https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(12)61728-0.pdf

Global and regional mortality from 235 causes of death for 20 age groups in 1990 and 2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

An influential conventional wisdom holds that civil wars proliferated rapidly with the end of the Cold War and that the root cause of many or most of these has been ethnic and religious antagonisms. We show that the current prevalence of internal war is mainly the result of a steady accumulation of protracted conflicts since the 1950s and 1960s rather than a sudden change associated with a new, post-Cold War international system. We also find that after controlling for per capita income, more ethnically or religiously diverse countries have been no more likely to experience significant civil violence in this period. We argue for understanding civil war in this period in terms of insurgency or rural guerrilla warfare, a particular form of military practice that can be harnessed to diverse political agendas. The factors that explain which countries have been at risk for civil war are not their ethnic or religious characteristics but rather the conditions that favor insurgency. These include poverty—which marks financially and bureaucratically weak states and also favors rebel recruitment—political instability, rough terrain, and large populations.We wish to thank the many people who provided comments on earlier versions of this paper in a series of seminar presentations. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation (Grants SES-9876477 and SES-9876530); support from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences with funds from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; valuable research assistance from Ebru Erdem, Nikolay Marinov, Quinn Mecham, David Patel, and TQ Shang; sharing of data by Paul Collier.

/pdf/ethnicity-insurgency-and-civil-war-48uws8pr17.pdf

Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War

In the period 1946-2001, there were 225 armed conflicts and 34 of them were active in all of or part of 2001. Armed conflict remains a serious problem in the post-Cold War period. For three decades, the Correlates of War project has served as the main supplier of reliable data used in longitudinal studies of external and internal armed conflict. The COW datasets on war use the relatively high threshold of 1,000 battle-deaths. The Uppsala dataset on armed conflict has a lower threshold, 25 annual battle-deaths, but has so far been available for only the post-Cold War period. This dataset has now been backdated to the end of World War II. This article presents a report on armed conflict based on this backdate as well as another annual update. It presents the procedures for the backdating, as well as trends over time and breakdowns for the type of conflict. It assesses the criteria for measuring armed conflict and discusses some directions for future data collection in this area.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1555346.pdf

Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New Dataset

Most wars are now civil wars. Even though international wars attract enormous global attention, they have become infrequent and brief. Civil wars usually attract less attention, but they have become increasingly common and typically go on for years. This report argues that civil war is now an important issue for development. War retards development, but conversely, development retards war. This double causation gives rise to virtuous and vicious circles. Where development succeeds, countries become progressively safer from violent conflict, making subsequent development easier. Where development fails, countries are at high risk of becoming caught in a conflict trap in which war wrecks the economy and increases the risk of further war. The global incidence of civil war is high because the international community has done little to avert it. Inertia is rooted in two beliefs: that we can safely 'let them fight it out among themselves' and that 'nothing can be done' because civil war is driven by ancestral ethnic and religious hatreds. The purpose of this report is to challenge these beliefs.

Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy

Estimating the impact of economic conditions on the likelihood of civil conflict is difficult because of endogeneity and omitted variable bias. We use rainfall variation as an instrumental variable for economic growth in 41 African countries during 1981–99. Growth is strongly negatively related to civil conflict: a negative growth shock of five percentage points increases the likelihood of conflict by one‐half the following year. We attempt to rule out other channels through which rainfall may affect conflict. Surprisingly, the impact of growth shocks on conflict is not significantly different in richer, more democratic, or more ethnically diverse countries.

/pdf/economic-shocks-and-civil-conflict-an-instrumental-variables-r4u781k5zb.pdf

Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach

A total of 111 armed conflicts have been recorded for the years 1989-2000. Of these, 33 were active in 2000. This represents a decrease from 1999 and 1998, and it is the lowest number of armed conflicts recorded in the post-Cold War period. Seven interstate armed conflicts were recorded for the whole period, of which two were still active in 2000. The decrease in the number of armed conflicts is not sufficient to conclude that there will be a further decline. Conflicts have become increasingly complex in terms of number of actors and regional connections between those actors. There is a larger proportion of new and minor armed conflicts being resolved than long-running and complex major armed conflicts.

Armed Conflict, 1989-2000:

A total of 103 armed conflicts has been recorded for the years 1989-97. Of these, 33 were active in 1997. Six interstate armed conflicts were recorded for the period, of which one was active in 1997. The period exhibits a decline in total number of conflicts per year; a decline is also found in all regions with the exception of Africa. All new conflicts in 1996 and 1997 took place in Africa. More than half of the conflicts was linked to conflicts in neighbouring states. Regional conflict complexes were found in all regions, but were particularly significant in Europe and in Africa, where they also reached high levels of intensity.

Armed Conflict and Regional Conflict Complexes, 1989-97:

A total of 101 armed conflicts have been recorded for the eight post-Cold War years 1989-96. Only six were interstate conflicts. In 1996 there were two such conflicts. For most regions there was a decline in the number of conflicts, with the exception of Africa. Nineteen peace agreements were in place by the end of 1996, historically a high number. Most of these agreements were concluded over conflicts in Africa. Asia and the Middle East showed the lowest propensity to terminate conflicts.

Armed Conflicts, Conflict Termination and Peace Agreements, 1989-96:

A total of 226 armed conflicts have been recorded for the years 1946-2002. Of these, 116 were active in the period 1989-2002, including 31 in 2002. There were five wars in 2002. Both numbers were the lowest for this period. Seven interstate-armed conflicts were recorded 1989-2002, of which one was still active in 2002. In 2002, a larger proportion of complex major armed conflicts were resolved, compared with new and minor armed conflicts. Although the data on armed conflict presented here suggest that there is a decline in the use of armed force, there is an increased feeling of fear and insecurity in many parts of the world because of terrorism incidents.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00223433030405006

Margareta Sollenberg

Papers

Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New Dataset

Armed Conflict, 1989-2000:

Armed Conflict and Regional Conflict Complexes, 1989-97:

Armed Conflicts, Conflict Termination and Peace Agreements, 1989-96:

Armed Conflict, 1989-2002