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Cited by 66Political Conflict and GovernancePeacebuilding and International SecurityTerrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

Evaluating the scope and intensity of the conflict trap

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Hegre, Håvard, Nygård, Håvard Mokleiv, Ræder, Ranveig Flaten·2017·Journal of Peace Research
DOI 10.1177/0022343316684917
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Abstract

Several studies show that internal armed conflict breeds conflict by exacerbating conditions that increase the chances of war breaking out again. Empirically, this ‘conflict trap’ works through four pathways: conflicts increase the likelihood of continuation, recurrence, escalation, and diffusion of conflict. Past empirical studies have underestimated the scope and intensity of the conflict trap since they consider the impact of conflict only through one of these pathways and rarely across sufficiently long time periods. This article shows that simulation and forecasting techniques are useful and indeed necessary to quantify the total, aggregated effect of the conflict trap, over long time periods and across countries. We develop a country-year statistical model that allows estimating the probability of no conflict, minor conflict, and major conflict, and the probabilities of transition between these states. A set of variables denoting the immediate and more distant conflict history of the country are used as endogenous predictors in the simulated forecasts. Another set of variables shown to be robustly associated with armed conflict are treated as exogenous predictors. We show that the conflict trap is even more severe than earlier studies have indicated. For instance, if a large low-income country with no previous conflicts is simulated to have two to three years of conflict over the 2015–18 period, we find that it will have nine more years of conflict over the 2019–40 period than if peace holds up to 2018. Conversely, if a large low-income country that has had major conflict with more than 1,000 battle-related deaths in several of the past ten years succeeds in containing violence to minor conflict over the 2015–18 period, we find that it will experience five fewer years of conflict in the subsequent 20 years than if violence continues unabated.

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  • Many civil wars flare up again within the first couple of years of termination; the best predictor of war for any given country is that the country was engaged in war the previous year.

    “Many civil wars flare up again within the first couple of years of termination, to the extent that the best predictor of war for any given country is that the country was engaged in war the previous year (22,24).”

    From Vicious Circles: Violence, Vulnerability, and Climate Change (2021) · cites this paper as [24]

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Authors
Hegre, H., Nygård, H. M., & Ræder, R. F.
Affiliations
  • Uppsala University (SE)
  • Peace Research Institute Oslo (NO)
  • Office of the Auditor General of Norway (NO)
Corresponding author
Hegre, Håvard
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Peace Research
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2017-02-22
Volume
54
Issue
2
Pages
243-261
ISSN
  • 0022-3433 (ISSN-L)
  • 1460-3578
DOI
10.1177/0022343316684917
OpenAlex
W2590200456
Cited by
66
References
58
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 4
FWCI
11.91
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Peace Research (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • Uppsala University Publications (Uppsala University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Funders
Norges Forskningsråd
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Peacebuilding and International Security
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
Keywords
conflict trap, internal armed conflict, conflict recurrence, conflict escalation, conflict diffusion, conflict prediction, conflict simulation, state transition model, conflict duration, low-income countries, peacebuilding

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