Religion as a Peacemaker? Peace Duration after Ethnic Civil Wars

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehmet Gurses ◽  
Nicolas Rost
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Opposition Group ◽  
Peace Duration ◽  
Durable Peace

AbstractWhat role does religion play in preventing civil war from recurring? Politicians have proposed that when warring groups share the same religion, achieving a durable peace will be easier. We test this hypothesis empirically using a large-nsample of all ethnic civil wars that began and ended between 1950 and 2006, and a measure of co-religiosity between the ethnic group in power and the main opposition group. The analysis shows that there is no positive relationship between co-religiosity and the duration of post-civil war peace, showing that sharing the same religion may not help to bring about peace following an ethnic civil war. To the contrary, the closer religious ties, the less likely it is that peace will last after the end of the conflict, and the higher the risk that conflict will recur.

Termination and Recurrence of Civil War: Which Outcomes Lead to Durable Peace after Civil War?

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
HIROTAKA OHMURA
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
War Termination ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Peace Settlement ◽  
Military Victory ◽  
Peace Duration ◽  
Durable Peace

AbstractThis article attempts to answer why some countries experience the recurrence of civil war and others do not. One of the most significant differences between civil war onset and its recurrence is that the latter has once experienced termination of civil war, while the former has not. To find the cause of recurrence, this article examines how different war termination types influence the duration of post-civil war peace. Duration analysis of the civil wars between 1944 and 1999 shows that military victory, supported by peacekeeping operations or power-sharing arrangements, leads to the most durable peace in a post-civil war country. Contrary to the accepted wisdom, negotiated peace settlement, even when supported by peacekeeping operations or power-sharing arrangements, is not positively related to post-conflict peace.

The Durability of Peace

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline A. Hartzell ◽  
Amy Yuen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Active Listening ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Sustainable Peace ◽  
Single Process ◽  
Peace Duration ◽  
Durable Peace

With wars—not just global, but civil wars and other domestic infightings—still being rampant in the modern world, scholars have begun to develop interest in identifying the conditions that can help establish a durable peace. Peace is a lack of conflict and freedom from fear of violence between social groups. Commonly understood as the absence of war or violent hostility, peace often involves compromise, and therefore is initiated with thoughtful active listening and communication to enhance and create genuine mutual understanding. The study of the durability of peace has greatly evolved through the years, and one of its implications is that recent empirical work on this topic has focused on civil war. Most of this study has been tailored in response to the model of war, a theory of armed conflict which presents war and peace as stages of a single process. Furthermore, this analysis on peace duration revolves around for main themes: the characteristics of conflict and conflict actors, belligerent-centered dynamics, the role of third parties, and the developments in the measurement, estimation, and the study of peace duration. Under the conceptions of peace, sustainable peace must be regarded as an important factor for the future of prosperity. Throughout the world, nurturing, empowerment, and communications are considered to be the crucial factors in creating and sustaining a durable peace.

An Exilic Church

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse A. Zink
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Church Growth ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Episcopal Church ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Church Missionary Society ◽  
Peace And Reconciliation ◽  
The Church

The Episcopal Church of South Sudan and Sudan (ECSSS) has been shaped by the experience of exile. A half-century of Anglican mission by the Church Missionary Society produced a Church that was of varied strength across the region. Two lengthy civil wars since Sudan’s independence displaced hundreds of thousands of southern Sudanese and led to Church growth, as refugees turned to Christianity in new ways. This was particularly true of the Dinka, southern Sudan’s largest ethnic group, who had long been uninterested in Christianity. In the midst of civil war in the 1980s and 1990s, Dinka showed new interest in Christianity and the Church exploded with growth. Church hierarchies have been tested by civil war, managing relations with rebel armies and governments, while also working for peace and reconciliation. The challenge for the ECSSS is to move from being a Church of the exiled to a Church of the returned.

scholarly journals The Intractability of Islamist Insurgencies: Islamist Rebels and the Recurrence of Civil War

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desirée Nilsson ◽  
Isak Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Global Study ◽  
Religious Dimensions ◽  
The Government ◽  
Large Research ◽  
Durable Peace

Abstract There is a large research field focusing on the recurrence of civil wars, yet this literature has omitted to seriously consider religious dimensions and ideational features of armed conflicts. To address this gap, we provide the first global study exploring whether, and why, Islamist civil wars—armed conflicts fought over self-proclaimed Islamist aspirations—are more or less likely to recur compared to other conflicts. We argue that civil wars fought over Islamist claims are more likely to relapse because the ideational features of these conflicts increase the uncertainty regarding the capabilities of the warring actors in terms of the extent and nature of transnational support that may be forthcoming, for rebels as well as the government. In line with our argument, we find that Islamist civil wars are significantly less likely to be terminated and more likely to recur once ended. Thus, our results demonstrate that Islamist civil wars represent a particular challenge with regard to the goal of achieving durable peace.

Ethnic Violence in Africa: Destructive Legacies of Pre-Colonial States

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (03) ◽  
pp. 645-683 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Paine
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Statistical Evidence ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Strategic Incentives ◽  
Postcolonial Africa

AbstractWhat explains differential rates of ethnic violence in postcolonial Africa? I argue that ethnic groups organized as a precolonial state (PCS) exacerbated interethnic tensions in their postcolonial country. Insecure leaders in these countries traded off between inclusive coalitions that risked insider coups and excluding other ethnic groups at the possible expense of outsider rebellions. My main hypotheses posit that PCS groups should associate with coups because their historically rooted advantages often enabled accessing power at the center, whereas other ethnic groups in their countries—given strategic incentives for ethnopolitical exclusion—should fight civil wars more frequently than ethnic groups in countries without a PCS group. Analyzing originally compiled data on precolonial African states provides statistical evidence for these implications about civil wars and coups between independence and 2013 across various model specifications. Strikingly, through 1989, thirty of thirty-two ethnic group-level major civil war onsets occurred in countries with a PCS group.

Through the prism of Spain. Socio-economic causes of different outcomes of Russian and Spanish civil wars

2017 ◽  
pp. 142-155
Author(s):  
I. Rozinskiy ◽  
N. Rozinskaya
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Russian Civil War ◽  
World War ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Economic Well Being

The article examines the socio-economic causes of the outcome of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1936), which, as opposed to the Russian Civil War, resulted in the victory of the “Whites”. Choice of Spain as the object of comparison with Russia is justified not only by similarity of civil wars occurred in the two countries in the XX century, but also by a large number of common features in their history. Based on statistical data on the changes in economic well-being of different strata of Spanish population during several decades before the civil war, the authors formulate the hypothesis according to which the increase of real incomes of Spaniards engaged in agriculture is “responsible” for their conservative political sympathies. As a result, contrary to the situation in Russia, where the peasantry did not support the Whites, in Spain the peasants’ position predetermined the outcome of the confrontation resulting in the victory of the Spanish analogue of the Whites. According to the authors, the possibility of stable increase of Spanish peasants’ incomes was caused by the nation’s non-involvement in World War I and also by more limited, compared to Russia and some other countries, spending on creation of heavy (primarily military-related) industry in Spain.

Stick Then Carrot: When Do Governments Give Amnesty during Civil War?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley-Ann Daniels
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Policy Choice ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
The Government

Abstract Governments grant amnesties to rebel groups during civil wars and this is a puzzle. Why would the government offer an amnesty, which can be interpreted as a signal of weakness? In certain circumstances, offering amnesty is a rational policy choice. Governments should give amnesties when they are winning: the risk of misinterpreted signals is lessened, costs are low, rebel groups are weakened, and so amnesty can be used instrumentally to encourage defection or division among foot soldiers or as an incentive to leaders. Therefore, the government capitalizes on its military advantage and offers amnesty in a “stick then carrot” tactic. Using a database of amnesties during conflicts from 1990 to 2011, the article shows that governments are more likely to give amnesties following high rebel deaths. The use of amnesty during conflict is nuanced and context is important when understanding strategic choices.

Oil Wealth, Post-conflict Elections, and Postwar Peace Failure

2015 ◽  
Vol 61 (5) ◽  
pp. 1021-1045 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Keels
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Factors Associated ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Oil Revenue ◽  
Oil Wealth ◽  
New Research

New research has emerged that suggests there is a troubling relationship between elections and civil wars; primarily, elections increase the risk of civil war recurrence. I investigate this relationship further by examining the economic factors associated with the connection between postwar elections and peace failure. Specifically, how does the presence of oil wealth impact the risk posed by postwar elections. Drawing on previous findings in the democratization literature, I suggest the immobility of oil wealth dramatically increases the stakes associated with postwar elections. As postwar elites use irregular electioneering to consolidate their control of oil revenue, it increases the incentives for postwar opposition to use violence as a means to achieve their objectives. Using post-civil war data from 1945 to 2005, I demonstrate that postwar elections that occur in oil-rich economies dramatically decrease the durability of postwar peace. Once controlling for petro elections, though, I demonstrate that subsequent postwar elections actually increase the durability of postwar peace.

Transnational Jihadism & Civil Wars

Daedalus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 146 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-70
Author(s):  
Martha Crenshaw
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Domestic Terrorism ◽  
Transnational Activism ◽  
Power Centers ◽  
Soviet Invasion ◽  
Competing Power ◽  
Foreign Fighters ◽  
The Relationship

When rebels also employ terrorism, civil wars can become more intractable. Since the 1980s, jihadism, a form of violent transnational activism, has mobilized civil war rebels, outside entrepreneurs, foreign fighters, and organizers of transnational as well as domestic terrorism. These activities are integral to the jihadist trend, representing overlapping and conjoined strands of the same ideological current, which in turn reflects internal division and dissatisfaction within the Arab world and within Islam. Jihadism, however, is neither unitary nor monolithic. It contains competing power centers and divergent ideological orthodoxies. Different jihadist actors emphasize different priorities and strategies. They disagree, for example, on whether the “near” or the “far” enemy should take precedence. The relationship between jihadist terrorism and civil war is far from uniform or constant. This essay traces the trajectory of this evolution, beginning in the 1980s in the context of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

"The Necessary Murder": Myth, Ritual, and Civil War in Lucan, Book 3

1994 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. M. C. Green
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Sacred Grove ◽  
Bellum Civile ◽  
Sacred Place ◽  
Blood Sacrifice ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
Historical Basis

It is the argument of this paper that many aspects of Lucan's characterization in the Bellum Civile of Caesar and Pompey, and of the conflict itself, reflect a ritual combat for kingship such as the combat and murder codified in the myth of Romulus and Remus. It was a well-established convention by Ennius's time, further developed in the late Republic, that the conflict between the founding brothers over control of Rome was the ultimate cause for the Civil Wars. The religious (and possibly the historical) basis of this myth can be found in the rites of the priest of Diana at Aricia, the rex nemorensis, which were still extant in Lucan's time. The evidence for Lucan's use of this paradigm is reviewed, and Book 3 of the Bellum Civile is then reassessed in the terms that it suggests. The themes of sacred place (especially the sacred grove), scared combat, and the necessary murder are most clearly presented in Book 3. It is further argued that seeming inconsistencies in the nature of the gods in Lucan's epic can be at least partially resolved if we understand that the gods must remain aloof and outside the action while the ritual takes place, even though they themselves have instituted the ritual of kingship murder, and will, when it is completed, receive the murderer as their ritually validated priest-king. In the conclusion, ways are suggested in which this paradigm, if accepted, begins to clarify various puzzling choices Lucan has made elsewhere in the epic regarding his narrative of events, his development of character, and the recurrent images of lightning, tree, and blood-sacrifice owed to the gods.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document