Civil War

Civil war can be defined as a violent conflict that pits states against one or more organized nonstate actors on their territory. This distinguishes civil wars from interstate conflict (where states fight other states), violent conflicts or riots not involving the state (sometimes labeled intercommunal conflicts), and state repression against individuals who cannot be considered an organized or cohesive group, including genocides or similar violence by nonstate actors, such as terrorism or violent crime. This entry first discusses the various kinds of civil war and reviews the key patterns and trends in such conflicts. It then presents theories on the causes of civil war and the current research agenda.

The above conceptual definition of civil war clearly encompasses many different forms of conflict. Some analysts distinguish between civil wars where insurgents seek territorial secession or autonomy and conflicts where insurgents aim for control of the central government. Conflicts over government control may involve insurgents originating from within the center or state apparatus, as in military coups, or challengers may come from the periphery, or outside the political establishment. Others separate between ethnic civil wars, where the insurgents and individuals in control of the central government have separate ethnic identities, and revolutionary conflicts, where insurgents aim for major social transformation. Colonial conflicts are sometimes singled out as a set distinct from civil wars on states' core territory. However, even if these suggested categories may be conceptually distinct types and could suggest different causes and dynamics, a given civil war will often combine several elements. For example, insurgencies may be both ethnic and ideologically based, and aims can shift over time from secession for a limited territory to controlling the entire state. Thus, most researchers do not impose such strict a priori distinctions between varieties to analyze these as separate types but instead study civil war as a common class of conflict.