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Full-Text Articles in Peace and Conflict Studies

Conflict Environments And Civil War Onset, Lindsay Reid, Rachel Myrick, Kelly M. Kadera, Mark J.C. Crescenzi May 2020

Conflict Environments And Civil War Onset, Lindsay Reid, Rachel Myrick, Kelly M. Kadera, Mark J.C. Crescenzi

Political Science Faculty Publications

The spread of civil war poses serious risks and costs. We argue that conflict environments, which vary across time and space, systematically exacerbate the spread of civil war. As conflict in a state’s neighborhood becomes more spatially proximate and as lingering effects of conflict accumulate over time, that state’s risk of civil war onset increases. To theorize and test this argument, we construct the conflict environment (CE) score, a concept that taps into spatial and temporal dimensions of violence in a state’s neighborhood. Using the CE score in established empirical models of civil war onset, we demonstrate that a …


Religious Polarization And The Duration Of Civil Wars, Adrienne M. Poissant Apr 2020

Religious Polarization And The Duration Of Civil Wars, Adrienne M. Poissant

Student Publications

More and more research has begun to look at the impact that religion has on armed conflict. This paper takes a closer look at religious polarization and the impact that it has on the duration of civil wars. The central hypothesis focuses on the idea that polarized societies are less likely to reach a settlement in conflict; therefore, religious polarization should lengthen the duration of civil wars. The research compiled looks at the topic from a variety of different facets while paying attention to other possible contributing factors that can lengthen war and how religion in general plays a role …


When We’Re Connected To A Community, We’Re Less Likely To Be At War With It: The Effect Of Strong Civil Society On Civil War Onset And Incidence, Benjamin R. Pontz Oct 2019

When We’Re Connected To A Community, We’Re Less Likely To Be At War With It: The Effect Of Strong Civil Society On Civil War Onset And Incidence, Benjamin R. Pontz

Student Publications

I argue that a strong civil society suggests the existence of institutions that provide alternate mechanisms to reduce grievance as well as opportunities for public problem solving, which, in turn, should result in a decreased probability of civil war onset as well as decreased civil war incidence (a proxy for civil war duration). Controlling for per capita GDP, ethnic fractionalization, regime type, and population -- the measures that tend to have the strongest association with civil war onset and incidence -- I find that the presence of strong civil society does, indeed, have a negative and statistically significant association with …


Flight From The Fight? Civil War And Its Effects On Refugees, Paul D. Lowry Oct 2015

Flight From The Fight? Civil War And Its Effects On Refugees, Paul D. Lowry

Student Publications

Civil war dominates conflict in the modern era. An effect of this is a large number of refugees, who flee from war-torn countries in favor of lands where they can live in safety. This paper examines the extent to which the number of these refugees is affected by the number of civil wars a country has had in a year. Previous literature suggests that civil wars increase destruction in a state and threaten people’s lives, which encourages migration out of a warring country. Based on this, this paper hypothesizes that increasing the number of civil wars in a country will …


Education: A More Powerful Weapon Than War?, Maja K. Thomas Oct 2015

Education: A More Powerful Weapon Than War?, Maja K. Thomas

Student Publications

In this paper, I analyze the impact of education on civil war onset, utilizing variables measuring length of compulsory education and number of internal armed conflicts in a given country per year. Using data from the Quality of Government Institute’s Quality of Government Standard Time Series data set, I test this hypothesis and find that an increase in compulsory education length decreases the expected number of internal armed conflicts. The results suggest further importance of education as a great equalizer among individuals as well as nations.


Peacebuilding After Civil War, Caroline A. Hartzell Feb 2014

Peacebuilding After Civil War, Caroline A. Hartzell

Political Science Faculty Publications

Book Summary: This comprehensive new Handbook explores the significance and nature of armed intrastate conflict and civil war in the modern world. Civil wars and intrastate conflict represent the principal form of organised violence since the end of World War II, and certainly in the contemporary era. These conflicts have a huge impact and drive major political change within the societies in which they occur, as well as on an international scale. The global importance of recent intrastate and regional conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Nepal, Cote d'Ivoire, Syria and Libya – amongst others – has served to refocus …


Transitions From War To Peace, Caroline A. Hartzell Jan 2013

Transitions From War To Peace, Caroline A. Hartzell

Political Science Faculty Publications

The Elgar Handbook of Civil War and Fragile States brings together contributions from a multidisciplinary group of internationally renowned scholars on such important issues as the causes of violent conflicts and state fragility, the challenges of conflict resolution and mediation, and the obstacles to post-conflict reconstruction and durable peace-building. This chapter examines the state of current knowledge regarding transitions from war to peace following civil wars.