Urban Concentration and Civil War

Abstract

The explosion of cities and megacities has increased scholars’ and policy markers’ attention to the effects such changes might have on conflict: increasingly, urban environments may alter the nature of warfare but not necessarily the incidence of intrastate war. We argue that high levels of urban concentration—the concentration of populations in one or relatively few urban centers—increases both the likelihood of civil wars and their intensity. Urban concentration limits the ability of the state to project power across space, exacerbating grievances in rural areas, easing rebel control of territory, and enhancing their military strength. At the same time, cities become high-value loci of contestation even as urban warfare constrains conventional state military strength. The result is more symmetrical fighting producing more battle deaths. Cross-national regressions show that urban concentration exerts a crucial effect on the likelihood, nature, and intensity of intrastate warfare.

Forced urbanisation: A cross-national assessment of the effects of intranational political violence on a nation’s largest cities

“…It also involves the actions of smaller groups of individuals who are unmatched by their foes in resources and personnel. However, unlike guerrilla insurgents, the targets of terrorism are much more likely to be civilians who are located within large urban areas (Clutterbuck, 1982;Le Blanc, 2013;Nedal et al, 2015;Savitch et al, 2001;Savitch, 2008).…”

Capture the Fort: Explaining the Timing of Rebel Assaults on Cities During Wartime

“…COIN strategy in Afghanistan and its struggles. While the capture of key locales has long undergirded our understanding of military strategy (see Smith and Stam 2004), observers are increasingly highlighting the role of urban centers in the onset of civil war (e.g., Nedal et al 2020), its duration (Buhaug et al 2009), terrorist tactics (Graham 2008), and civilian victimization more broadly (Koren 2017). Some are even predicting that the future of civil war will revolve around fights for mega-cities (e.g., Konaev 2019).…”