It Takes Two: A Dyadic Analysis of Civil War Duration and Outcome
Abstract
Theories of conflict emphasize dyadic interaction, yet existing empirical studies of civil war focus largely on state attributes and pay little attention to nonstate antagonists. We recast civil war in a dyadic perspective, and consider how nonstate actor attributes and their relationship to the state influence conflict dynamics. We argue that strong rebels, who pose a military challenge to the government, are likely to lead to short wars and concessions. Conflicts where rebels seem weak can become prolonged if rebels can operate in the periphery so as to defy a government victory yet are not strong enough to extract concessions. Conflicts should be shorter when potential insurgents can rely on alternative political means to violence. We examine these hypotheses in a dyadic analysis of civil war duration and outcomes, using new data on nonstate actors and conflict attributes, finding support for many of our conjectures.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
More recent studies code and analyze large cross-national samples of sub-national actors to circumvent problems of ecological inference resulting from over-aggregation to the country level.
“In order to circumvent problems of ecological inference resulting from over-aggregation to the country level, more recent studies code and analyze large cross-national samples of sub-national actors, such as rebel organizations, self-determination movements, or other types of political organizations (Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan's 2009; Cunningham 2013; Wucherpfennig et al. 2012).”
From Dynamics and Logics of Civil War (2017) · cites this paper as Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan's 2009
Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan's (2009) results indicate that civil wars tend to endure when rebels control territory in the periphery that allows them to escape government repression and when they are prevented from using non-violent political means to advance their demands.
“Their results indicate that civil wars tend to endure when rebels control territory in the periphery that allows them to escape government repression and when they are prevented from using non-violent political means to advance their demands.”
From Dynamics and Logics of Civil War (2017) · cites this paper as Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan's (2009)
Cites
Regression Models and Life-Tables
Cox, D. R. (1972) · Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B: Statistical Methodology · doi:10.1111/j.2517-6161.1972.tb00899.x · Cited by 39,793 · see citing works
Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New Dataset
GLEDITSCH, N. P., WALLENSTEEN, P., ERIKSSON, M., SOLLENBERG, M., & STRAND, H. (2002) · Journal of Peace Research · doi:10.1177/0022343302039005007 · Cited by 3,846 · cited 2× · see citing works
“…year, over some incompatibility classified as control over the central government or territorial autonomy/secession (Eriksson and Wallensteen 2004; Gleditsch et al. 2002).6 The Uppsala Conflict Data base, available online, adds additional information on rebel organizations active since 1989…”
BackgroundWhy Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict
Stephan, M. J., & Chenoweth, E. (2008) · International Security · doi:10.1162/isec.2008.33.1.7 · Cited by 621 · see citing works
The Repression of Dissent: A Substitution Model of Government Coercion
Moore, W. H. (2000) · Journal of Conflict Resolution · doi:10.1177/0022002700044001006 · Cited by 361 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Horizontal Inequalities and Ethnonationalist Civil War: A Global Comparison
CEDERMAN, L.-E., WEIDMANN, N. B., & GLEDITSCH, K. S. (2011) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.1017/s0003055411000207 · Cited by 1,028 · see citing works
Self-citationInequality, Grievances, and Civil War
Cederman, L.-E., Gleditsch, K. S., & Buhaug, H. (2013) · doi:10.1017/cbo9781139084161 · Cited by 978 · see citing works
Dynamics and Logics of Civil War
Cederman, L.-E., & Vogt, M. (2017) · Journal of Conflict Resolution · doi:10.1177/0022002717721385 · Cited by 205 · see citing works
Rice or riots: On food production and conflict severity across India
Wischnath, G., & Buhaug, H. (2014) · Political Geography · doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2014.07.004 · Cited by 93 · see citing works
On malaria and the duration of civil war
Bagozzi, B. E. (2016) · Journal of Conflict Resolution · doi:10.1177/0022002714550202 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
- Authors
- Cunningham, D. E., Skrede Gleditsch, K., & Salehyan, I.
- Affiliations
- Iowa State University (US)
- Department of Government University of Essex, United Kingdom Centre for the Study of Civil War PRIO, Norway
- University of North Texas (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Conflict Resolution
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2009-05-27
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 570-597
- ISSN
- 0022-0027 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-8766
- OpenAlex
- W2123730160
- Cited by
- 671
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 64 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 43 · 2020: 56 · 2019: 36 · 2018: 40 · 2017: 41 · 2016: 41 · 2015: 57 · 2014: 49 · 2013: 37 · 2012: 38
- FWCI
- 100.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Conflict Resolution (publishedVersion)
- Open Access at Essex (University of Essex) (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/E007147/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Military History and Strategy
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Peacebuilding and International Security
- Keywords
- civil war, dyadic analysis, non-state actors, conflict duration, war outcomes, concessions, insurgency, periphery
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
