Civil Wars: Most Common Form of Political Violence

Historically, political violence has predominantly been interstate wars. However, since World War II, the most common form of political violence has morphed into civil war in developing countries, or “armed conflict within the boundaries of a sovereign state between parties that are subject to common authority at the start of hostilities”. What differentiates a civil war from an episode of violence in a state is that it must last for at least one year and there must be at least one thousand casualties. However, the causes for civil wars and the reason why they occur in some countries and not in others depends on both the opportunities and interests that provide the conditions for civil conflict to transpire. The rebel groups that take arms against the state must have interests that incentivize and motivate them to create political change through violence, but they're also needs to be the right structural conditions that create opportunities for the emergence of political violence. Interests include cultural grievances and greed, and opportunities can include state weakness, geography, international factors, poverty, and colonial legacies that allow for a civil war to arise.

Interests or certain incentives must be present for people to join rebel groups and to enter into armed conflict against their government. Disagreements involving two or more different ethnic groups often create tension that erupts into open conflict. These ethnic groups have an interest to not only being recognized by the state but also being treated fairly. When a particular ethnic group is concentrated in a particular territory of the state, they tend to advocate for regional autonomy and in addition to that, they want the same opportunities and public goods as other ethnic groups within the state. However, when these ethnic groups feel that the state is not treating them fairly or if they are not given recognition, this can generate an interest to form an armed insurgency against the government. These cultural grievances that can be incentives to enter armed conflict are often due to colonial legacies that created arbitrary boundaries in the European colonial power’s interests, with no reference to cultural logic. This “divide-and-rule” system was meant to create ethnic divisions that allowed the colonial power to maintain control over the territory, after independence, this created rivalries, and tensions among ethnic groups seeking to control the state. Cultural grievances can also arise during political transitions, as seen in Eastern Europe when Communist rule ended and uncertainty over a new political system created fear among all ethnic groups. Another interest that motivates political violence is greed, as profit and accumulating wealth often incentivize a group to wage war. Developing countries with valuable resources such as gold, diamonds, oil, etc. are more at risk of the civil war because of the powerful incentive of money. As seen in the Central African Republic, fighting over diamond mines has created religious tensions between Muslims and Christians where there were none before, prior to the conflict. As Anke Hoeffler points out, “rebel leaders may be motivated by grievance or greed, but they do not recruit randomly from the entire population”. So, ethnic identity can also be a tool for mobilization, as Hoeffler elaborates, because “their shared experiences (of real or perceived discrimination) make it easier to motivate their group members” and “their shared language and preferences make it easier to achieve coordination and collective action”. However, cultural grievances and greed do not always result in civil conflict in a state and only arise under certain conditions or opportunities.

The interests of certain groups are not enough to lead to a civil war as certain structural opportunities must be present to generate armed conflict. State weakness, a characteristic of developing countries, provides an opportunity for armed insurgencies to mobilize because the state lacks the capacity to police and enforce laws. This can coincide with geography as opportunities to organize emerge because the terrain of a country makes it harder for state forces to patrol or monitor their territory and provides prime conditions for rebel groups to hide or smuggle weapons into the country, giving them a military advantage. The international context also provides opportunities for civil war because insurgents can gain support from foreign governments or non-state actors in other countries. This can be seen in the Cold War, where the United States and the Soviet Union provided military, economic, and political support to actors in civil conflicts as they fought proxy wars. Also, expatriate communities can send remittances to people in their home countries to promote civil war against the state. For example, in Sri Lanka, the Tamils, an ethnic minority “counted on the support from the expatriate Tamils living in the UK, Switzerland, Canada, and Australia” to smuggle in funds and weapons into Sri Lanka. Poverty can also provide an opportunity for civil war as young men often have limited economic opportunities to get a job or even be a student, so they join insurgencies to overthrow the government, which gives them a sense of purpose. Lastly, colonial legacies can create opportunities for civil war to emanate as European powers put in place extractive political institutions governed by co-opting local elites and by repressing political opposition during the colonial era. However, these former colonies continued this legacy of authoritarianism and repression and as the state becomes perceived as illegitimate, it creates opportunities for insurgencies to arise as there is competition over who should have legitimate control over the state.

Political violence in the form of civil war is widespread in the developing world because of a variety of reasons that often overlap each other. However, opportunities and interests create conditions that facilitate the emergence of armed insurgencies. Interests can include cultural grievances as well as greed and commonly observed opportunities include state weakness, geography, international actors, poverty, and legacies of colonialism which create circumstances for civil wars to arise. Parts of the developing world have been plagued by civil wars and understanding how and why they arise can help countries get through these periods of political violence as well as possibly prevent them.