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Cited by 858Political Conflict and GovernanceMilitary History and StrategyInternational Relations and Foreign Policy

International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict

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KALYVAS, STATHIS N., BALCELLS, LAIA·2010·American Political Science Review
DOI 10.1017/s0003055410000286
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Abstract

Because they are chiefly domestic conflicts, civil wars have been studied primarily from a perspective stressing domestic factors. We ask, instead, whether (and how) the international system shapes civil wars; we find that it does shape the way in which they are fought—their “technology of rebellion.” After disaggregating civil wars into irregular wars (or insurgencies), conventional wars, and symmetric nonconventional wars, we report a striking decline of irregular wars following the end of the Cold War, a remarkable transformation of internal conflict. Our analysis brings the international system back into the study of internal conflict. It specifies the connection between system polarity and the Cold War on the one hand and domestic warfare on the other hand. It also demonstrates that irregular war is not the paradigmatic mode of civil war as widely believed, but rather is closely associated with the structural characteristics of the Cold War.

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  • Studies of the duration of civil war have paid insufficient attention to factors that are truly endogenous to the war itself.

    “At the same time, studies of the duration of civil war have paid insufficient attention to factors that are truly endogenous to the war itself (Kalyvas and Balcells 2010).”

    From Dynamics and Logics of Civil War (2017) · cites this paper as Kalyvas and Balcells 2010

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Authors
KALYVAS, S. N., & BALCELLS, L.
Affiliations
  • Yale University (US)
  • Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (ES)
Corresponding author
  • KALYVAS, STATHIS N.
  • BALCELLS, LAIA
ORCID
Venue
American Political Science Review
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2010-08
Volume
104
Issue
3
Pages
415-429
ISSN
  • 0003-0554 (ISSN-L)
  • 1537-5943
DOI
10.1017/s0003055410000286
OpenAlex
W2125711184
Cited by
858
References
102
Citations by year
2026: 23 · 2025: 65 · 2024: 84 · 2023: 52 · 2022: 73 · 2021: 84 · 2020: 111 · 2019: 78 · 2018: 45 · 2017: 47 · 2016: 40 · 2015: 35 · 2014: 33 · 2013: 34 · 2012: 24
FWCI
87.10
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • American Political Science Review (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DIGITAL.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Military History and Strategy
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › International Relations and Foreign Policy
Keywords
civil war, international system, end of the Cold War, irregular warfare, insurgency, conventional war, domestic conflict

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