Causes of Civil War in Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Comparison^*

Abstract

Objectives. This article explores the extent to which economic development, ethnic and religious fractionalization, domestic governance, and international trade openness affect civil war in postcolonial Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) from 1950 through 1992. Methods. We estimate a set of multivariate logit models with the generalized estimating equation (GEE) method for time‐series cross‐sectional (TSCS) data. Results. Both in Asia and in SSA, civil war is less likely with increased economic development and trade openness, while mixed autocratic‐democratic regimes raise the likelihood that states will experience civil war. Although neither ethnic nor religious fractionalization has any statistically significant effect on civil war in SSA, civil war in Asia is more likely with greater ethnic fractionalization. Conclusions. Despite cross‐regional variation in causes of civil war, economic development and trade openness seem to play a consistent role in reducing civil war.

Does Globalization Profit the Small Arms Bazaar?

“…Scholars that have examined the issue of globalization and militarization, using defence spending as a proxy, find that openness to the global trading system predicts lower militarization in general (Mehlkop and Graeff, 2003). 9 Likewise, some report that trade openness lowers the risk of civil war, which should also correlate with lower demand for small arms (Bussmann, Schneider, and Wiesehomeier, 2005;de Soysa, 2002;Krause and Suzuki, 2005). The issue is not clear-cut, however, as some very liberal states, such as the U.S. and Belgium, tend to profit from small arms exports and are seen as reluctant partners in a global prohibition regime.…”

The Level of Democracy during Interregnum Periods: Recoding the polity2 Score

“…The results presented in Krause and Suzuki (2005) and, to a far lesser extent, in Fearon and Laitin (2003) are thus sensitive to our recoding of the polity2 variable or to using multiple imputation for interregnums and affected transition periods. 13 In polity2 all interregnums and some of the affected interregnum-cum-transition periods are coded as anocracies.…”

“…One of these studies, Krause and Suzuki (2005), was selected because it employs two separate samples for Asian and SubSaharan African countries over the period 1950 to 1992, which according to our discussion above should make problems with statistical inference using polity2 more likely. The other, Fearon and Laitin's (2003) prominent study of civil war onset, was chosen to show that such problems can occur, if to a far lesser extent, even in a global sample over the period 1945 to 1999.…”

“…The other, Fearon and Laitin's (2003) prominent study of civil war onset, was chosen to show that such problems can occur, if to a far lesser extent, even in a global sample over the period 1945 to 1999. Both Fearon and Laitin (2003) and Krause and Suzuki (2005) find that anocracies are more likely to experience civil war onsets than either autocracies or democracies.…”

“…We thus use information on the best-performing of our single imputation alternative variables to construct a more theory-based multiple imputation model. We apply our approach to two re-analyses of Fearon and Laitin's (2003) and Krause and Suzuki's (2005) studies of civil war onset to demonstrate the influence of Polity's imputation rule. Reanalyzing these two studies we find that the hypothesis that semi-democracies or anocracies are more likely to experience civil war onset is less robust than previously thought.…”