Abstract:Civil wars are not only destructive: they can also give birth to new, long-lasting social, political, and economic structures and processes. I argue that we should in fact view civil wars as critical junctures. Civil wars relax structural constraints, opening opportunities for changes generated by wartime processes, while war's end can lock in these changes, creating path dependency. Government victory may foreclose change (critical junctures do not necessarily lead to transformation), but governments can also… Show more
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