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Conflict trap is a term to describe the pattern when civil wars repeat themselves.
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Conflict trap is a term to describe the pattern when civil wars repeat themselves.
Scholars have offered a few reasons for it, after Paul Collier and Nicholas Sambanis (2002) noticed this pattern and coined the term ‘conflict trap’. [1] Firstly, a civil war can aggravate the causal political and economic conditions which lead to a repeat civil war. Other reasons can be because the combatants are fighting over stakes that is valuable to both the parties, combatants are unable to defeat each other or are engaged in a long duration serious war. [2]
Political and legal Institutions play an important role in inhibiting a repeat civil war, hence preventing a country from entering a conflict trap. Strong institutions can put a check on the incumbent's power, hence ensuring public welfare and therefore rebels have fewer reasons to restart a civil war. Also, this removes the need for the rebels to maintain an army or a threat of war. A strong political and legal system also gives a non-violent platform to rebels to bring about desired changes, so they may not need to adopt violent ways to protest.
There can be other reasons why a civil war may start and repeat itself. There may be intense grievances held by the groups, which motivate them to fight. Inferior health conditions, lower GDP and poor human development create conditions for dissatisfaction, and hence civil wars. If a country is poor, it may be easier for rebels to organize an army and start a civil war. Weaker states serve as one of reasons for an easier rebellion, since they lack capacity to effectively keep rebels in check. A country's geography may also contribute in wars since rebels can easily escape.
Where a population holds significant grievances, governments can be reluctant to make concessions to violent groups if they were previously unwilling to submit to nonviolent pressure. [3] If they are willing to make concessions, a resolution could be prevented due to commitment problems.
A civil war, also known as an intrastate war in polemology, is a war between organized groups within the same state . The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies. The term is a calque of Latin bellum civile which was used to refer to the various civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC.
An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's position within society. This final criterion differentiates ethnic conflict from other forms of struggle.
Peacekeeping comprises activities intended to create conditions that favour lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths, as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare.
A civilian is a person who is not a member of the armed forces.
A peace treaty is an agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, which formally ends a state of war between the parties. It is different from an armistice, which is an agreement to stop hostilities; a surrender, in which an army agrees to give up arms; or a ceasefire or truce, in which the parties may agree to temporarily or permanently stop fighting. The art of negotiating a peace treaty in the modern era has been referred to by legal scholar Christine Bell as the lex pacificatoria, with a peace treaty potentially contributing to the legal framework governing the post conflict period, or jus post bellum.
Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority.
An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents. An insurgency can be fought via counter-insurgency warfare, and may also be opposed by measures to protect the population and by political and economic actions of various kinds, as well as propaganda aimed at undermining the insurgents' claims against the incumbent regime. As a concept, insurgency's nature is ambiguous.
Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereby reducing their standing among their fellow citizens. It is often manifested through policies such as human rights violations, surveillance abuse, police brutality, imprisonment, involuntary settlement, stripping of citizen's rights, lustration and violent action or terror such as the murder, summary executions, torture, forced disappearance and other extrajudicial punishment of political activists, dissidents, or general population. Political repression can also be reinforced by means outside of written policy, such as by public and private media ownership and by self-censorship within the public.
The Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002), or the Sierra Leonean Civil War, was a civil war in Sierra Leone that began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government. The resulting civil war lasted 11 years, enveloped the country, and left over 50,000 dead.
The National Liberation Front is an ethnically Hutu political party in Burundi that was formerly active as militant rebel group before and during the Burundian Civil War.
The Logic of Violence in Civil War is a book which challenges the conventional view of violence in civil wars as irrational. The main argument is that violence only emerges in those disputed territories, and it is generally driven not by the conflict itself, but by previous rancors and enmities among the population.
Sir Paul Collier, is a British development economist who serves as the Professor of Economics and Public Policy in the Blavatnik School of Government and the director of the International Growth Centre. He currently is a Professeur invité at Sciences Po and a Professorial Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. He has served as a senior advisor to the Blair Commission for Africa and was the Director of the Development Research Group at the World Bank between 1998 and 2003.
Guerrilla movements in Colombia refers to the origins, development and actions of guerrilla movements in the Republic of Colombia. In the context of the ongoing Colombian conflict, the term 'guerrilla' is used to refer to left-wing movements, as opposed to right-wing paramilitaries.
Democracy promotion, which can also be referred to as democracy assistance, democracy support, or democracy building, is a strand of foreign policy adopted by governments and international organizations that seek to support the spread of democracy as a political system around the world. Among the reasons for supporting democracy include the belief that countries with a democratic system of governance are less likely to go to war, are likely to be economically better off and socially more harmonious. In democracy building, the process includes the building and strengthening of democracy, in particular the consolidation of democratic institutions, including courts of law, police forces, and constitutions. Some critics have argued that the United States has used democracy promotion to justify military intervention abroad.
Peacekeeping by the United Nations is a role held by the Department of Peace Operations as "a unique and dynamic instrument developed by the organization as a way to help countries torn by conflict to create the conditions for lasting peace". It is distinguished from peacebuilding, peacemaking, and peace enforcement although the United Nations does acknowledge that all activities are "mutually reinforcing" and that overlap between them is frequent in practice.
The phrase "greed versus grievance" or "greed and grievance" refers to the two baseline arguments put forward by scholars of armed conflict on the causes of civil war, though the argument has been extended to other forms of war, such as violent conflict in general, rebellion and insurgency, for example.
A coup d'état, usually shortened to coup, is the seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power by a political faction, the military, or a dictator. Many scholars consider a coup successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.
Political violence is violence which is perpetrated in order to achieve political goals. It can include violence which is used by a state against other states (war) or it can describe violence which is used against non-state actors. It can also describe politically-motivated violence which is used by non-state actors against a state or it can describe violence which is used against other non-state actors. Non-action on the part of a government can also be characterized as a form of political violence, such as refusing to alleviate famine or otherwise denying resources to politically identifiable groups within their territory.
Post-conflict aid is the monetary, material or technical assistance granted by other states, non-governmental organizations and private donors to regions that have recently been hit by either an international war, a civil war, or an armed conflict. The donation can take the form of food, financial investment, reconstruction materials and many others and aims to the re-attainment of sustainable socio-economic development as well as to the re-organization of the governmental and judicial structures and institutions in the war-torn region.
Determinants of violence against civilians in a civil conflict are factors that may either provide incentives for the use of violence against civilians, or create incentives for restraint. Violence against civilians occurs in may types of conflict, and can include any acts in which force is used to harm or damage civilians or civilian targets. It can be lethal or nonlethal. During periods of armed conflict, there are structures, actors, and processes at a number of levels that affect the likelihood of violence against civilians.