scholarly journals Elections and Civil War in Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
José A. Cheibub ◽  
Jude C. Hays
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Substantial Reduction ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Direct Support ◽  
Civil War Onset

The view that multiparty elections in changing authoritarian regimes should be held sooner rather than later has been increasingly under attack. Critics argue that, under conditions of low institutional development, multiparty elections may lead to violence and civil war, rather than to the peaceful allocation of authority that everyone desires. Starting from the premise that elections are strategically timed and endogenous in transitioning authoritarian regimes, that is, more likely to be held when violence is imminent, we show that for Africa, the continent with the lowest levels of political institutionalization, elections do not increase the probability of a civil war initiation. In fact, for the post-Cold War period, the holding of multiparty elections is actually associated with a substantial reduction in the probability of civil war onset. To account for this pattern, we develop an informational theory of elections held under conditions that prevail in the post-Cold War, when foreign powers are reluctant to provide direct support for dictators (or their opponents) and elections are more reflective of the true level of a leader’s strength. We argue that, under these conditions, elections may prevent the eruption of a civil war that is already imminent, through two mechanisms: they may deter a weak opposition from initiating a war they are likely to lose or they may induce a weak dictator to offer ways to share power with the opposition.

Elections and Political Regimes

2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 446-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Gandhi
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Historical View ◽  
Electoral Authoritarianism ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Authoritarian Elections

Post-Cold War autocracies appear novel in their use of multiparty elections, attracting the attention of scholars and policymakers alike. A longer historical view, however, reveals that what is unique is not electoral authoritarianism after 1989, but rather the electoral inactivity of autocracies during the Cold War period. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, authoritarian regimes have held multiparty elections. The prevalence of these elections begs the question of whether they have any effects on political liberalization and democratization. But the study of authoritarian elections in processes of political change faces a number of theoretical and empirical challenges that can only partly be surmounted with existing approaches.

Policy Failure and Petroleum Predation: The Economics of Civil War Debate Viewed ‘From the War-Zone’

2005 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Policy Failure ◽  
War Zone ◽  
The Social ◽  
Civil War Literature ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Statistical Approaches

AbstractThe analysis of armed conflict in the post Cold War era has been profoundly influenced by neoclassical economists. Statistical approaches have generated important propositions, but there is a danger when these feed into policy prescriptions. This paper first compares the economics of civil war literature with the social movement literature which has also tried to explain collective action problems. It argues that the latter has a much more sophisticated set of conceptual tools, enriched by empirical study. The paper then uses the case of multipolar militarization in oil-rich Casanare, Colombia, to demonstrate complexity and contingency in civil war trajectories. State policy failure and civil actors can be an important source of explanation alongside the economic agendas of armed actors.

scholarly journals Civil War from a Transnational Perspective

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian Skrede Gleditsch
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International System ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Dominant Form ◽  
Post Cold War

Civil war is the dominant form of armed conflict in the contemporary international system, and most severe lethal armed conflicts in the post-Cold War era have been civil/intrastate rather than interstate. Still, it would be misleading to see these conflicts as purely domestic, as many contemporary civil wars such as Syria display clear transnational characteristics, including inspirations from events in other countries, links to actors in other countries, as well as international interventions. Moreover, civil wars often have important implications for other states, including security concerns and economic impacts. There is a need to focus on the growth and core findings in the literature on transnational dimensions of civil war, in particular on how factors outside a particular state can influence the risk of conflict within states as well as some of the central consequences of domestic conflict for other states or relations between states. This line of research has helped expand our understanding of both civil conflict and interstate war, and that a comparative focus on varieties conflict and attention to the possible transnational dimensions of civil war deserve a prominent role in future research.

The International Regime for Treating Civil War, 1988–2017

Daedalus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 147 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Gowan ◽  
Stephen John Stedman
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Standard Treatment ◽  
International Order ◽  
Major Power ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Standard Response ◽  
Peacekeeping Forces

The post–Cold War international order has promoted a “standard treatment” for civil wars involving the use of mediation to end conflicts and the deployment of peacekeeping forces to implement the resulting settlements. The United Nations has played a leading role in applying this standard treatment, which enjoys broad international support. By contrast, Western efforts to promote more robust humanitarian intervention as a standard response to civil wars remains controversial. While effective in relatively permissive postconflict environments, international mediation and peacekeeping efforts have proved insufficient to resolve harder cases of civil war, such as those in South Sudan and Syria. The UN has struggled to make the standard treatment work where governments refuse to cooperate or low-level violence is endemic. Growing major-power tensions could now undermine the post–Cold War regime for the treatment of civil wars, which, for all its faults, has made a significant contribution to international order.

Beyond Patronage: Violent Struggle, Ruling Party Cohesion, and Authoritarian Durability

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 869-889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven R. Levitsky ◽  
Lucan A. Way
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Dominant Party ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
International Pressure ◽  
The Face ◽  
Party Cohesion ◽  
The Cost

We explore the sources of durability of party-based authoritarian regimes in the face of crisis. Recent scholarship on authoritarianism suggests that ruling parties enhance elite cohesion—and consequently, regime durability—by providing institutionalized access the spoils of power. We argue, by contrast, that while elite access to power and spoils may ensure elite cooperation during normal times, it often fails to do so during crises. Instead, the identities, norms, and organizational structures forged during periods of sustained, violent, and ideologically-driven conflict are a critical source of cohesion—and durability—in party-based authoritarian regimes. Origins in violent conflict raise the cost of defection and provide leaders with additional (non-material) resources that can be critical to maintaining unity and discipline, even when a crisis threatens the party's hold on power. Hence, where ruling parties combine mechanisms of patronage distribution with the strong identities, solidarity ties, and discipline generated by violent origins, regimes should be most durable.We apply this argument to four party-based competitive authoritarian regimes in post-Cold War Africa: Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In each of these cases, an established single- or dominant-party regime faced heightened international pressure, economic crisis, and a strong opposition challenge after 1990. Yet whereas ruling parties in Kenya and Zambia were organized almost exclusively around patronage, those in Mozambique and Zimbabwe were liberation parties that came to power via violent struggle. This difference is critical to explaining diverging post-Cold War regime outcomes: whereas ruling parties in Zambia and Kenya imploded and eventually lost power in these face of crises, those in Mozambique and Zimbabwe remained intact and regimes survived.

Civil War and Refugees in Post-Cold War Africa†

Civil Wars ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-213
Author(s):  
Zaryab Iqbal ◽  
Christopher Zorn
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Post Cold War
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