Review of Macro-Theories on Civil War

The existing literature on civil wars can be generally divided into three major theoretical approaches, namely economic, institutional, and identity-centred explanations that developed out of broader research traditions (see Bussmann, Hasenclever, and Schneider 2009b;

Kalyvas 2007).¹² Political violence has for a long time been studied in relation to economic factors, such as poverty and inequality. Scholars of political economy and development economics shifted the focus of the approach by studying the role of profit-making and the relevance of economic opportunity structures regarding the outbreak and duration of armed conflict. In this context, the relevance of natural resources attracted particular attention. A second perspective, which was inspired by comparative politics, concentrated on institutional factors favouring conflict onset, namely the regime type, the quality of state institutions, and state (in)capacity. In addition, the impact of repression on the escalation of conflict was taken into account here. Third and finally, inspired by theories of International Relations (IR), scholars analysed the role of ethnicity with regard to civil war. This school of thought examined the effects of ethnic composition and demographics as well as the role of identities and their instrumentalisation in connection with political violence. The approaches aimed to identify underlying causes, which account for conflict onset and to shed light on the conditions under which civil wars are feasible. Methodologically, the literature on civil wars predominantly consisted of cross-national statistical analyses. As a response to deficits in these (macro-)theories of armed conflict, scholars increasingly came up with micro-theoretical approaches.¹³ These analyses turned their attention to aspects that have so far been neglected, such as local influences and specificities of conflict actors. As a result, they helped to provide a more nuanced understanding of the occurrence of armed conflict as well

12 While some scholars differentiate between separatist conflicts and conflicts about access to government, others do not. Still others exclusively focus on separatist conflicts. In order to avoid redundancies, the literature review does not consider conflicts about self-determination separately, but will recurrently refer to them in the context of the general discussion of structural causes of conflict onset. This ensures that specificities regarding this type of conflict will be taken into consideration.

However, important restrictions will be made. Some authors study separatist conflicts from an International Relations perspective and analyse how international law and norms as well as their implementation impact the emergence (or absence) of self-determination claims and recognition of new entities (see, for example, Coggins 2014; Englebert 2009; 2013; Englebert and Hummel 2005;

Jackson and Rosberg 1982). While these works contribute to the general understanding of the phenomenon of separatism, they do not elucidate their escalation and therefore, are not discussed here. Other scholars offered encompassing theoretical explanations of separatist conflicts (see Hechter 1992; Wood 1981). Yet, these lack empirical verification and will not be considered, either.

13 Conventional theories fail, for example, to explain local patterns in the occurrence, the absence of conflict despite factors enabling it, or variations in the intensity of conflict. These shortfalls will be discussed in detail later in the chapter (see 2.3.2.).

2. Civil War Studies – Overview and Critical Discussion

as patterns and intensity of violence. In the following, the major theoretical perspectives on civil war onset will be presented and criticised; in addition, contributions of micro-approaches will be summarised briefly.

2.2.1. Grievances versus Greed: Economic Approaches to Civil Wars Economic explanations for civil wars have for a long time been at the centre of academic analysis. They can be divided into grievance-based and greed-related explanations. Scholars of the first school of thought study how various forms of inequality impact civil war onset and also considered the role of socio-political motives, for example, justice-seeking.¹⁴ Supporters of the second one focus on opportunities for civil war, consider profit orientation as a primary reason for conflict, and concentrate on the relevance of resources. Subsequently, the different perspectives and their respective developments will be presented in detail.

a) Grievances: Do Injustices Cause Armed Conflict?

The question if and how grievances that result from inequality or unfulfilled expectations lead to violent conflict has preoccupied thinkers for millennia.¹⁵ While the inequality-conflict nexus appears logical in the common sense, it triggered a vast body of literature and considerable debates. Early quantitative analyses found evidence for the relation of frustration or inequality on the one hand and political instability on the other, but also left many questions unanswered, namely with regard to exceptional cases (Feierabend and Feierabend 1966;

Russet 1964).¹⁶ Hence, they could not empirically prove and account for what appeared plausible. Ted Gurr provided important socio-psychological insights into the functioning of inequality by introducing the concept of relative deprivation as an explanation for conflict onset. Relative deprivation is defined as

―actors' perceptions of discrepancy between their value expectations (the goods and conditions of the life to which they believe they are justifiably entitled) and their value capabilities (the amounts of those goods and conditions that they think they are able to get and keep)‖ (Gurr 1968a, 1104; 1968b, 252-253; 1970, 12-13; see also 3.1.2.).

Consequently, individuals perceive a gap between the goods and conditions they consider themselves justifiably entitled to and those goods and conditions that are effectively at their disposal. This gap was assumed to represent a necessary condition for collective violence.

14 Per definition, grievances are not exclusively economic, but can include political and social aspects, such as various forms of discrimination, exclusion, and repression. Often, grievances in different dimensions intersect as the example of horizontal inequalities shows.

15 Davies 1997 presents an overview of reflections by authors ranging from Aristotle, through to Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but also includes more recent contributions, e.g. by Georg Simmel, Ted Gurr, or Mancur Olson.

16 The studies build on psychological research which came up with – later highly contested – hypotheses that frustration provokes aggressive behaviour (see, for example, Dollard et al. 1997a;

1997b; 1997c).

2. Civil War Studies – Overview and Critical Discussion

According to the argumentation, it triggered frustration and aggression which would ultimately lead to collective violence (Gurr 1868a; 1968b; 1970; see also Davies 1962;

Eckstein 1980).¹⁷ In sum, Gurr moved beyond prevailing assumptions that frustration per se would lead to violence, but attributed its eruption to a specified psychological process that focused on individual perceptions.¹⁸ While Gurr‘s argument was theoretically well elaborated and logically convincing, empirical evidence for the proposed causal mechanism was scarce.

A major weakness consists in the fact that inequality and frustration are much more prevalent in societies than violent conflict which is why they could not sufficiently elucidate its outbreak (Kalyvas 2007).¹⁹ As a consequence, scholars questioned the relevance of relative deprivation in favour of more structural explanations for internal warfare, for instance, the theory of contentious politics (see 3.1.2.).²⁰ Nevertheless, studies concerning the impact of inequality on conflict onset remained on the research agenda, but came to different and often contradictory results (see literature review in Bartusevičius 2014, 36). With Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler (2004) as well as James Fearon and David Laitin (2003), two major studies on civil wars completely rejected the relevance of grievances for the occurrence of violence and supported greed as only valid economic explanation instead (see also Hegre, Gissinger, and Gleditsch 2003).

Despite this categorical dismissal of socio-economic inequality as an explanation for conflict onset, grievance-related research ultimately took root in civil war studies. An important contribution was made by Frances Stewart who highlighted the need to look at group instead of individual inequality, since civil wars are a form of collective violence, and study it in interaction with group identity. Hence, she introduced the concept of horizontal inequalities that are ―severe and consistent economic, social, and political differences between culturally defined groups‖ (Stewart 2008b, 12). According to her, inequalities in the economic, political, and social domain have a particularly strong impact on violence, if they parallel other

17 Davies (1962) underscores that revolutions result from a period during which living-conditions improve and hopes and expectations rise that is followed by a backlash reversing this tendency and provoking frustration and ultimately violence (see also Tocqueville 1959 [1856]).

18 Especially in his early works, Gurr focused strongly on the micro-level. This constitutes an important difference to other conceptualisations of inequality in relation to civil wars, for example, Stewart‘s horizontal inequalities that are based on a group-based comparison with others within a society (compare Regan and Norton 2005, 320-321). Over time, he increasingly shifted his attention towards structural factors causing deprivation and fuelling the escalation process, as he created a model combining psychological and societal variables (Gurr 1970; 2000; see also Zimmermann 1980).

19 In addition, seemingly non-aggrieved can also take up arms and rebel as a result of more abstract grievances that are difficult to capture (White 1992). This suggests that both the concept of grievances, its interaction with other variables, as well as its relation to conflict is highly complex.

20 It is fair to say that Gurr‘s work should not be considered as wrong. Yet, it was too underdeveloped to account for mobilisation and violent behaviour. Political structures and normative or utilitarian considerations, for instance, only played a marginal role in Gurr‘s approach, although they interact with perceptions of deprivation and impact collective action (Schock 1996). Recent works demonstrate the value of the concept when it is specified and combined with other social theories (see Dudley and Miller 1998; Pettigrew 2002; and other contributions in Walker and Smith 2002).

2. Civil War Studies – Overview and Critical Discussion

prevailing cultural cleavages, such as ethnic, religious, or racial lines.²¹ In such a setting, political leaders can easily instrumentalise both identity components as well as socio-economic exploitation of the group in order to mobilise the identity group for political – and potentially violent – protest and overcome collective action problems (Stewart 2002; 2008b;

Stewart, Brown, and Cobham 2009). The interaction of these factors can, for example, be observed with regard to the outbreak of the rebellion in northern Ivory Coast in 2002 (Langer 2005). While the concept of horizontal inequalities theoretically clarified the relation between inequality and armed conflict, the findings could initially not be generalised because they were derived from qualitative case-based evidence. Yet, comprehensive quantitative studies verified the interplay of horizontal inequalities (and social inequalities in particular) and identities and successfully substantiated that horizontal inequalities were positively correlated with civil war onset (Besançon 2005; Cederman, Gleditsch, and Buhaug 2013; Cederman, Weidmann, and Gleditsch, 2011; Østby 2008a; 2008b; 2011; Østby, Nordås, and Rød 2009;

Regan and Norton 2005; Sambanis 2004a).²² Furthermore, Henrikas Bartusevičius (2013;

2014) demonstrated that the relevance of inequality for conflict onset is even bigger than previously assumed, as he proved that vertical inequalities also impact the outbreak of non-ethnic rebellions.²³ His findings suggest that both inequality in income and education at the societal level are positively related with conflict onset and that the distribution of income is more important than the absolute income.

Overall, despite having been identified early as causes for armed conflict, the relevance of grievances for conflict onset was difficult to confirm. Hence, their role remained contested and was even prematurely rejected by some scholars. Recently, both qualitative and quantitative studies adopted a differentiated understanding of the inequality-conflict nexus by disaggregating the independent and dependent variables, analysing different types of inequality (e.g. economic, social, political), reconsidering their measurements, and examining their interaction with other factors, such as ethnic identity. The analyses concluded that grievances increase the risk of armed conflict in effect. These findings were broadened, when the causal impact of vertical inequalities on non-ethnic conflicts was successfully verified which strengthened the relevance of grievance-based explanations in accounting for the occurrence of violence.

21 Both objective inequality as well as subjectively perceived inequalities matter.

22 Interactions of inequality and ethnically distinct groups also exist with regard to separatist conflicts (Sambanis and Milanovic 2011).

23 In contrast to horizontal inequalities, vertical inequality looks at ―the distribution of certain goods in the total population‖ (Bartusevičius 2014, 38; emphasis in the original), that is, inequalities between households or individuals (Stewart, Brown, and Cobham 2009, 3).

2. Civil War Studies – Overview and Critical Discussion

b) Greed: The Role of Profit and Opportunities

During the Cold War, civil wars were largely understood as proxy wars that were externally orchestrated and financed. Since the end of the bipolarity did not lead to an immediate decrease of these conflicts, scholars scrutinised how non-state armed groups could sustain themselves and create income in the absence of foreign support. This led to a second economic explanation that focuses on the role of ‗greed‘, i.e. cost-benefit calculations and profit-making in relation to civil war onset.

Early works identified the importance of economic dimensions, but also stressed their interaction with other factors (Jean and Rufin 1999b). But theoretical explanations increasingly moved towards an exclusively economic interpretation of armed conflict. Georg Elwert introduced the term ‗markets of violence‘ in order to describe conflicts in which the

―economic motive of material profit‖ (Elwert 1997, 88; own translation) dominates over power-related or ideological considerations. According to his theoretical reflections, rational economic behaviour that aims at profiteering is at the origin of markets of violence that become prevalent over time as they supersede conventional forms of income-creation. Their emergence is favoured by the absence of a monopoly of violence and the presence of easily transportable and concealable goods. Ideology, identity, or emotions merely serve to cover the actual objectives of war-making and to stabilise the markets of violence (Elwert 1997; see also Eppler 2002; Jung 2005).

Collier and Hoeffler (1998; 2002; 2004; Collier, Hoeffler, and Rohner 2009) advanced the macro-economic interpretation of conflicts further and doubtlessly became both the most prominent and most radical representatives of the greed-thesis as they pointed to the

‗resource curse‘, that is, the negative effect of natural resources.²⁴ They identified a combination of variables as triggers of fighting and interpreted them by reference to cost-benefit calculations. In their model, primary commodity exports are central as they allow for the financing of fighting and potentially, enrichment. Other important determinants that increase the likelihood of conflict onset are low levels of per capita income which point to low foregone earnings, a low economic growth rate, and poor levels of male secondary enrolment. These factors are considered to reduce the cost of rebellion and participation in it.

Their findings had a double effect. First, they provoked a strong focus on the impact of natural resources on the occurrence of violence and thus, pushed to the fore the notion of

‗resource wars‘. Second, they backed the hypothesis that civil war onset predominantly depends on the opportunity (or feasibility) to rebel. Alternative explanations such as ethnic diversity or grievances turned out to be statistically insignificant and therefore, were discarded as relevant explanations of civil wars, as the following categorical, but illustrative

24 The notion of (natural) resources is broad and diverse. While some authors concentrate on specific resources, such as oil, others also include legal and illegal agricultural goods or humanitarian aid (Ross 2003; 2004).

2. Civil War Studies – Overview and Critical Discussion

statement shows: ―[T]he rising trend of African conflict is not due to deep problems in its social structure, […] but rather is the contingent effect of economic circumstances‖ (Collier and Hoeffler 2002, 25). In this context, it is notable that most scholars study the relevance of resources with regard to the choices of oppositional non-state armed groups, but neglect their importance for other stakeholders (Guáqueta 2003; Marut 2010). Yet, resources and their exploitation also financially benefit to paramilitaries or the government. Thus, Robert Bates (2007; 2008) focused on both the state and non-state actors and their interaction by reference to game theory. His findings suggest that a government‘s calculation of present and future costs and benefits impacts its decision to protect its citizens and maintain political order or to abandon it, that is, use violence and cause political disorder. This underscores that the state is not merely a victim of attacks, but can also be responsible for the occurrence of violence (see also next paragraph).

Economic factors were also found to have a determining influence on separatist conflicts.

Relatively richer regions, whose regional gross domestic product (GDP) is above the national average and that enjoy resource abundance are also more likely to demand greater sovereignty. This can be explained by reference to either their economic capabilities that allow them to provide public and political power within the polity, or the fact that they profit to a lesser extent from the ‗national cake‘, i.e. redistribution, and are less interested in maintaining links with the centre (Hale 2000; Horowitz 1981; Ross 2003; Sambanis and Milanovic 2011; Zarkovic Bookman 1992). Yet, cost-benefit calculations are not only central for entities seeking greater autonomy, but also the government‘s position. Its reaction depends on the ‗strategic value‘ including future costs and values of a separatist territory.²⁵ The greater the value for the government, the less likely it is to accommodate the demands;

in view of the irreconcilable positions, the occurrence of violence is highly probable (Walter 2009).²⁶

Finally, the impact of economic factors on civil wars was also taken up in theories of so-called ‗New Wars‘, which were discussed both in Anglo-American and German political science. They highlight the commercialisation, privatisation, informalisation, and internationalisation of contemporary warfare. Other than previous wars, these New Wars are fought against the background of disintegrating states which they further undermine. Loose networks of state and non-state actors play a greater role than established institutions, such as state armies. Conventional warfare, i.e. open battles between the involved actors become to a large extent substituted by violence against the civilian population. Criminal activities

25 The territorial value does not exclusively depend on resources or economic components. A territory can also have strategic value as it ensures direct access to the coast or is of geo-political importance as it strengthens a government‘s position vis-à-vis its neighbouring countries.

26 Walter (2009) developed an agency-centred model that aims to explain the escalation of separatist conflict by looking at the positions of the conflicting parties. In addition to strategic value, the final strategy of governments also depends on the total number of ethnic groups within the state, the degree of concentration of the ethnic group, and the leader in power.

2. Civil War Studies – Overview and Critical Discussion

such as looting, pillaging, illicit trading, etc. maintain the involved actors and turn into an end in itself that replaces ideology or political objectives as causes of conflict. Differences between combatants and civilians, warfare and conventional economic activities, and war and post-war periods become largely blurred (Kaldor 1999; 2005; Münkler 2002).²⁷ The concept of New Wars does not aim to directly account for the eruption of civil wars. It rather describes and analyses their characteristics and historicises them in a strongly normative manner. Various scholars dispute if contemporary conflicts are really as new as supporters of the theory claim (see, for example, Brzoska 2004; Kalyvas 2001; Melander, Öberg, and Hall 2009; see also Waldmann 1997). Yet, it is imperative to mention the New Wars-approach here as it illustrates to what extent the focus on economic dynamics influences the academic perspective and the way of approaching armed conflicts.

The strong emphasis of economic aspects did not remain unquestioned. In reaction to the findings of Collier and Hoeffler, researchers focused on the impact of natural resources on

The strong emphasis of economic aspects did not remain unquestioned. In reaction to the findings of Collier and Hoeffler, researchers focused on the impact of natural resources on