The Logic of Political Violence
Abstract
This article offers a unified approach for studying political violence whether it emerges as repression or civil war. We formulate a model where an incumbent or opposition can use violence to maintain or acquire power to study which political and economic factors drive one-sided or two-sided violence (repression or civil war). The model predicts a hierarchy of violence states from peace via repression to civil war; and suggests a natural empirical approach. Exploiting only within-country variation in the data, we show that violence is associated with shocks that can affect wages and aid. As in the theory, these effects are only present where political institutions are noncohesive.
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Conflict and external threats weaken state capacity by redirecting incentives toward short-term survival and rent extraction rather than long-run institutional investment.
“This pattern aligns closely with the framework developed by Besley and Persson (2011), in which conflict and external threats weaken state capacity by redirecting incentives toward short-term survival and rent extraction rather than long-run institutional investment.”
From Confrontation with the West and Long-Run Economic and Institutional Outcomes: Evidence from Iran (2026) · cites this paper as Besley and Persson (2011)
Cites
The Logic of Political Survival
Bueno de Mesquita, B., Smith, A., Siverson, R. M., & Morrow, J. D. (2003) · doi:10.7551/mitpress/4292.001.0001 · Cited by 4,217 · cited 1× · see citing works
“At a general level, however, the broad selectorate framework in Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) considers the split of government revenue into public goods vs. redistribution, as well as government repression and civil war, as endogenous outcomes.”
BackgroundEconomic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach
Miguel, E., Satyanath, S., & Sergenti, E. (2004) · Journal of Political Economy · doi:10.1086/421174 · Cited by 2,460 · see citing works
State Repression and Political Order
Davenport, C. (2007) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.101405.143216 · Cited by 1,564 · cited 1× · see citing works
“A largely independent literature, surveyed in Davenport (2007), has explored the determinants of government repression and violations of human rights.”
BackgroundMonitoring Trends in Global Combat: A New Dataset of Battle Deaths
Lacina, B., & Gleditsch, N. P. (2005) · European Journal of Population / Revue européenne de Démographie · doi:10.1007/s10680-005-6851-6 · Cited by 784 · see citing works
Chassang, S., & Miquel, G. P. I. (2009) · Quarterly Journal of Political Science · doi:10.1561/100.00008072 · Cited by 194 · see citing works
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Seeds of distrust: conflict in Uganda
Rohner, D., Thoenig, M., & Zilibotti, F. (2013) · Journal of Economic Growth · doi:10.1007/s10887-013-9093-1 · Cited by 371 · see citing works
The Legacy of Historical Conflict: Evidence from Africa
BESLEY, T., & REYNAL-QUEROL, M. (2014) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.1017/s0003055414000161 · Cited by 322 · see citing works
Self-citationThe Causes and Consequences of Development Clusters: State Capacity, Peace, and Income*
Besley, T., & Persson, T. (2014) · Annual Review of Economics · doi:10.1146/annurev-economics-080213-041128 · Cited by 104 · see citing works
Self-citationA Conditional Model of Local Income Shock and Civil Conflict
Buhaug, H., Croicu, M., Fjelde, H., & von Uexkull, N. (2021) · The Journal of Politics · doi:10.1086/709671 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
From armed conflict to disaster vulnerability
Marktanner, M., Mienie, E., & Noiset, L. (2015) · Disaster Prevention and Management · doi:10.1108/dpm-04-2013-0077 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
- Authors
- Besley, T., & Persson, T.
- Affiliations
- Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CA)
- ORCID
- Besley, T.
- Venue
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2011-08-01
- Volume
- 126
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 1411-1445
- ISSN
- 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-4650
- OpenAlex
- W2144626399
- Cited by
- 450
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 38 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 42 · 2018: 28 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 33 · 2015: 34 · 2014: 31 · 2013: 28 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 79.21
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › General Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Natural Resources and Economic Development
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
- Keywords
- political violence, repression, civil war, one-sided violence, power acquisition, political institutions, institutional cohesion, economic shocks, wage shocks, foreign aid, within-country variation
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