Understanding Civil Wars ─ Continuity and change in intrastate conflict

This book explores a range of debates and topics about intrastate conflict and civil war.

Using a wide range of illustrative case studies, it explores debates about the causes, onset, nature, duration, impact, social context and the termination (and recurrence) of civil wars. It also considers a number of key questions which confront the academic and policy worlds in relation to intrastate conflict, such as: have civil wars fundamentally changed in nature in recent years, in terms of their causes, nature, social context and human impact? The book also explores debates about the methodology of how to study, understand and explain intrastate conflict. and the question of whether the concept of ‘civil wars’is empirically meaningful in an era of globalization and transnational war. In the course of exploring these debates the book formulates an original framework for analysing intrastate conflict and proposes ways in which certain types of civil war might be seen in historical perspective. Nevertheless, it is informed by a critical perspective on describing and explaining such conflicts, and is wary of simplistic or one-dimensional ways of understanding them.

The book draws upon a range of scholarship to undertake this analysis, including a range of authoritative databases including those produced by the Correlates of War project, the Political Instability Task Force, and the Uppsala University Conflict Data Programme. However, in addition to these positivist empirical sources, the book also engages with anthropological, sociological and critical studies of armed conflict, and draws upon the author’s own research in war-affected countries. It engages in thematic analysis and also presents a number of case studies to apply and illustrate the debates (Japan 1877, US civil war 1861-65, Liberia 1989-96, Bosnia 1992-95, and Sri Lanka 1983-2009).

This book will be of much interest to students of civil wars, intra-state conflict, security studies and IR in general.