Smith 1Christopher SmithDr. Michael HoggTNDY 402A: Extremism13 October 2010Systemic Causes of Violent Intra-State Conflict1.

IntroductionWhile the importance of social-psychological and historical studies of insurgency shouldnot be underestimated, one weakness of such studies is that they often lack realistic policyimplications. For this reason, the International Relations literature has typically focused on state-or system-level causes of insurgency that governments might be able to ameliorate through public policy. Of particular importance are a number of empirical studies have attempted toassess the statistical significance of various variables as predictors of intra-state conflict. The present paper tabulates and summarizes those empirical findings, then examines some of their possible policy implications. Among other things, the findings presented here suggest that statescan enhance internal stability by promoting a pluralistic ideology, centralizing and strengtheninggovernment, promoting economic growth, moving toward extreme democracy or autocracy,curtailing population growth, and avoiding territorial expansion.2.

Methodological ConsiderationsThe studies examined here fortunately use only two broad specifications of civil war,summarized by Hegre and Sambanis (523): ³[Civil war] must have caused 1,000 deaths in totaland in at least a three year period. . . . The Uppsala/PRIO [internal armed conflict] data set has anannual twenty five battle deaths threshold and therefore is not limited to civil war.´ In both cases,one of the actors in the conflict must be the government. Table 1 shows which variables thevarious studies found to be significant predictors of civil war, and Table 2 shows which variables

Smith 2the studies found to be significant predictors of internal armed conflict (IAC). We might think of these as the results for ³large-scale´ and ³small-scale´ conflicts, respectively, though of coursethe IAC data do not exclude larger-scale outbreaks.As for the specific variables listed in Tables 1 and 2, the various studies operationalizedthem in a variety of different ways. I have taken some liberties in Tables 1 and 2 in terms of relabeling variables in order to clarify what was measured and to provide cross-studycomparability. The studies also used a wide variety of model specifications and thresholds for statistical significance. Unfortunately the measures of statistical significance (such as p-valuesand correlation coefficients) often were not comparable across studies, so Tables 1 and 2 reportsignificance or non-significance as a dichotomous value for each study. A few studies usedmultiple specifications, and there were variables that were significant in some specifications butnot in others. Usually I have chosen to interpret such results conservatively, and to code as³significant´ only those variables whose significance was fairly robust against specificationchanges.Finally, one should keep in mind when examining Tables 1 and 2 that not all the reportedresults are of the same theoretical caliber. The study by Hegre and Sambanis is important, thoughthey may have set their threshold for significance too low. The studies by Benson and Kugler and Østby are suggestive, but include too few variables to be fully definitive. The study byMontalvo and Reynal-Querol suffers from deficient specification, as explained by Schneider andWeisehomeier (5-7). Among the better-specified studies are those by Fearon and Laitin andCollier and Hoeffler, though even these were insufficiently sophisticated in their operationalization of ethnic and religious variables. Several of these variables exhibit a highdegree of endogeneity, such that including them together in the same regression model tends toundermine their statistical significance.

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Ethnic and Religious VariablesMost studies have not found ethnic or religious fractionalization variables to have asignificant effect on civil war. In part this may be because fractionalization, dominance, and polarization variables are somewhat endogenous, so including them in the same model causesone or more of them to lose significance (Schneider and Weisehomeier 5). Collier and Hoeffler also include their ethnic and religious fractionalization variables in the same model as a ³social´fractionalization variable that combines the two. Under such circumstances it is hardly surprisingthat the disaggregated variables fall out of the analysis (11-13). Another problem is the way thatreligions have been categorized. All ³Christians´ and all ³Muslims´ are lumped together, for example (Schneider and Weisehomeier 5-7). Yet history suggests that the most salient religiousdivisions are often between sectarian groups within a single tradition, such as Shia and Sunni or Protestants and Catholics (Wuthnow xv). The American Civil War, for example, has recently been interpreted as a religious war between pro- and anti-slavery Protestants (Noll 43-46)²areligious division that would not show up in the typical indices of religious fractionalization and polarization. It may be that similar groups are perceived as a greater threat than more alien ones because similar groups are more attractive to defectors from one¶s own group.To the extent that fractionalization is significant, it turns out to be a restraint rather than astimulant to war (Collier and Hoeffler 13; Fearon and Laitin 20). This is somewhat surprising toFearon and Laitin, who had predicted that fractionalization would increase the probability of war (9). Collier and Hoeffler explain that rebel groups may be able to operate more effectively under conditions of social cohesion (13). An alternative explanation is that fractionalization proxies for the presence of a pluralistic ideology. Not only are pluralistic societies more likely to have anopen immigration policy, leading to greater fractionalization, but fractionalization itself may tendto reinforce such a tolerant ideology. In a highly fractionalized society, people are not only more