IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/joupea/v47y2010i4p377-394.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Democratization and civil war: Empirical evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Lars-Erik Cederman

    (Center for Comparative and International Studies ETH Zurich, lcederman@ethz.ch)

  • Simon Hug

    (Department of Political Science, University of Geneva & Centre for the Study of Civil War, Peace Research Institute, Oslo, PRIO)

  • Lutz F. Krebs

    (Center for Comparative and International Studies ETH Zurich)

Abstract

The hypothesis that democratization triggers political violence has been proposed repeatedly in the quantitative literature, but it remains controversial with respect to both interstate and civil wars. Current empirical research continues to be afflicted by methodological and data problems related to the measurement of democracy and the task of detecting changes in such scores. In order to gain further clarity into the link between democratization and civil war, the current study introduces a new period-finding algorithm that is able to detect periods of democratization and autocratization. This allows for a more flexible way of finding directional changes in governance indicators than is possible with the rigid lag structures commonly employed in previous studies. When regressed on various measures of civil-war onset, the indicator for the initiation of a period of democratization has a strong and robust effect on conflict even in the presence of static measures of regime type. The same applies to autocratization, but its impact is much more sudden than that of democratization. Moreover, we find that the democratization effect is limited to governmental rather than territorial conflicts. Further research will be needed to confirm these results in terms of the relevant causal mechanisms, especially in ethno-nationalist civil wars.

Suggested Citation

  • Lars-Erik Cederman & Simon Hug & Lutz F. Krebs, 2010. "Democratization and civil war: Empirical evidence," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 47(4), pages 377-394, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:joupea:v:47:y:2010:i:4:p:377-394
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/47/4/377.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cervellati, Matteo & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe & Sunde, Uwe, 2011. "Democratization and Civil Liberties: The Role of Violence During the Transition," IZA Discussion Papers 5555, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Bruno Emmanuel Ongo Nkoa & Honoré Tekam Oumbé & Georges Ngnouwal Eloundou & Thierry Asngar Mamadou, 2022. "Impact of access to electricity on internal conflicts in Africa: Does income inequality matter?," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 34(3), pages 395-409, September.
    3. Cervellati, Matteo & Sunde, Uwe, 2011. "Democratization, Violent Social Conflicts, and Growth," IZA Discussion Papers 5643, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Fiedler, Charlotte, 2015. "Towers of strength in turbulent times? Assessing the effectiveness of international support to peace and democracy in Kenya and Kyrgyzstan in the aftermath of interethnic violence," IDOS Discussion Papers 6/2015, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    5. Cervellati, Matteo & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe & Sunde, Uwe, 2014. "Violence during democratization and the quality of democratic institutions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 226-247.
    6. Hackenesch, Christine & Leininger, Julia & Mross, Karina, 2020. "What the EU should do for democracy support in Africa: Ten proposals for a new strategic initiative in times of polarisation," IDOS Discussion Papers 14/2020, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    7. Krebs, Lutz, 2016. "Tilting at windmills or whipping up a storm? Elites and ethno-nationalist conflict during democratisation," MERIT Working Papers 2016-064, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    8. Clayton Thyne & Kendall Hitch, 2020. "Democratic versus Authoritarian Coups: The Influence of External Actors on States’ Postcoup Political Trajectories," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 64(10), pages 1857-1884, November.
    9. Henrikas BartuseviÄ ius & Svend-Erik Skaaning, 2018. "Revisiting democratic civil peace," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(5), pages 625-640, September.
    10. Kinclová Lenka, 2015. "Legitimacy of the “Humanitarian Military Intervention”: An Empirical Assessment," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(1), pages 111-152, January.
    11. Marte Nilsen, 2013. "Will democracy bring peace to Myanmar?," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 115-141, June.
    12. Håvard Hegre & Curtis Bell & Michael Colaresi & Mihai Croicu & Frederick Hoyles & Remco Jansen & Maxine Ria Leis & Angelica Lindqvist-McGowan & David Randahl & Espen Geelmuyden Rød & Paola Vesco, 2021. "ViEWS2020: Revising and evaluating the ViEWS political Violence Early-Warning System," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(3), pages 599-611, May.
    13. Haar Roberta & Krebs Lutz F., 2015. "Choosing to Intervene: US Domestic Politics and Moral Imperatives," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(4), pages 497-505, December.
    14. Olalekan C. Okunlola & Olumide A. Ayetigbo & Sam O. Ajiye, 2022. "Does a free market system reduce conflict in Africa?," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 24(1), pages 147-170, June.
    15. Eelco van der Maat, 2021. "Simplified complexity: Analytical strategies for conflict event research," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 38(1), pages 87-108, January.
    16. Mroß, Karina, 2015. "The fragile road towards peace and democracy: insights on the effectiveness of international support to post-conflict Burundi," IDOS Discussion Papers 3/2015, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    17. Philip Hultquist, 2017. "Is collective repression an effective counterinsurgency technique? Unpacking the cyclical relationship between repression and civil conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 34(5), pages 507-525, September.
    18. Ricciuti Roberto & Rossignoli Domenico, 2017. "Bridging Economics and International Relations to Understand State Capacity and War in Sub-Saharan Africa," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 23(4), pages 1-8, December.
    19. Rossignoli Domenico, 2016. "Democracy, State Capacity and Civil Wars: A New Perspective," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 22(4), pages 427-437, December.
    20. Abbey Steele & Livia I Schubiger, 2018. "Democracy and civil war: The case of Colombia," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(6), pages 587-600, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:joupea:v:47:y:2010:i:4:p:377-394. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.prio.no/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.