[with Stathis Kalyvas and Guillermo Kreiman]. Under review.
Abstract — Once they erupt, civil wars may evolve in a variety of ways, escalating and de-escalating. We know a lot about their duration, but much less about the intensity at which they are fought--known as severity. Most of what we know about severity comes either from macro-comparisons between wars or spatial comparisons within wars. A key assumption dominates: civil wars always escalate from their onset. We take a different approach capturing macro-level patterns of intensity both overtime during a conflict and across conflicts, which we label ‘dynamic intensity.’ We distinguish between onset intensity and conflict intensity. Based on cross-sectional panel data on civil war (1944-2015), we identify five patterns of dynamic intensity and account for this variation. Our key finding is that most civil wars do not escalate relative to their onset: onset intensity is a good predictor of conflict intensity both because it incorporates the factors that shape the capacity of the two sides and it sets conflicts on a path-dependent trajectory.
Under review.
Abstract — Empirical studies of the causes of civil war conceptualize onset as a binary political event. That is, either a civil war begins or no conflict starts. Yet, this measure often does not correspond to observed empirical variation in how civil war begins. In this article, I provide an alternative approach to civil war onset, defined as a varied political phenomenon. I develop a novel typology of onset in four mutually exclusive categories: peripheral challenge, state disintegration, coup, and insurrectionary protests. Using a new dataset of civil war onset from 1944 to 2020, I demonstrate the consequences of this reconceptualization through replication of several landmark studies on the causes of civil war. I find that the most common correlates of civil war are in fact clustered by types of onset. Such findings potentially solve the long-lasting debate on the causes of civil war and open numerous avenues for further comparative research on civil war.
[with Theodore McLauchlin]. (Presented at UCL Conflict & Change Workshop).
Abstract — Recent studies show that not all civil war onsets are equal. Notably, one main dimension along which they vary is the extent to which regime elites are involved in launching them. This variation in turn means that central state institutions may be connected to civil wars in different ways, an underappreciated point in the literature on regime type and civil war. Using a recent typology of civil war onset (1944-2020) and a regime type measure that is new to civil war studies, we disaggregate the effect of state institutions across different types of civil war onset. We find that anocratic regimes are especially at risk of experiencing civil war onset in the form of state disintegration. These results show that the link between regime type and civil war is primarily driven by a type of onset strikingly different from the commonly assumed model of peripheral insurgencies.
[presented at the UCL Conflict & Change Workshop, All Souls TEL workshop, and CEPSI].
Abstract — Does the onset of civil war matter? While the question of why civil wars start has received considerable scholarly attention, the question of how they start has been largely ignored. I build a novel typology of civil war onset that captures the dynamics and actor constellations at the start of hostilities, this article asks whether the type of transition into civil war impacts how conflict unfolds, focusing on three important macro-level wartime dynamics: warfare, severity, and duration. Using an original data set of civil wars (1944-2020), I find that how civil wars start does indeed matter. The results provide strong evidence that given how civil wars begin, some conflicts are more likely to be fought through symmetric modes of warfare, some are more severe, or last longer than others. These findings have important implications for research on civil war and comparative analysis of conflict: first, the show that the type of onset is an important factor shaping conflict dynamics, yet largely omitted in current studies, and second, the findings provide evidence that civil wars come in different shapes and represent different types of political challenges to state sovereignty that unfold in patterned ways.
[presented at EPSA and APSA 2021].
Abstract — A common assumption in the civil war literature is that conflict onset often follows the model of peripheral insurgencies, yet evidence suggest that not all civil war begin this way. This article focuses on an overlooked type of onset: state disintegration. I argue that the dynamics of onset and wartime following state disintegration differ from those occurring in peripheral insurgencies. I test this argument in two steps. First, using original archival data on the onset of Burundi's civil war (1993-2006), I show that the dynamics of onset following state disintegration take the form of communal wars. As the army dissolves, non-state militias mobilize and are empowered by series of defection and increased civilian mobilization. Second, I examine the links between the processes of onset and several wartime dynamics, and find that these conflicts unfold in patterned ways. Militias tend to be especially prone to infighting and fragmentation, engage in symmetric warfare, and tend to perpetrate high levels of civilian victimization in the form of massacres and ethnic cleansing. A discussion of the civil wars in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Lebanon provides further support for the external validity of this argument.