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Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

Article in Human Rights Review · December 2011

DOI: 10.1007/s12142-011-0196-9

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Hum Rights Rev
DOI 10.1007/s12142-011-0196-9

Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

Nicolas Rost

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract This study examines the role of human rights violations as a harbinger of
civil wars to come, as well as the links between repression, state weakness, and
conflict. Human rights violations are both part of the escalating process that may end
in civil war and can contribute to an escalation of conflict to civil war, particularly in
weak states. The role of government repression and state weakness in leading to civil
war is tested empirically. The results show that both closely correlate with civil war
onset, especially if they are observed in combination. A two-stage model shows that,
while low-level conflict leads to human rights violations, they increase the risk of an
escalation to civil war in turn. Human rights violations are identified as an important
aspect of understanding civil war onset as the result of an escalation over time and a
clear early warning sign of wars to come.

Keywords Human rights . Repression . Civil war . State weakness

Civil wars rarely erupt. Rather, they are the result of an often-long escalation. The
escalation that leads to a civil war is a complex process, in which a government
and an opposition group might interact for a long time before war starts. In many
cases, the two (or more) adversaries will engage in low-level violence before full-

I would like to thank the late Steve Poe, David Mason, Michael Greig, Susumu Shikano, the editor and
anonymous reviewers at Human Rights Review, Emily Clough, Nico Petrovsky, Sabine Carey, and Jim
Battista for their very helpful comments and suggestions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions in
this paper are those of the author and do not represent the views of the United Nations or of OCHA.
N. Rost
Department of Politics and Management, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

N. Rost (*)
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for Somalia,
OCHA-Somalia, PO Box 28832, Nairobi 00200, Kenya
e-mail: [email protected]
 N. Rost

scale war starts. Often in such cases, in anticipation of the perceived threat, the
government will use violence to try to repress an opposition group, committing
atrocities against members of the group or, especially if they cannot get hold of
militants, against civilians (Pion-Berlin and Lopez 1991; Davenport 1995; Gartner
and Regan 1996; Regan and Henderson 2002; Carey 2004). Sometimes, govern-
ments succeed in violently repressing political opposition. Oftentimes, however,
such a strategy will fail, and it may even backfire by creating grievances and hatred
among civilians and driving them into the arms of militant groups. In any case,
human rights violations are frequently part of the escalatory process and an early
warning sign of civil war onset. Government-sponsored violations of personal
integrity rights both contribute to causing civil war and are part of the escalating
process that may lead to war.
Situations in which government repression and state weakness coexist are
especially civil war-prone, as weak governments trying to repress unrest or an
emerging rebellion are often unable to do so effectively. Thus, potential rebel
leaders act on the opportunity provided by a weak state (Fearon and Laitin
2003a) and repression may drive more people into the arms of the rebels as citizens
turn to emerging rebel organizations for protection (Mason and Krane 1989). Rebel
groups that control a territory, which is more likely in weak states, may also try to
coerce citizens into participation (Gates 2002). Under indiscriminate repression,
people that join the rebels may be better off than civilians who remain neutral
(Kalyvas 2006). While repression thus contributes to causing war, it is also a
government reaction to an emerging rebellion and part of the complex process that
precedes a war. Repression is thus an important early warning sign that has often
been overlooked.
If repression is often such a bad choice, why do governments so often choose to
employ it? Civil wars are distinguished from most interstate conflicts by a power
asymmetry between government and rebels (Zartman and William 1995). Rebel
organizations therefore often employ a military strategy of hit-and-run, waging a
guerilla war. By doing so, they have to rely on popular support, and government
forces might try to undercut this support by “draining the sea” (Valentino et al. 2004;
Azam and Hoeffler 2002). Where the rebels hide in the mountains, the state is weak,
and the government chooses to use a repressive strategy, civilians become easy
targets.
Building on studies by Fearon and Laitin (2003a) and Sambanis (2004), the role
of rights violations in leading to civil war is tested empirically, yielding strong
support for a close link between repression and civil war onset, especially in weak
states. According to one empirical model, the yearly probability of civil war onset is
only 0.04% in strong, non-repressive states, but it is about 78% in weak states where
the government violates basic human rights. This study contributes to the
understanding of the repression–rebellion nexus by testing the impact of violations
of personal integrity rights—political imprisonment, torture, “disappearances”, and
extrajudicial killings—on the probability of civil war onset in multivariate models.
Two-stage models show that the link between repression and civil war is complex:
Repression is more likely during low-level conflict, but it increases the risk of an
escalation to full-scale civil war. This risk is particularly high in weak states, which
see both more human rights violations and more civil war.
Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

Literature and Theory

I group the relevant literature on the onset of civil war into two categories, referring
to two factors that interact and correlate with the probability of civil war onset:
repression and state weakness.

The Repression–Rebellion Nexus

In the past two decades, quantitative human rights research has proliferated
considerably. Typically, the vast amount of these studies has tried to explain under
what conditions human rights violations occur. Six factors have consistently been
found to influence the level of violations of personal integrity rights (Poe and Tate
1994; Poe et al. 1999): past repression (Davenport 1995; Richards et al. 2001),
democracy (Henderson 1991; Fein 1995; Rummel 1994, 1995; Davenport 1995,
2004; Zanger 2000; Regan and Henderson 2002; Harff 2003; Davenport and
Armstrong 2004; Valentino et al. 2004; Easterly et al. 2006; Eck and Hultman 2007;
Colaresi and Carey 2008), the level of economic development (Mitchell and
McCormick 1988; Carey 2004; Besançon 2005), population size (Henderson 1993;
Carey 2004), international war, and civil war (Krain 1997; Zanger 2000; Harff 2003;
Wayman and Tago 2009).
In the reverse, repression also seems to be linked with an increased risk of violent
conflict in following years. Numerous studies in the civil war literature have found that
state suppression of political rights and civil liberties, instead of deterring rebellions,
often helps to provoke uprisings (Gurr 1970; Tilly 1978; Muller 1985; Muller and
Seligson 1987; Muller and Weede 1990; Boswell and Dixon 1990; Schock 1996).
Studies focusing on ethnic rebellion and discrimination have confirmed this
relationship (Gurr and Moore 1997; Goldstone et al. 2000:35). The same may be
true for violations of personal integrity rights. Indiscriminate repression sometimes
backfires and leads to an escalation of the conflict. This is not always the case;
otherwise, governments would not use repression. In some cases, governments use
repression successfully, at least in the short run (from their point of view). Lichbach
(1987) argues that opposition movements respond to government oppression by
switching to alternative strategies. Gupta et al. (1993) find that the effects of
government sanctions vary with the regime type of the country (see also Moore 1998).
Clearly, the process leading to war is complex. Opposition groups, the
government, and the general population interact over an extended period of time
before it comes to a civil war. For example, in the 1980s, Somali President Siad
Barre responded to the emergence of an armed independence movement in
Somaliland by employing his secret services, which “arbitrarily detained, tortured,
or murdered hundreds of Issaq civilians […] Government forces poisoned wells and
slaughtered the livestock rural Issaq depended on for their livelihoods” (Human
Rights Watch 2009). While in Somalia, full-blown civil war occurred, this does not
always have to be the case. In the Central African Republic, the army “was
responsible for numerous rights violations in the north of the country, where
hundreds of civilians were summarily executed and many thousands of homes were
burned, typically in the context of counter-insurgency operations against anti-
 N. Rost

government groups” (Human Rights Watch 2008). Still, since 2002, ongoing conflict
has not reached the level of a civil war.
A few studies try to describe the strategic interaction between the government and
an opposition group that takes place before a civil war starts. Mason and Krane
(1989) develop a rational choice model that lays out how repression can create a
conflict spiral and drive civilians into joining the rebels. According to their
argument, as a government reverts to indiscriminate repression, civilians are no
longer safe by staying neutral and become more likely to join a rebel group in search
for protection from government persecution. There is simply No Other Way Out for
civilians (Goodwin 2001). Governments use indiscriminate repression when they do
not have the “institutional machinery, redistributable resources, and political
inclination” to accommodate opposition demands (Mason and Krane 1989:184).
Pierskalla (2010) develops a strategic game to illustrate how under certain
conditions—incomplete information or a third-party threat, such as from the military
—government repression can lead to an escalation from conflict to full-blown civil
war. Semi-democratic regimes, which are neither fully authoritarian nor democratic
but mix elements of both, should also be at a higher risk of experiencing civil war
onset following government repression, according to his model. Below, I discuss that
it is not only the interaction between repression and politically unstable and weak
regimes that increases the risk of civil war onset, but the interaction between
repression and many aspects of state weakness.
Violence, of course, is not only used by the government during the escalating
process leading to civil war. Weinstein (2005, 2007) finds that rebel groups that rely
on resource rents, and therefore less on the support of the population, are more likely
to use indiscriminate violence against civilians. Bueno de Mesquita (2010) shows in
a game-theoretical model that terrorist groups may have an interest in using violence
to recruit new members.
Kalyvas (2006) and Wood (2010) examine the use of violence by both government
and rebel groups during, rather than before, civil war. In a detailed study of the Greek
civil war, Kalyvas (2006), similar to Mason and Krane (1989), finds that, in situations
of indiscriminate repression, particularly if used by both sides, it may be beneficial for
civilians to join either side, rather than to remain neutral, as people who stay neutral
are at a higher risk of experiencing indiscriminate repression. Members of armed
groups have privileged access to information, are trained on how to react when
arrested or interrogated, receive protection and support from their organizations, and
will often be more careful in avoiding contact with members of the opponent group.
Wood (2010) examines how both rebels and the government use repression
against civilians strategically. Weak rebel groups that cannot provide selective
incentives to their members are more likely to use violence to recruit civilians into
their ranks. As long as rebels are strong enough to provide some protection to
civilians, indiscriminate government violence helps them overcome the collective
action problem and reduces their reliance on violence and selective incentives.
Building on this body of literature, I propose that there are two ways in which
indiscriminate repression is linked to the risk of civil war onset: first, human rights
violations cause an increase in the risk of civil war onset; second, repression is part
of the escalating process that may lead to civil war, and thereby constitutes an early
warning sign of an increased risk of war.
Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

First, as Mason and Krane (1989), Kalyvas (2006), and others have proposed,
staying neutral may not be the best, least costly option for civilians that are faced with
indiscriminate repression. Thus, rationally acting civilians caught in the crossfire prefer
to join either of the two sides. If it is mainly the government that uses indiscriminate
repression, then rational civilians may join the rebels. This increases their strength and
thereby makes an escalation of conflict more likely. If the government uses violent,
indiscriminate repression when faced with demands from an emerging armed group
and the group grows stronger, the risk of civil war to start should increase.
In addition to this effect on rationally acting people, both Thoms and Ron (2007)
and Jakobsen and de Soysa (2009) argue that indiscriminate repression can cause
grievances, which may drive formerly neutral civilians to support or join a rebel
group. When the army burns down one’s village or a death squad kills one’s family
members although they had not supported the rebels, people may join the rebel
group to seek revenge or because of their hatred of the government.
In either case, “indiscriminate” does not necessarily mean that people are targeted
at random. Rather, armed forces may arbitrarily arrest, torture, or kill members of a
certain ethnic group, people who live in a certain village or area, or members of a
certain class or political group. Such violence is indiscriminate in the sense that no
distinction is made between people who are members or supporters of a rebel group
and those that are not (Kalyvas 2006).
The second link between human rights violations and civil war onset is simply
that they are both part of the same process: escalating but strategic interaction
between the government and an armed opposition group. For instance, an armed
opposition group emerges and challenges the government leading to low-level
conflict. To respond to the threat, the government uses repression, but the rebel
group grows stronger (whether as a consequence of repression or for other reasons)
and the conflict escalates to civil war. In this sense, human rights violations may not
be one of the causes of the war, but there are other underlying causes that lead first to
low-level conflict and repression, and then to war.
Many studies examine the link between the repression of political rights and civil
war onset, but there are few studies on the link between violations of personal
integrity rights and civil war. Pierskalla (2010), for instance, does not test the
implications of his model empirically. Mason and Krane (1989) present a case study
of the civil war in El Salvador but no large-N tests. Two recent studies use global
samples to examine the link between repression and civil war: Thoms and Ron
(2007), examining bivariate relationships, find that violations of civil and political
rights are “conflict triggers”, that violations of personal integrity rights are associated
with conflict escalation, but that violations of social and economic rights contribute
to underlying causes. Jakobsen and de Soysa (2009), focusing on ethnic conflict, do
not find a lack of empowerment (an indicator including freedom of movement,
speech, and religion, workers and political rights) to increase the risk of civil war.
Neither of the two studies directly gets at the relationship between personal
integrity rights, state weakness, and the risk of civil war onset, which I am interested
in for this study. Thoms and Ron (2007) examine only bivariate relationships, and
Jakobsen and de Soysa (2009) look at empowerment rather than personal integrity
rights. Many other studies have used an extended definition of repression that
includes repression of political rights. While repression is usually reduced as the
 N. Rost

level of democracy increases, democracy and non-repressiveness are conceptually

and empirically distinct phenomena. Civil liberties and political rights may be
suppressed without widespread violations of the most basic human rights. Davenport
and Armstrong (2004) show that the level of repression varies greatly in the most
authoritarian regimes. The level of personal integrity rights violations ranges from
absent and almost absent to widespread in the least democratic countries. Democracy—
political rights and civil liberties—is often more a matter of political institutions,
whereas repression is more a matter of government strategy and the behavior of its
armed forces. This distinction is reflected in the way these two concepts are usually
measured: The Polity2 scale of democracy measures mostly institutional aspects,
whereas measures of personal integrity violations are based on state behavior. Thus,
it is important to distinguish between institutional democracy and repression when
studying their impact on the risk of civil war onset. In this study, repression is defined
restrictively as state-sponsored violations of the basic human rights to personal
integrity. Such abuses include political imprisonment, torture, “disappearances”, and
extrajudicial killings.1
If indiscriminate repression can backfire and lead to an escalation of conflict, why
do governments still use it? There are at least six reasons, most of them linked to
state weakness. First, a country’s armed and security forces need very good
intelligence on a rebel group, its members, and supporters in order to carry out
discriminatory or targeted repression. While such information is often not even
available to the most advanced armies (Kalyvas 2006), it should particularly be
lacking in poor countries with underfunded, badly trained, and badly equipped
armed and security forces and intelligence services. The quality of information on
rebel groups is further eroded when armed forces have to rely on locals who have
their own agendas, using the opportunity to denounce their personal rivals and
thereby “privatizing” the conflict (Kalyvas 2006).
Second, Fearon and Laitin (2003a: 75–76) argue that police forces in poor
countries are more likely to use indiscriminate repression when they are weak and
corrupt, driving civilians to join rebel forces.
Third, Buhaug et al. (2009) find that civil conflicts that take place far away from a
country’s capital last longer on average. Weak governments may allow conflicts in
the periphery of their country to drag on, rather than enforcing an end to them. As
governments neither have the necessary resources and intelligence to use targeted
repression in their country’s periphery, nor the political will to find a proper solution
to a conflict that does not threaten them directly, this may increase their propensity to
use indiscriminate repression.
Fourth, politically and economically weak states may not have the resources
necessary to accommodate the demands of an armed opposition group (Mason and
Krane 1989). If they also do not have the resources to gather the intelligence
necessary for targeted repression, they may not have much of a choice but to use
indiscriminate repression in response to a threat posed by an emerging rebel group.
Fifth, Mason and Krane (1989) also argue that a lack of repression may
demonstrate a government’s weakness. Thus, especially governments that are already

1
In the remainder, I will use the terms indiscriminate repression, human rights violations, and violations
of personal integrity rights interchangeably.
Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

(perceived as being) weak should be likely to resort to repression to convince their

opponents of their strength and determination.
Sixth, even if a conflict escalates to war because the government uses
indiscriminate repression, a weak government may still win the civil war, and
therefore risk an escalation. Of course, a government using indiscriminate repression
may also prevail in ending an emerging insurgency before it escalates to civil war. In
either case, weak governments with few other options may take the gamble of
indiscriminate repression, hoping either to avoid an escalation to war or, if it cannot
be avoided, to win the war.
All these six points indicate that, particularly when human rights violations and
state weakness are both present, the risk of civil war onset is high. In the following
section, I analyze the different aspects of state weakness.

Weak States and Civil War Onset

State weakness has long been associated with the occurrence of civil war (e.g.,
Skocpol 1979). State weakness produces openings in the political opportunity
structure that can be seized upon by “greedy” political entrepreneurs initiating an
insurgency. If the state is strong enough, an insurgency will be crushed soon, leaving
no room for would-be rebels to realize their gains. State weakness, on the contrary,
creates an opportunity for rebellion (Collier and Hoeffler 2004).
State weakness is not a one-dimensional concept; rather, it consists of an array of
different aspects, which cannot easily be integrated, neither on a theoretical nor
empirical level. Consequently, state weakness is disaggregated into its various
components (economic, demographic, political, and geographic), and their impact on
the probability of civil war is examined separately in both the theoretical and
empirical models. All these components make it more difficult for a government to
extend effective control over the entirety of the country’s territory and to reduce the
risk of a civil war breaking out. They also increase the risk of repression backfiring
and leading to an escalation of conflict.

Economic and Demographic Aspects of State Weakness In Sambanis’ (2004:

Table 4) study on civil war onset, the only two variables that show a statistically
significant impact across 12 different lists of civil wars, 1960–1993, are GDP per
capita and the log of population size (see also Elbadawi and Sambanis 2002).2 Both
a very low level of economic development and a large population produce relatively
weak states and make it easier to organize and start a violent rebellion. A low
economic standing makes it more complicated for a government that is not willing to
share power to accommodate contending groups. As noted above, Mason and Krane
(1989) argue that governments that do not have the economic resources to
accommodate opposition demands are likely to switch to a repressive strategy.
Equally, a large population makes it harder for governments to control the whole
country. This also increases the probability that contending groups exist that may be

2
With one exception: population size was not significant with Regan’s (1996) list of civil conflicts.
 N. Rost

willing to take advantage of opportunities to launch an insurgency. In addition, both

these conditions have consistently been found to be associated with higher levels of
repression (Mitchell and McCormick 1988; Henderson 1993; Poe and Tate 1994;
Poe et al. 1999; Carey 2004).

Political Aspects of State Weakness Hegre et al. (2001) find support for a domestic
democratic peace, but they also argue that both anocracies (countries that are neither
fully democratic nor authoritarian) and politically unstable countries are more
conflict prone. Similarly, Fearon and Laitin (2003a) and Sambanis (2004) find
significant effects for anocracy and political instability in some of their models.
Anocracies are more civil war-prone because neither are democratic institutions fully
established, nor has an authoritarian regime consolidated its power. Anocracies
usually have unstable, unconsolidated political systems. Several groups may
compete for control of the government while the rules of the game have not been
institutionalized. Similarly, political instability de-legitimizes the ones in power and
indicates that they are vulnerable.
The same should be especially true in newly independent states. The political
system has not been consolidated, and there are often many groups competing for
power and influence. In Fearon and Laitin (2003a: 84), model 1, “new state” was the
substantially and statistically most significant dichotomous variable. Furthermore,
new states have been found to be more likely to experience other forms of political
instability, including interstate disputes (Brecher et al. 2000; Carment 1993) and
genocides (Krain 1997: 346, Harff 2003: 62).
Finally, military regimes are likely to be associated with an increase in the
probability of civil war onset. Military regimes can be expected to represent
politically weak governments. They have installed themselves by staging a coup and
rarely enjoy widespread popular support. Furthermore, the very fact that a coup was
staged indicates that government structures were weak in the first place.

Geographic Aspects of State Weakness In addition to economic, demographic, and

political aspects, geographic aspects of a country may contribute to state weakness.
Specifically, rough terrain makes it easier for rebels to hide from government troops,
to wage a guerilla-style war (Collier and Hoeffler 2004; Fearon and Laitin 2003a).
State weakness, as outlined above, consists of several aspects that are
hypothesized to increase the probability of civil war onset. Repression is also
hypothesized to correlate with an increase in the probability of civil war onset. In
summary, civil wars are particularly likely to break out in weak states with repressive
governments. The next section describes the research design for empirical tests on
the link between repression and civil war.

Empirical Tests

Research Design

As described above, human rights violations are often part of the escalating conflict
process preceding civil war. In some ways, indiscriminate repression may cause such
Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

escalation, for instance, by driving civilians into the arms of a rebel group in search
of protection. In other ways, repression is just one of the strategies that the
government uses in response to a threat from a rebel group, in particular, when it
does not have the possibility to use other strategies, such as accommodation or
targeted repression. Thus, repression and civil war may partly be caused by a similar
set of factors, or independent variables. This raises concerns about endogeneity of
repression, when examining its impact on the risk of civil war onset. The research
design to test the link between human rights and civil war onset empirically has to
take these theoretical expectations into account. In contrast to other studies (e.g.,
Jakobsen and de Soysa 2009), which avoid the use of personal integrity abuses in
their model to avoid problems of endogeneity, I use a set of different measures to
avoid such problems.
To include personal integrity abuses in the model, I opt for a different
approach: First, I test rare events logit models (King and Zeng 2001a, b), with
repression added to a set of variables, mostly measuring state weakness, that
authors have shown to influence the risk of civil war onset (Fearon and Laitin
2003a, b; Sambanis 2004). I use both the five-point Political Terror Scale (PTS)
and the nine-point Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) measure of physical integrity
as a measure of repression. In addition, to test the relationship between violations
of specific rights and the risk of war onset in greater detail, I include the four
components of the CIRI measure (political imprisonment, torture, “disappear-
ances”, and extrajudicial killings) individually in additional models. While
repressive governments often commit all four types of crime and the component
variables are conceptually linked, they are correlated with each other at between
only 39% and 59%. In a second step, I test whether, as expected, the two variables
of interest are jointly influenced by the set of independent variables, using a
bivariate probit model. The model shows that they are. Thus, as a third test, I
employ a two-stage Heckman selection probit model. As the civil wars in the
sample only started in countries with at least some repression in the preceding
year, the selection stage includes the factors leading to repression (democracy,
GDP per capita, population size, and internal conflict). The outcome stage is
similar to the logit models. The unit of analysis for all models is the country-year,
and all country-years for which data are available are included. The PTS models
include 151 countries and 50 civil war onsets between 1977 and 1999; the CIRI
models include 147 countries and 33 wars between 1981 and 1999.

Dependent Variable The dependent variable for the first set of models, the rare
events logit models, is civil war onset, a binary variable. The data come from
Sambanis’ (2004) list of civil wars, one of the best-documented datasets.3 With a
threshold of about 1,000 battle deaths over 3 years, it provides a good middle
ground between very low thresholds (such as 25 battle deaths per year for ‘minor
conflicts’ in the UCDP/PRIO dataset, see Gleditsch et al. 2001) and high
thresholds (1,000 battle deaths per year for ‘civil wars’ in the UCDP/PRIO

3
See the detailed case descriptions available at http://www.yale.edu/unsy/jcr/jcrdatadec04.htm, accessed
March 2005.
 N. Rost

dataset).4 All models use Sambanis’ ‘a-versions,’ excluding country-years during

an ongoing civil war.

Independent Variables Different measures for human rights violations are used.
First, the Political Terror Scale (Gibney 2004) ranges from ‘1,’ where repression is
(almost) absent, to ‘5’ where state terror is inflicted indiscriminately on the whole
population.5 The codings are based on country reports compiled by Amnesty
International and the US State Department. Following Poe and Tate (1994), the
Amnesty International measure is used, replacing missing values with the State
Department scores, where possible.
Second, the Cingranelli and Richards or CIRI scale is an additive nine-point index
constructed from four three-point measures of the extent of political imprisonment,
torture, “disappearances”, and extrajudicial killings (Cingranelli and Richards 1999).
These four measures are also used individually to test the relationship between
violations of specific rights and war onset. Using the variables for political
imprisonment and torture also avoids a possible overlap between killings that occur
as a result of a government repression and killings of civilians that occur as an
immediate result of low-level conflict that precedes full-blown civil war.
To avoid any conceptual overlap between human rights behavior and democracy,
the institutional Polity2 measure from the Polity IV dataset is used (Marshall et al.
2002). This 21-point measure is created by subtracting the 11-point autocracy scale
from the 11-point democracy scale, which results in a scale that ranges from −10
(most autocratic) to +10 (most democratic). Countries with scores from −5 to +5 on
the Polity scale are dichotomously coded as anocracies. To facilitate the
interpretation of the model, the anocracy variable is reversed so that ‘0’ denotes
anocracy and ‘1’ denotes no anocracy.6
Most of the remaining variables are similar to those used in other studies on civil
war onset, and some are directly adopted from existing datasets. More detailed
information on theoretical expectations and the measurement of some of the
variables can be found in Fearon and Laitin (2003a, b) and Sambanis (2004). Fearon
and Laitin (2003a) measure of political instability is employed, which is
dichotomously coded ‘1’ if there has been a change of at least three points on the
Polity2 scale in any of the three preceding years, and ‘0’ otherwise. The level of
economic development is approximated by GDP per capita. Because of many
missing values in other data sources, Fearon and Laitin’s data on GDP per capita is
employed. They use data from the Penn World Tables7 and from the World Bank’s
World Development Indicators, but estimate missing values using data on energy
consumption from the COW project Fearon and Laitin (2003b). The World
Development Indicators also provide data on population size. This variable is
logged (skewness=8.08). Countries are coded as newly independent states in their

4
Robustness tests with a number of alternative civil war measures (Sarkees et al. 2001; Gleditsch et al.
2001; Fearon and Laitin 2003a; Regan 1996; Doyle and Sambanis 2000) show roughly similar results.
5
The coding scheme is available at www.politicalterrorscale.org, accessed July 2009.
6
The Polity2 variable is centered on ‘0,’ implying that such a country is an anocracy. The size and
interpretation of coefficients and odds-ratios are not affected by the decision to reverse the anocracy
variable.
7
http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu, accessed October 2004.
Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

first 2 years after independence, similar to Fearon and Laitin (2003a) measure.
However, this variable dropped out of the logit models because it perfectly predicted
failure, similar to Sambanis’ analyses (2004; results not shown). Therefore, the new
states variable was excluded from all models before re-estimating them. To
operationalize military regimes, countries are dichotomously coded ‘1’ as long as
a regime led by a military person as the chief executive came to power by means of a
military coup (Madani 1992). The data are adopted from Poe et al. (2006) who
updated it through 2003. Rough terrain is measured as the percentage of
mountainous terrain, with missing values estimated using the difference between
the highest and lowest point of elevation; the data are from Fearon and Laitin
(2003b).

Control Variables

Two types of control variables are added to the model, to capture potential war
spoils, and ethnic and religious fractionalization.

Potential War Spoils Fearon and Laitin (2003a) find that civil wars are more likely
to start in states with a high amount of oil exports. Oil exports represent potential
war spoils for the rebels should they win. Fearon and Laitin (2003a) dichotomously
code countries whose export revenues from oil sales exceed one third of their total
export revenues as oil exporters. Countries are coded in 5-year intervals, based on
World Bank data.

Cultural Factors While neither Fearon and Laitin (2003a) nor Sambanis (2004) find
much evidence for an increasing civil war probability with rising levels of
ethnic and religious fractionalization, I control for these cultural factors, as
many civil wars are fought over ethnic or religious issues (Kaufmann 1996).
Measures for ethnic and religious fractionalization denote the probability that two
randomly chosen individuals in a country are from two different ethnic or
religious groups, respectively. The data are adopted from Fearon and Laitin’s
dataset (2003a, b).8
All non-dichotomous independent variables, except for state repression and
democracy,9 are centered on their means, to facilitate interpretation of the statistical
outputs. From the PTS, ‘1’ is subtracted so that the constant in a logistic regression
model now represents the logarithm of the probability of civil war onset in any given
year for a country with average levels of economic development, population size,
mountainous surface, and ethnic and religious fractionalization. This “average
country” has almost no repression (PTS=1), is an anocracy (since Polity2=0), has
experienced no political instability in the past 3 years, is not led by a military
government, and is not an oil exporter (all dummies are at ‘0’). Similarly, the CIRI
measures are inverted so that ‘0’ indicates no abuses and ‘8’ (for the additive
physical integrity measure) or ‘2’ (for the component measures) indicates a high
extent of abuse.

8
The independent variables in the model do not show strong signs of multicollinearity.
9
The Polity2 scale is not centered because the mean (−0.031) is very close to zero.
 N. Rost

Rare Events Logit Models

First, I present the results from rare events logit models, which correct for the rare
occurrence of civil war onset among a high number of country-years included in the
analysis (Tomz et al. 1999; King and Zeng 2001a, b). In model 1, the null-model in
Table 1, government repression is omitted from the list of variables. As the results
for the other independent variables, except democracy, only change marginally when
it is included, mainly the results from models 2 to 7 are discussed in detail. This
congruence between the null-model and the other models indicates that repression
correlates with civil war onset without altering the effects of other variables.
The repression–rebellion link receives major support from the findings of this
analysis: Both the PTS and CIRI indices of past repression, as well as three of the
four CIRI component measures, for political imprisonment, torture, and killings,
significantly correlate with the probability of a civil war to break out. While these
models do not address concerns of endogeneity and can therefore not say much
about causality, they show that there is a strong link between human rights violations
and the risk of civil war onset in the following year. Clearly, government repression
is part of the process leading to civil war and can be used as an early warning
indicator of a high risk of war.
The CIRI measure for “disappearances” does not correlate with the risk of civil
war onset in the multivariate model. This is confirmed in simple cross-tabulations:
While there was no torture in only one of 36 cases in the year before civil war start,
no political imprisonment in three, and no extrajudicial killings in nine cases, there
were no “disappearances” in 27 of the 36 cases. In 18 cases—such as Haiti 1991,
Russia/Chechnya 1999, Sierra Leone 1991 or Pakistan 1994—political imprison-
ment, torture, and extrajudicial killings were observed in the previous year but no
“disappearances”.
The often hypothesized, and empirically supported, curvilinear impact of
repression on domestic political violence discussed in previous research (Gurr
1970; Tilly 1978; Muller 1985; Muller and Seligson 1987; Muller and Weede 1990;
Boswell and Dixon 1990; Schock 1996) was also tested.10 These tests do not show
statistically significant results (results not shown). Any increase in the level of
repression, therefore, seems to be linked with an increase in the probability of civil
war onset.
Other than what may be expected, democracy positively influences the probability
of civil war onset and reaches statistical significance in model 1.11 In addition,
anocracies have a significantly higher chance of experiencing a civil war than either
fully authoritarian or democratic countries. On average, both democracies and
autocracies are less likely to experience civil war than anocracies but democracies
still have a higher probability than authoritarian systems. However, this effect should
be moderated by the higher occurrence of human rights violations in autocratic as
compared with democratic regimes. Taken together, these findings underline the
importance of modeling specific aspects of a country’s political system, rather than

10
By adding a variable that assumes a value of 0 if PTS=3, 1 if PTS=2 or 4, and 2 if PTS=1 or 5.
11
The level of democracy also has a positive coefficient in Fearon and Laitin (2003a) model 1 but is not
statistically significant.
Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

just including the overall level of democracy. Yet, they clearly deserve increased
examination in future studies, especially since all other variables related to a
country’s political system are signed in the expected direction.
One likely explanation is that half-hearted democratization processes open access
to the political system for a number of groups without effectively sharing political
power among them. At the same time, state leaders feel domestic and international
pressures to democratize but are not willing to give up power. If they pretend to give
in to these pressures and hold meaningless elections, this may be a signal of state
weakness (Huntington 1991). In From Voting to Violence, Snyder (2000) describes
how, under certain circumstances, democratizing and pseudo-democratic countries
may experience nationalist or ethnic conflict (see also Collier 2009).
The level of democracy, however, has a different effect on other aspects of civil
war. Lacina (2006) finds democracy to be one of the strongest factors in reducing the
number of battle deaths in a civil war, once started. Elbadawi and Sambanis (2002)
find that democracy reduces civil war prevalence. The link between democracy and
civil war seems to be more complicated than the democratic peace in international
politics.12
Of the state weakness variables, the level of economic development is statistically
significant across all models. This is one of the most robust findings in empirical
civil war research. Surprisingly, population size does not even come close to
statistical significance in either of the models, and the coefficient changes signs,
while it was one of the most robust variables in Sambanis (2004) and Fearon and
Laitin (2003a), and significant in at least some of Collier and Hoeffler’s (2004)
models. Next, civil wars are significantly more likely to occur in countries governed
by military regimes. This finding adds to existing theory on the causes of civil wars,
as it was not tested in any of the three studies cited above. Political instability,
contrary to earlier findings (Fearon and Laitin 2003a; Sambanis 2004), is not
significant and changes signs from the null-model to the following models. The
percentage of mountains of a country’s surface is not related to the probability of
civil war onset.
Oil-exporting states face a higher risk of seeing a civil war, possibly because of
the potential war spoils that oil rents represent. The variables for ethnic and religious
fractionalization are not significant, neither is each of these variables when the other
one is excluded from the model (results not reported).

Substantial Interpretation and Simulations Based on model 2, the expected

probabilities for civil war onset under different scenarios of interest are calculated
(King et al. 2000). An “average country” with all dummy variables at zero, a Polity2
score of ‘0’ (thus, an anocracy), mean values on the continuous variables, and no
repression, has an expected yearly probability of civil war onset of 0.6%. The 95%
confidence interval, based on 10,000 simulations, ranges from 0.2% to 1.3%. With a
one-point increase on the Political Terror Scale, the expected probability of war
onset doubles to 1.3% (confidence interval: 0.6%–2.6%). If there is a high amount of
repression in the “average” country, the risk of civil war increases to 11.3% (3%–30%).

12
However, even with regard to interstate war, Mansfield and Snyder (2002) report findings that
incomplete transitions toward democracy increase the probability of war.
Table 1 Rare events logit regression on the probability of civil war onset

Independent var. Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7

Null-model Political terror scale CIRI physical CIRI political CIRI torture CIRI CIRI unlawful
integrity imprisonment “disappearances” killings

Coef. p Value Coef. p Value Coef. p Value Coef. p Value Coef. p Value Coef. p Value Coef. p Value

Rights violationsa 0.771 0.000 0.236 0.007 0.627 0.010 0.646 0.021 −0.227 0.534 0.585 0.012
(0.178) (0.088) (0.243) (0.281) (0.364) (0.232)
Democracy 0.038 0.207 0.065 0.032 0.102 0.010 0.119 0.004 0.088 0.017 0.081 0.032 0.085 0.030
(Polity2)a (0.30) (0.030) (0.040) (0.041) (0.037) (0.037) (0.039)
No anocracya −0.746 0.020 −0.715 0.023 −0.789 0.050 −0.823 0.042 −0.729 0.070 −0.829 0.046 −0.837 0.041
(0.322) (0.314) (0.403) (0.404) (0.403) (0.415) (0.409)
Political instability 0.188 0.612 −0.069 0.846 −0.380 0.370 −0.337 0.426 −0.198 0.628 −0.115 0.776 −0.335 0.425
(0.371) (0.353) (0.424) (0.424) (0.403) (0.403) (0.420)
Military regimea 0.834 0.044 0.739 0.051 1.169 0.029 1.135 0.040 1.132 0.028 1.079 0.047 1.123 0.037
(0.413) (0.378) (0.537) (0.552) (0.516) (0.543) (0.538)
b, c
GDP per capitaa, −0.636 0.001 −0.524 0.006 −0.753 0.004 −0.830 0.001 −0.750 0.006 −0.884 0.001 −0.765 0.005
(0.200) (0.192) (0.265) (0.255) (0.272) (0.261) (0.274)
N. Rost
 Null-model Political terror scale CIRI physical CIRI political CIRI torture CIRI CIRI unlawful
integrity imprisonment “disappearances” killings

Coef. p Value Coef. p Value Coef. p Value Coef. p Value Coef. p Value Coef. p Value Coef. p Value

b, c
Population sizea, 0.136 0.176 −0.062 0.568 0.128 0.374 0.116 0.415 0.159 0.245 0.227 0.105 0.151 0.293
(0.101) 0.109 (0.144) (0.142) (0136) (0.140) (0.143)
Oil exporta 0.968 0.014 0.954 0.010 0.945 0.080 0.977 0.078 1.000 0.074 1.119 0.047 1.029 0.054
(0.395) (0.371) (0.540) (0.555) (0.559) (0.563) (0.534)
% Mountainousb 0.011 0.099 0.008 0.282 0.010 0.292 0.010 0.247 0.013 0.158 0.013 0.108 0.012 0.210
(0.007) (0.007) (0.010) (0.009) (0.009) (0.008) (0.009)
Ethnic fractionalizationb 0.215 0.745 0.223 0.717 −0.361 0.642 −0.473 0.523 −0.357 0.643 −0.399 0.593 −0.294 0.706
(0.660) (0.613) (0.776) (0.740) (0.772) (0.747) (0.781)
religious 0.510 0.490 1.039 0.211 1.438 0.156 1.493 0.116 1.490 0.148 1.205 0.183 1.244 0.218
fractionalizationb (0.739) (0.831) (1.013) (0.950) (1.031) (0.904) (1.011)
Constant −4.057 0.000 −5.132 0.000 −5.021 0.000 −4.911 0.000 −5.190 0.000 −4.309 0.000 −4.648 0.000
(0.404) (0.441) (0.571) (0.616) (0.671) (0.542) 0.535
Number of obs. 2,530 2,452 1,912 1,926 1,922 1,926 1,917
Number of countries 151 151 147 147 147 147 147
Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

Number of civil wars 50 50 33 33 33 33 33

Robust standard errors clustered by country in parentheses

a
Lagged by 1 year
b
Centered on the mean
c
Natural log taken
 N. Rost

To examine the combined effect of indiscriminate repression and state

weakness, I create two scenarios of a strong and weak state. A strong state has
a fully established autocracy (is therefore not an anocracy), but not a military
regime with a maximum level of economic development, and no or only low-level
oil exports. The ideal type of a weak state refers to an anocracy at Polity2=5,
governed by a military regime, with significant oil exports, and a minimal level of
economic development. For both cases, population, the percentage of mountainous
terrain, ethnic and religious fractionalization are held at their respective means, and
both hypothetical countries are politically stable, since these variables are not
significant in model 2. Strong states with no state-sponsored human rights
violations, as expected, are the least likely to experience a civil war; the
probability reduces to .04% (0.01%–0.17%). Strong states with high levels of
repression are 22 times more likely to face a civil war, with a probability of civil
war onset of 0.9% (0.2%–4.2%). The effect of state weakness (combined with
high potential spoils and no repression) increases the likelihood to 13.9% (3.2%–
44.5%). While repression is strongly correlated with civil war onset, the
combination of different aspects of state weakness and large potential spoils
outweighs the impact of the single repression variable. However, even in weak
states, repression is associated with a further increase in the probability of civil
war onset. Combining state weakness and repression, the expected probability of
civil war onset skyrockets to 77.6% (41.5%–94.4%), almost six times higher than
without repression, 130 times higher than the “average country,” and almost 2,000
times higher than in a strong state with no government repression.13 These
simulated probabilities strongly support the theorized combined effect of state
weakness and repression on the probability of civil war onset.

Bivariate Probit Model

To test for possible problems of endogeneity, and whether the two variables of
interest, civil war onset and human rights violations, are jointly influenced by the set
of independent variables, a bivariate probit model is employed, with both war onset
and rights violations as dependent variables. The results, in Table 2, show that only
one of the variables that increase the risk of civil war onset also leads to a higher
level of human rights violations: the level of economic development. Other variables
are statistically significant for one but not the other dependent variable: According to
this model, lack of democracy increases repression but not the risk of war in this
model; anocracy increases the risk of war, which is also higher under military
regimes; larger countries have more repression on average; the risk of war is higher
in oil-exporting and mountainous countries; and religiously diverse countries
experience fewer rights violations, other things being equal. Including the CIRI
physical integrity measure instead of PTS leads to roughly similar results, although
more variables seem jointly to influence repression and war in this alternative model
(results not shown).

13
One might argue that this effect should empirically be tested by using interaction terms. Yet, interaction
terms between repression and economic development and, alternatively, repression and democracy, were
not significant (results not shown).
Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

Table 2 Bivariate probit regression on civil war onset and rights violations

Model 8

Bivariate probit

Dependent var. Independent var. Coef. p Value

Civil war onset Democracy (Polity2)a 0.013 0.296

(0.012)
No anocracya −0.376 0.006
(0.136)
Political instability 0.081 0.605
(0.158)
Military regimea 0.360 0.027
(0.163)
GDP per capitaa, b, c
−0.288 0.000
(0.081)
Population sizea, b, c
0.055 0.218
(0.044)
Oil exporta 0.401 0.017
(0.168)
% Mountainousb 0.005 0.082
(0.003)
Ethnic fractionalizationb 0.107 0.687
(0.265)
Religious fractionalizationb 0.200 0.529
(0.318)
Constant −2.109 0.000
(0.161)
Rights violations (Political Terror Scale) Democracy (Polity2)a −0.073 0.000
(0.011)
No anocracya −0.268 0.269
(0.243)
Political instability 0.272 0.113
(0.172)
Military regimea 0.262 0.216
(0.212)
GDP per capitaa, b, c
−0.537 0.000
(0.109)
Population sizea, b, c
0.289 0.000
(0.067)
Oil exporta 0.357 0.187
(0.270)
% Mountainousb 0.004 0.519
(0.007)
 N. Rost

Table 2 (continued)

Model 8

Bivariate probit

Dependent var. Independent var. Coef. p Value

Ethnic fractionalizationb −0.311 0.420

(0.386)
Religious fractionalization b −0.917 0.028
(0.418)
Constant 1.091 0.000
(0.241)
Rho 0.715
(0.111)
Number of obs. 2,452
Number of countries 151
Number of civil wars 50

Robust standard errors clustered by country in parentheses

a
Lagged by 1 year
b
Centered on the mean
c
Natural log taken

As a set, the independent variables influence both the level of personal integrity
abuses and the risk of civil war onset, as indicated by the fact that Rho is statistically
significant from zero. Thus, as a third step, a sample selection probit model is
calculated, to address concerns of endogeneity.

Heckman Selection Probit Model

Human rights violations may increase the risk of civil war onset, but they may in
turn be caused by the low-level violent conflict that precedes civil war until it
escalates. Furthermore, civil war, at least in the sample used, only occurs when there
are at least some human rights violations in the preceding year (PTS>1 at t-1). Thus,
a probit model with a two-stage selection process (Heckman 1979) is calculated. At
the first, selection stage, the factors that influence the occurrence of at least some
level of repression are examined. A binary variable coded ‘1’ if there are at least
some human rights violations (PTS>1), is the dependent variable at this stage. The
second, outcome stage is set up similarly to model 2 above, with civil war onset as
the dependent variable and the same set of independent variables (Table 3).
At the selection stage, a high level of democracy and economic development
decrease the likelihood of repression, while it is higher in countries with a large
population, as well as during internal conflict (based on the ‘minor conflict’ variable
in the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset, see Gleditsch et al. 2001). All
coefficients are highly statistically significant. International war, which other
scholars have found to influence the likelihood of repression, was not statistically
Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

Table 3 Heckman selection probit regression on civil war onset given that human rights violations occur

Model 9

Heckman probit

Stage Independent var. Coef. p Value

Outcome: civil war onset Rights violationsa 0.134 0.075

(0.075)
Democracy (Polity2)a 0.069 0.000
(0.011)
No anocracya −0.193 0.031
(0.089)
Political instability −0.145 0.161
(0.104)
Military regimea 0.119 0.285
(0.111)
GDP per capitaa, b, c
0.105 0.306
(0.103)
Population sizea, b, c
−0.162 0.001
(0.049)
Oil exporta 0.305 0.004
(0.105)
% Mountainousb 0.004 0.052
(0.002)
Ethnic fractionalizationb 0.224 0.194
(0.173)
Religious fractionalizationb 0.510 0.056
(0.267)
Constant −1.312 0.000
(0.267)
Selection: human rights violations dummy (PTS>1) Democracy (Polity2)a −0.082 0.000
(0.011)
GDP per capitaa, b, c
−0.554 0.000
(0.093)
Population sizea, b, c
0.316 0.000
(0.066)
Internal conflicta 1.380 0.000
(0.298)
Constant 0.985 0.000
(0.096)
Number of obs. 2,453
Number of countries 151
Number of civil wars 50

Standard errors clustered by country in parentheses

a
Lagged by 1 year
b
Centered on the mean
c
Natural log taken
 N. Rost

significant in an alternative model (not shown). Even though a binary dependent

variable is used here, these results are in line with other models on human rights
violations (e.g., Poe and Tate 1994; Davenport 1995; Poe et al. 1999). An important
aspect of the selection stage is that low-level conflict is shown to be a factor leading
to repression, which at the outcome stage is linked to a higher risk of civil war onset
in turn.
The second, outcome stage includes the same independent variables as the rare
events logit models above. The interpretation of coefficients in two-stage selection
models is not straight-forward, in particular for variables that are included at both
stages (democracy, economic development, and population size). Yet, the results for
most variables hardly differ from the earlier models, and the coefficient for
repression remains highly statistically significant. When a government uses violent,
indiscriminate repression, the risk of a civil war to start is high.
The results for democracy, anocracy, military regimes, and oil exports are similar
to those in the rare events logit and binary probit models. Autocratic regimes have a
slightly lower risk of war than democracies (if they can steer clear of human rights
violations), while military regimes, regimes in the middle, and oil-exporting states
are at a higher risk. Surprisingly, the level of economic development no longer
shows a significant impact on the risk of civil war onset, although it continues to
influence civil war indirectly via its impact on repression. Population size, on the
contrary, becomes statistically significant but in the opposite direction of what would
be expected from other studies on civil war onset. While repression seems more likely
in countries with a large population, according to this model, war seems less likely
given that repression has already occurred. Political instability, mountains, ethnic and
religious fractionalization continue to show no statistically significant impact.
In sum, all three types of models consistently show that government-sponsored
violations of the most basic human rights to personal integrity are closely linked
with a high risk of civil war onset. Furthermore, state weakness contributes to
increasing the risk of civil war, which is in line with most studies on civil war onset.
As the simulations show, it is the combination of state weakness and repression that
pushes civil war risk to its highest levels.

Conclusion

The rare events logit models show that state-sponsored repression is closely linked to
a high risk for a civil war to start. It is thus an important early warning sign of wars
to come. As can be seen from the simulated effects of state weakness and repression
based on these models, it is when these factors operate simultaneously that the risk
of a new civil war reaches its highest levels. The bivariate probit and probit selection
models further show that the relationship between repression and civil war onset is
more complicated: Human rights violations are high in undemocratic, poor, and large
countries, and increase during internal low-level conflict. Indiscriminate repression,
in turn, influences the risk of civil war onset, as it drives neutral civilians into the
arms of the rebels. These findings indicate that, even in weak states, governments
have a choice between confrontational and accommodative strategies, which can
significantly reduce the probability of a civil war to break out.
Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

This study has its limitations. First, in particular, the two-stage probit model
indicates that repression is not only part of the escalating conflict leading to civil war
but that it also contributes to increasing the risk of civil war. If a government decided
to stop human rights violations, the risk of war should reduce. Yet, the exact causal
mechanism linking the two cannot be explained with large-N empirical models and
should be examined further. Second, the analyses presented here cannot trace the
exact process of conflict escalation from low-level conflict to full-scale civil war.
Third, the time frame of the study, due to limited data availability, is relatively short.
Especially in the CIRI models, a high number of civil war onsets are not included.
Despite these limitations, possible implications of this study and options for
further research are discussed. First, the findings in this study suggest that repression
correlates with civil war onset and, judging from the selection probit model, that
repression contributes to increasing the risk of civil war. Future research should
examine this process more closely, maybe rather in comparative case studies than
with a large-N research design. The strategic interplay between emerging rebel
movements and the government deserves special attention in this context. Second,
the link between democracy and civil war onset, but also civil war duration,
intensity, and outcome should be examined more closely. The finding that
democracies have a slightly higher risk of civil war than autocracies (but a lower
risk than anocracies) is surprising. Third, rather than looking at repression alone,
future studies could focus on how governments accommodate opposition demands,
and what effects accommodation has on opposition group strategies. Chong (1991),
for example, argues that accommodation could have the counterintuitive effect of
encouraging the opposition, leading to more extreme demands. Fourth, the practical
relevance of these and related theoretical findings should be investigated.
Specifically, since repression clearly seems to be associated with civil war onset, it
could be used as an early warning sign of wars to come.

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