LITERATURE REVIEW

Causes of Civil Wars.

Civil wars are devastating conflicts that have profound socio-political and economic
consequences. They are armed conflicts between organized groups within a country, often
aiming for political control or territorial independence. They differ from interstate wars as they
occur within a single state. Civil wars are politically organized, large-scale, sustained, and
physically violent conflicts primarily among large groups of citizens over the monopoly of
physical force (Gersovitz & Kriger, 2013). They have been a persistent global issue, causing
significant human, social, and economic costs, including loss of lives, property destruction, and
economic meltdowns.

Civil wars are not natural occurrences; rather, they are influenced by factors such as
communities mired in insecurity, chronic poverty, and the persistence of underlying causes. Key
factors contributing to the outbreak and escalation of civil wars may be drawn from various
theoretical perspectives, including historical context, socio-economic factors, political dynamics,
ethnic, religious, and identity politics, external factors, and environmental pressures.

The historical context significantly influences civil wars by shaping the socio-political
landscape and influencing conflict dynamics. Historical precedents and patterns provide insights
into the recurrence and persistence of such conflicts. Long-standing grievances, such as land
disputes, marginalization of certain groups, or past injustices, can fuel resentment and mobilize
populations for conflict, often serving as rallying points for rebel movements.

Civil wars also often stem from colonial legacies, including arbitrary borders, ethnic
divisions, and institutionalized inequalities. Colonizers exploited these divisions to maintain
control, leaving unresolved tensions that can escalate into violence. Historical animosities
between ethnic or religious groups can be reignited during political upheaval, and intersect with
contemporary grievances, exacerbating tensions and fueling violence. Countries with a history of
civil wars or internal conflicts may be more susceptible to future violence due to unresolved
issues, lingering resentments, and weapon proliferation.

Socio-economic factors and political dynamics significantly contribute to civil wars,

shaping grievances, motivations, and conflict opportunities. Economic disparities, such as
poverty and unequal resource distribution, can fuel unrest and rebellion. Competition over scarce
resources, such as land, water, or minerals, can intensify tensions. Environmental degradation
and climate change further strain resources that leads to its scarcity. Underdevelopment,
inadequate infrastructure, and limited access to education and healthcare trigger socio-economic
inequalities, contributing to feelings of marginalization and alienation, especially among
disadvantaged populations.
 Authoritarian regimes and weak governance structures can lead to resentment and
discontent among marginalized groups, fueling opposition movements and radicalization.
Exclusionary political systems can also cause discord and alienation. Lack of political
representation and participation can drive marginalized groups to seek alternative means of
asserting their rights, including armed rebellion. Weak or failed states with corruption, nepotism,
and ineffective governance are susceptible to internal strife and rebellion. State incapacity to
provide basic services, maintain law, or protect citizens' rights undermines legitimacy and fosters
civil conflict.

These abovementioned factors are often interrelated and mutually reinforcing, creating a
complex web of drivers that contribute and shape the underlying conditions and dynamics of
civil wars, influencing the emergence, escalation, and resolution of conflicts.

State Failure Theory: A Key Factor of Civil War

State failure theory posits that civil wars occur when governments are unable to maintain
order, provide basic services, and ensure the rule of law. Failed states are increasingly analysed
through the lenses of security dilemmas, or security gaps. The incidence of civil war and the
involvement of extra-state veto-players became synonymous with the persistence of state failure.
Civil conflict is an unfortunate, but not an inseparable, attribute of failed states. State failure
refers to the inability of a government to effectively perform its core functions, such as
maintaining order, providing public services, and upholding the rule of law. Scholars such as
Robert Rotberg and Michael Ignatieff have contributed to the development of state failure
theory. Key factors leading to state failure include weak institutions, economic decline, social
fragmentation, and external interventions. These factors emphasize the role of institutional
breakdown, governance deficiencies, and socio-economic collapse in creating conditions
conducive to the outbreak of civil wars.

Weak governance, characterized by corruption, inefficiency, and lack of accountability,

erodes state legitimacy and fosters discontent among the population. Weak governance often
leads to political instability, characterized by frequent changes in leadership, ineffective
policymaking, and lack of consensus-building. This instability creates an environment ripe for
political unrest and conflict as different factions vie for power and influence.

A failed state is characterized by social, political and economic failure (Wolf, 2011). The
central government may lose control over parts of its territory, leading to the emergence of rival
power centers, such as warlords, militias, or insurgent groups. The fragmentation of authority
creates opportunities for armed actors to challenge state sovereignty and compete for control
over resources and territory. This often results in the breakdown of security institutions,
including the police and military, leading to insecurity and lawlessness. In the absence of
effective security forces, criminal elements and armed groups may exploit the vacuum of power,
perpetrate violence, and destabilize communities.

Accompanied by economic collapse, marked by high unemployment, inflation, and

poverty, economic hardship worsens social tensions and increases the likelihood of civil unrest
and rebellion as disenfranchised populations seek alternative means of livelihood and political
expression. Weak governance often fails to address underlying grievances such as ethnic or
religious discrimination, land disputes, or economic marginalization. Communities and societies
feel the effects of violence through loss of social cohesion, financial divestment, and the
increased burden on the healthcare and justice systems (Forum on Global Violence Prevention,
2012). When these grievances are left unaddressed, they can escalate into violent conflict as
aggrieved groups seek to redress their grievances by force.

Greed, Political Grievances, and Insurgency in the Recurrence of Civil Wars

Grievance-based theories emphasize the role of political, economic, or social grievances

in the causation and recurrence of civil conflicts. Political grievances refer to perceived
injustices, discrimination, and exclusion that fuel collective grievances and mobilize groups to
engage in violent conflict. Collier and Hoeffer (2002) sees Africa as an econometric model of
civil war on a set of global empirical patterns. Collier & Hoeffer (2002 interprets that
"opportunity is much more important as a cause of conflict than is objective grievance. It is an
open question whether opportunity is linked to war because it facilitates greed-driven rebellion
or because it allows the pursuit of redressing objective grievances."

Greed-based theories, on the other hand, highlight the role of opportunities for resource
capture and economic gain in fueling armed conflict. "There is nothing harder than a peace
process after decades of intractable civil war. Even when the two sides decide that there’s
nothing more to be gained from continued fighting and that the only way out is a negotiated
political solution, there are vested interests, hardliners who see negotiation as tantamount to
surrender, advocates for widows and children, security forces that fear the loss of budgets and
billets, and legislators or rival politicians who feel that any form of autonomy is the first step
toward secession." (The Diplomat, 2020)

"Motive may or may not be more decisive than opportunity for actio of rebellion. Some
economics literature has assumed that the motivation for rebellion is not grievance but greed --
the extortion of economic rents on a grands scale by quasi-criminal rebel groups. Grievance can
be the constitutive grammar of conflict or simply its discourse, with no more explanatory power
as to the determinants of observing violence than either perception or opportunity." (Sambanis &
Collier, 2002)
 "Another factor is misperceptions that causes conflicts to endure for a relative strength.
Conflict initiation may similarly be the result nof an information failure, and ongoing conflicts
may turn into wars of attrition based on a lack of common information about likely outcomes of
the war. Altetrnatively, wars may persist because of the lack of opportunity to reach settlement."
(Sambanis & Collier, 2002)

"Returning to the status quo ante implies that rebel groups must demobilize and disarm,
which provides the government with an opportunity to violate the terms of a settlement with little
risk of reprisal. Similarly, the rebels may be unable to commit to prevent the entry of new rebel
groups seeking to occupy the same viable niche in a war economy." (Sambanis & Collier, 2002)

"Finally, the enduring conflict may be the direct result of antithetical and irreconcilable
preferences. Hatred and ideology can motivate parties to use violence even if this is costly for all.
Resorting to violence may be easier if the people within a community who inflict the most harm
are those who receive the least harm in return. Thus, conflict may arise in communities where
intracommunity political institutions are incapable of restraining a minority with a taste for
violence and cannot enforece the majority's preferences for peace." (Sambanis & Collier, 2002)

Civil war entails large-scale fighting between the government of a sovereign state and
domestic challengers. As such, these wars entail the “rupture of state sovereignty” which occurs
at the level of the polity (Sambanis & Schulhofer-Wohl, 2019). Inherent in this conceptualization
is the notion that a peaceful settlement cannot be reached, presumably due to a breakdown of
civil political processes. In many instances, the prevalence of prior political grievances underlies
this breakdown and lies at the core of “grievance” based explanations for civil conflict (Gurr,
1970; Regan & Norton, 2005).

Regimes that restrict political rights frequently pursue redistributive policies, like
taxation, that perpetuate inequalities and perceptions of deprivation (Gurr, 1970). Indeed,
economic inequality that are often based on ethnic and/or religious divisions within countries
tends to be highly correlated with political exclusion and grievances (Cederman et al., 2011).

Typically, economically impoverished groups will also tend to have less political power
and pent up political grievances. These factors in turn can mobilize rebellion against a repressive
government (Regan & Norton, 2005). By most accounts, political grievances relate to the actual
use of state resources to deter individuals and/or organizations from challenging government
personnel, practices, or institutions (Goldstein, 1978).

In practice, Christian Davenport (2007) observes that political grievances deal with
“applications of state power that violate First Amendment-type rights, due process in the
enforcement and adjudication of law, and personal integrity or security.” While the state can
adopt various strategies to repress its population, a central feature of these measures is restriction
of the capacity for individuals to politically challenge the state. Of course, the mere existence of
grievances does not imply civil war. As Stathis Kalyvas (2009) observes: “Obviously, the
problems with grievances as a determinant of civil war onset is that they seem to be much more
prevalent than civil war and that they are very hard to measure directly. Ultimately, it is difcult to
escape the conjecture that one has to look for combinations of demand for, and supply of,
rebellion."

Government Failures in Civil War Causations

Government failures encompass a range of shortcomings, including corruption, nepotism,

repression, and policy failures that can indeed serve as catalysts for civil wars, igniting tensions,
exacerbating grievances, and eroding social cohesion. One of the primary ways in which
government failures contribute to civil wars is through the erosion of trust and legitimacy. When
governments fail to fulfill their basic duties, such as providing security, upholding the rule of
law, and delivering essential services, they undermine their credibility in the eyes of the
population. This erosion of trust can lead to widespread discontent and disillusionment, creating
fertile ground for rebellion and armed conflict.

Corruption is a pervasive form of government failure that often plays a central role in
fueling civil wars. When government officials engage in corrupt practices, such as
embezzlement, bribery, and nepotism, they divert resources away from essential public services
and into the hands of a select few. This unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity can
deepen social inequalities, exacerbate grievances, and fuel resentment among marginalized
groups, ultimately contributing to the outbreak of civil conflict.

Political repression and authoritarianism are another common manifestation of

government failure that can sow the seeds of civil war. Suppressing political opposition,
restricting freedom of speech, and manipulating elections can lead to public outrage and protests.
Citizens may demand greater political representation and accountability when governments
create a climate of fear and oppression that stifles peaceful avenues for addressing grievances. In
such environments, opposition movements may resort to violence as a means of resistance,
leading to escalating conflict and civil war.

Ethnic and religious discrimination are also potent drivers of civil wars, often augmented
by government failures to promote inclusive governance and address historical injustices (Isawa,
1973). Communities are caught up in the web of ethnic conflict, emergence of ethnopolitical
groups or ethnoclasses, struggles for either autonomy or pluralism by various ethnic and social
groups, challenges that ethnopolitics poses to the international legal and political systems, and
the effect of this on communities demanding ethnic rights (Gurr, 1994). Failure to address
systemic discrimination based on factors such as religion or ethnicity can provoke civil unrest.
Movements advocating for equality and justice may emerge in response to perceived government
inaction or complicity. When governments favor one ethnic or religious group over others,
discriminate against minority populations, or fail to address grievances related to identity and
belonging, they risk inflaming existing tensions and sparking violent conflict along ethnic or
religious lines.

Economic mismanagement and state failure can further worsen the risk of civil war by
undermining social stability and exacerbating socio-economic inequalities (McHenry, 2007).
When governments fail to manage economic resources effectively, leading to high levels of
unemployment, inflation, and poverty, they create conditions ripe for social unrest and conflict.
Moreover, when governments are unable to provide essential public services, maintain
infrastructure, or respond to humanitarian crises, they further erode their legitimacy and increase
the likelihood of civil war.

Historical and contemporary examples abound to illustrate how government failures have
contributed to the outbreak of civil wars. For instance, authors Ezemenaka & Prouza (2016)
stated that Nigeria's diverse ethnic and religious landscape face challenges within the balance of
economic development along ethnic divisions in the society. The current problems in Nigeria
originate in the causes and the effects of the Nigerian Civil war dated 06 July 1967 - 15 January
1970. Biafrans who geographically inhabit the South and Southeast part of Nigeria feel and
believe that their economic and developmental prowess are not well represented in the Nigerian
state, and this lack of representation leads to marginalization. This marginalization is evinced by
untold hardships such as poverty, lack of infrastructure for health care and education, and
generally impaired wellbeing which undermined public trust and exacerbated inequality and
fueled resentment contributing to state fragility.

Similarly, Ukraine has been grappling with political instability, governance challenges,
corruption, and weak institutions, leading to public dissatisfaction and protests. The influence of
oligarchs in Ukraine's politics has undermined democratic institutions and hindered reforms,
resulting in state fragility. The conflict with Russia, particularly the annexation of Crimea and
ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, has deepened divisions and exposed governance failures.
Economic struggles, including high levels of poverty and unemployment, have been exacerbated
by government mismanagement and corruption, contributing to social unrest. These case studies
highlight how government failures in addressing key issues, such as ethnic tensions, corruption,
economic mismanagement, and conflict resolution, can contribute to state fragility and
instability.

Government failures can serve as causal links for civil wars by undermining trust and
legitimacy, promoting corruption and inequality, fostering political repression and
discrimination, and exacerbating economic instability and state failure. "Now once violence is
initiated, it may follow a path-dependent process. It is an empirical regularity that the risk of war
recurrence in postwar societies is higher than the risk of the onset of a new war in countries with
no prior war history. The causal links are not clear in this case, it may be that the same
underlying conditions that caused the first war also cause subsequent wars, or the heightened risk
may be due to the effects of previous wars on a country's society and its political enemy."
(Sambanis & Collier, 2002)

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