This book argues that political and economic inequalities following group lines generate grievances that in turn can motivate civil war. Lars-Erik Cederman, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, and Halvard Buhaug offer a theoretical approach that highlights ethnonationalism and how the relationship between group identities and inequalities are fundamental for successful mobilization to resort to violence. Although previous research highlighted grievances as a key motivation for political violence, contemporary research on civil war has largely dismissed grievances as irrelevant, emphasizing instead the role of opportunities. This book shows that the alleged non-results for grievances in previous research stemmed primarily from atheoretical measures, typically based on individual data. The authors develop new indicators of political and economic exclusion at the group level, and show that these exert strong effects on the risk of civil war. They provide new analyses of the effects of transnational ethnic links and the duration of civil wars, and extended case discussions illustrating causal mechanisms.

This book argues that political and economic inequalities following group lines generate grievances that in turn can motivate civil war. Lars-Erik Cederman, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, and Halvard Buhaug offer a theoretical approach that highlights ethnonationalism and how the relationship between group identities and inequalities are fundamental for successful mobilization to resort to violence. Although previous research highlighted grievances as a key motivation for political violence, contemporary research on civil war has largely dismissed grievances as irrelevant, emphasizing instead the role of opportunities. This book shows that the alleged non-results for grievances in previous research stemmed primarily from atheoretical measures, typically based on individual data. The authors develop new indicators of political and economic exclusion at the group level, and show that these exert strong effects on the risk of civil war. They provide new analyses of the effects of transnational ethnic links and the duration of civil wars, and extended case discussions illustrating causal mechanisms.

Within international law there is no unified concept of peace. This book addresses this gap by considering the liberal conception of peace within Western philosophy alongside the principle of 'peaceful coexistence' supported in the East. By tracing the evolution of the international law of peace through its historical and philosophical origins, this book investigates whether there is a 'right to peace'. The book explores how existing international law and institutions contribute to the establishment of peace, or how they fail to do so. It sets out how international law promotes the negative dimension of peace-the absence of violence-as well as its positive dimension: the presence of underlying conditions for peace. It also investigates whether international actors and institutions have particular obligations in relation to the establishment and maintenance of peace. Discussions include: the relationships between the different regimes of human rights, trade, development, the environment, and regulation of arms trade with peace; the role of women, refugees, and other groups seeking equal treatment; the role of peacekeepers, transitional justice mechanisms, international courts fact-finding missions, and national constitutional frameworks in upholding peace in practice; and how civil society participates in the promotion and safeguarding of peace. The book's comprehensive treatment of the concept of peace in international law makes it an ideal reference work for those working in the field, as well as for students.

Peace is an elusive concept, especially within the field of international law, varying according to historical era and between contextual applications within different cultures, institutions, societies, and academic traditions. This Research Handbook responds to the gap created by the neglect of peace in international law scholarship. Explaining the normative evolution of peace from the principles of peaceful co-existence to the UN declaration on the right to peace, this Research Handbook calls for the fortification of international institutions to facilitate the pursuit of sustainable peace as a public good.

This Handbook offers a comprehensive examination of the peace, security, and development nexus from a global perspective, and investigates the interfaces of these issues in a context characterised by many new challenges. By bringing together more than 40 leading experts and commentators from across the world, the Handbook maps the various research agendas related to these three themes, taking stock of existing work and debates, while outlining areas for further engagement. In doing so, the chapters may serve as a primer for new researchers while also informing the wider scholarly community about the latest research trends and innovations. The volume is split into three thematic parts: Concepts and approaches New drivers of conflict, insecurity, and developmental challenges Actors, institutions, and processes. For ease of use and organisational consistency, each chapter provides readers with an overview of each research area, a review of the state of the literature, a summary of the major debates, and promising directions for future research. This Handbook will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, development studies, security studies, and International Relations.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Sociology - War and Peace, Military, grade: 73%, Dublin City University, course: International Relations, language: English, abstract: This paper poses the research question: what causes civil war? Since the end of World War II, both incidence and duration of civil wars have been on the rise, with disastrous outcomes for humanity. It is crucial that academics study this phenomenon and try to create theories which are able to explain and predict civil war onset for different countries. Two main competing theories have become prominent in the modern day literature surrounding the outbreak of civil war. On the one hand there are "greed" theorists employing econometric models to account for rebel opportunism. These theories centre around the notion that ethno-linguistically or religiously diverse countries experience civil war as a result of the incentive to rebel compared to the state's ability to counter rebellion. Greed theories focus largely on the ability of rebel groups to recruit and finance themselves, in addition to a number of other variables, which make civil war more or less conducive. On the other side are advocates of the "grievance" theory who argue civil wars start as a result of grievances, built up as a result of political and material discrimination. Depending on the level of grievance in combination with the ability of ethnocultural groups to mobilise and the state's response to initial protest, civil war occurs. This paper focuses on two case studies, with opposing dependent variables. The first is Uganda which has experienced multiple internal conflicts of varying intensity since gaining independence. The other is Kenya which has been spared the outbreak of a full-blown civil war, although it has experienced a number violent ethnic clashes. The case studies are relatively similar so as to control for third variables, yet chosen in such a fashion as to avoid bias or case fixing. For both countries

Civil wars have become endemic to many African countries since the end of the Cold War. The risk of civil wars in much of Africa stands now as the leading contributory cause of vulnerability. This upsurge of civil wars has . posed a compelling need to improve understanding for better policy direction. Most of the current studies on civil wars tend to focus on macro issues with limited relevance and conceptualisation at micro level. The dearth of understanding of household livelihood strategies in the 'war zone' has made the existing studies in risk and livelihood literature unwittingly equating these strategies with those in the context of other risk events, or even ruled out any rational household risk management behaviour. In this regard, this study is an attempt to gain a nuanced understanding of the subde household livelihood strategies in the context of civil war. In an attempt to unravel and better understand household risk-related behaviours in the context of civil war, this thesis set out a framework called the Risk-Livelihood Approach that links risk events in a systematic way to household livelihood strategies and their outcomes. The framework provides the basis for fonnulating the main four hypotheses of the thesis, which are related to characteristics of risk events, livelihood strategies and diversification, social capital and vulnerability. In an attempt to provide a better understanding of these hypotheses, comparative empirical inquiries were undertaken at household level in Bahr el Ghazal region in southern Sudan, which has been exposed to a protracted civil war. The major empirical findings from a general case study of Sudan's civil war and three specific case studies of households exposed to different types of counter-insurgency warfare and drought all point to complexity and context-specificity. The thesis clearly shows the significance of specific characteristics of counter-insurgency warfare in understanding household livelihood strategies and vulnerability. In particular, the thesis demonstrates that the 'standard' pattern of vulnerability and household responses to drought is similar to that in the context of exogenous counter-insurgency warfare, while a different pattern of vulnerability and household responses to endogenous shocks, such as endogenous counter-insurgency warfare, is identified. Specifically, the thesis surprisingly finds a positive link between level of vulnerability and initial high level of household wealth in the context of endogenous counter-insurgency warfare. A future research agenda in the area of vulnerability might need to focus on developing a greater understanding of the nature and characteristics of risk events such as endogenous shocks.

This collection of essays questions the adequacy of explaining today's internal armed conflicts purely in terms of economic factors and re-establishes the importance of identity and grievances in creating and sustaining such wars. Countries studied include Lebanon, Angola, Colombia and Afghanistan.

War and conflict, whether internal or international, remains a pervasive phenomenon affecting most regions of the world and particularly low-income countries. Demographic consequences of war and violence, especially deaths and forced migration, are amongst the gravest costs of war and receive much attention in mass media, although it is often difficult to quantify such effects. Furthermore, demographic factors, such as population pressure on natural renewable resources, migration, differential population dynamics by ethnic or religious group, or the number of young persons in a population, have been suggested as potential causes of conflict. Despite the obvious importance of both demographic causes and consequences of armed conflict, research on the demographic aspects of conflict is scarce. This book brings together researchers from very different traditions to bridge gaps in the field, and to provide new insights into the demographic causes and consequences of armed conflict. The diversity of the authors, coming from demography, statistics, political science, sociology, anthropology, history, geography, economics and law, gives the reader a cross-cut of recent research in demography and armed conflict. The themes are equally diverse. Studies of demographic causes of conflict address issues of migration, ethnicity, population growth and youth bulges. Studies focusing on the consequences of conflict include some broad assessments of mortality from armed conflict, the estimation of casualties for prosecution of war crimes, as well as detailed case studies of conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Kenya, Mali, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda.