Ethnicity, the State, and the Duration of Civil War

Abstract

Previous research has focused primarily on how ethnicity may trigger civil war, and its effect on conflict duration remains disputed. Rather than treating conflict as a direct consequence of ethnic cleavages, the authors argue that ethnicity per se does not affect civil war duration. Instead, its effect depends on its relationship to political institutions. They employ a dyadic approach that emphasizes the political context in which both government leaders and nonstate challengers can capitalize on the ascriptive nature of ethnicity. They show that although states can initially benefit from politicizing ethnic relations, once violent conflict breaks out, such policies may backfire on the government and make it difficult for incumbent governments to accept settlements that could terminate conflicts. Past policies of ethnic exclusion also benefit rebel organizations fighting the government, since the resulting grievances increase collective group solidarity and render individual fighters more cost tolerant. Using a new data set that codes the nexus between rebel organizations and ethnic groups, as well as information on ethnopolitical exclusion, the authors find considerable support for their propositions.

Technology and Collective Action: The Effect of Cell Phone Coverage on Political Violence in Africa

“…The vast literature on civil conflict onset and duration has explored structural determinants such as economic development, growth shocks, natural resources, elections, ethnic diversity, and political exclusion (see, for example, Cederman, Weidmann, and Gleditsch 2011;Collier and Hoeffler 2007;Collier et al 2003;Fearon, Kasar, and Laitin 2007;Fearon and Laitin 2003;Metternich 2011;Ross 2006;Sambanis 2002;Weidmann 2009;Wucherpfennig et al 2012). A smaller, but growing, body of research has investigated important factors at the individual and group level (Blattman 2009;Weinstein 2007;Wood 2003).…”

Does Peace Trickle Down? Micro-Level Evidence from Africa

“…While prior work has largely focused on inequalities on the group level Cederman and Vogt 2017), shifting the focus on links between elite and micro-levels opens up new questions: is elite accommodation of political power sufficient to reduce ethnonationalist grievances (Wucherpfennig et al 2012)? Or does this accommodation have to be accompanied by a peace dividend for the broader ethnic group?…”

“…In conflicts with a distinct ethno-political dimension, many of these logistical hurdles are linked to the ethnic group: recruitment along ethnic lines, support from co-ethnic civilians, and territorial control-including public goods provision in this territory-in an geographically separated ethnic homeland (Wucherpfennig et al 2012). …”

“…In order to make this connection, we rely on ACD2EPR (Wucherpfennig et al 2012) which maps ethnic groups in EPR to rebel groups listed in the UCDP Armed Conflict Dataset (Gleditsch et al 2002). As PSED relies on the same list of UCDP rebel groups to identify rebel group signatories to peace agreements, we are then able to identify which ethnic groups are represented by PSED rebel group signatories.…”

Integrating Data on Ethnicity, Geography, and Conflict

“…8;Wucherpfennig et al 2012). d) The MAR dataset contains categorical and ordinal variables on groups' settlement patterns, such as their spatial distribution.…”