Dynamics and Logics of Civil War

2017/07/26 by Lars-Erik Cederman, Lars‐Erik Cederman, Manuel Vogt · 203 citations
Social Sciences · #Bridge (graph theory) #Civil society #Computer science #Economics #Epistemology #Law #Political Conflict and Governance #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Positive economics #Race, History, and American Society #Scope (computer science) #Sociology #Spanish Civil War #Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

paper · open access · doi:10.1177/0022002717721385

published in Journal of Conflict Resolution 61(9), 1992-2016 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2017/07/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

This article reviews the literature on civil war. We focus on the most recent period of scholarly activity, beginning in the early 2000s when the publication of prominent quantitative studies triggered a surge in the empirical research of civil war as a well-defined conceptual category. We identify three explanatory logics that have dominated much of this literature and that view civil wars as a consequence of greed, grievances, and opportunities, respectively. We evaluate the arguments and findings of these theoretical approaches with respect to each of the main phases of war: outbreak, wartime dynamics, conflict termination, and postwar recovery. The article concludes by identifying key challenges confronting future civil war research. In particular, we emphasize the continuing need to advance theories that bridge the main explanatory logics as well as the different phases of conflict. Researchers should also pay more attention to defining the appropriate spatiotemporal scope of their studies.

Citations

• Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New Dataset
• The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement
• The perils of policy by p-value: Predicting civil conflicts
• Ideology in civil war
• Transnational Dimensions of Civil War
• Does Indiscriminate Violence Incite Insurgent Attacks?
• Why Do Some Civil Wars Last So Much Longer than Others?
• International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict
• Refugees and the Spread of Civil War
• Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War
• Post-Conflict Risks
• From Violence to Voting: War and Political Participation in Uganda
• Civil War

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• The onset of civil armed conflicts and personalization of power in dictatorships
• It takes three to tango: contested authority, violence, and rebel legitimacy in Colombia
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• Civil war [wikipedia]
• Underlying Dimensions of Social Cohesion in a Rural Community Affected by Wartime Violence in Colombia. [europepmc]
• Magnitude of psychological distress and associated factors among war survivor women in Northern, Ethiopia, 2022: a community-based cross-sectional survey. [europepmc]

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