civilians can, however, access the revolving door of protection and return to their civilian activities – complete with full immunity from direct targeting – provided the nature of their direct participation was spontaneous and disorganised. Once it can be ascertained that their participation in hostilities amounts to continuous combative functions, they relinquish their access to the revolving door of protection, and can be targeted at all times until they abandon their formal or functional membership of the belligerent group. This piece analyses how the revolving door phenomenon and the notion of continuous combative functions apply in instances where civilian child soldiers are directly participating in hostilities.     

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.