The effect of ethnic division on civil war and the role of political systems in preventing these conflicts are analyzed, using the importance of religious polarization and animist diversity to explain the incidence of ethnic civil war. Findings show that religious differences are a social cleavage more important than linguistic differences in the development of civil war, and being a consociational democracy significantly reduces the incidence of ethnic civil war.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Barret, D. , ed. 1982. World Christian encyclopedia. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
2.
Barro, Robert J.1997. Determinants of economic growth: A cross-country empirical study. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
3.
Barro, Robert J. , and Jong-Wha Lee. 1996. International measures of schooling years and schooling quality. American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings86 (2): 218-223.
4.
Collier, P. , and A. Hoeffler. 1998. On economic causes of civil wars. Oxford Economic Papers50:563-573.
5.
Collier, P. , and A. Hoeffler. 2000. Greed and grievances. World Bank DECRG Working Paper, Washington, DC.
6.
Collier, Paul , Anke Hoeffler, and Mans Soderbom. 1999. On the duration of civil war. Washington, DC: World Bank, Development Economic Research Group.
7.
Colomer, J. M.2000. Political institutions, democracy and social choice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
8.
Doyle, Michael W. , and Nicholas Sambanis. 2000. International peacebuilding: A theoretical and quantitative analysis. American Political Science Review94 (4): 779-801.
9.
Elbadawi, Ibrahim A. 1999. Civil wars and poverty: The role of external interventions, political rights and economic growth. Paper presented at the World Bank's Conference on “Civil Conflicts, Crime and Violence,”February, Washington, DC.
10.
Elbadawi, Ibrahim , and Nicholas Sambanis. Forthcoming. How much war will we see? Estimating the incidence of civil war in 161 countries, 1960-1999. Journal of Conflict Resolution.
11.
Ellingsen, Tanja . 2000. Colorful community or ethnic witches' brew?Journal of Conflict Resolution44 (2): 228-249.
12.
Esteban, J. , and D. Ray. 1994. On the measurement of polarization. Econometrica62 (4): 819-851.
13.
Esteban, J. , and D. Ray. 1999. Conflict and distribution. Journal of Economic Theory87:379-415.
14.
Hegre, H. , T. Ellingsen, N. P. Gleditsch, and S. Gates. 2001. Towards a democratic civil peace? Opportunity, grievance, and civil war, 1816-1992. American Political Science Review95 (1): 33-48.
15.
Horowitz, D.1985. Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press.
16.
Huntington, S.1996. The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. New York: Simon & Schuster.
17.
Licklider, Roy . 1993. How civil wars end: Questions and methods. In Stopping the killing: How civil wars end, edited by Roy Licklider. New York: New York University Press.
18.
Licklider, Roy . 1995. The consequences of negotiated settlements in civil wars, 1945-1993. American Political Science Review89 (3): 681-690.
19.
Lijphart, A.1977. Democracy in plural societies: A comparative exploration. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
20.
Lijphart, A.1984. Democracies, patterns of majoritarian and consensus government in twenty-one countries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
21.
Montalvo and Reynal-Querol. 2000. A theory of religious conflict and its effects on growth. IVIE Working Paper 2000-04.
22.
Reynal-Querol, M. 2001a. Religious and ethnic conflict, political systems and growth. Ph.D. diss, London School of Economics.
23.
Reynal-Querol, M. 2001b. Why some democracies fail: Stability, political systems and civil war. Mimeographed.
24.
Sambanis, Nicholas . 2001. Do ethnic and nonethnic civil wars have the same causes? A theoretical and empirical inquiry (part I). Journal of Conflict Resolution45 (3): 259-282.
25.
Singer, J. D. , and M. Small. 1994. Correlates of war project: International and civil war data, 1816-1992. Computer file. Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Ann Arbor, MI.
26.
Small, M. , and J. D. Singer. 1982. Resort to arms: International and civil war, 1816-1980. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
27.
Summers, R. , and A. Heston. 1991. The Penn World Table (Mark 5): An expanded set of international comparisons, 1960-1992. Quarterly Journal of Economics106:327-368.
28.
Taylor, C. , and M. C. Hudson. 1972. The world handbook of political and social indicators. 2d ed.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
29.
Vanhaven, Tatu . 1999. Domestic ethnic conflict and ethnic nepotism: A comparative analysis. Journal of Peace Research36 (1): 55-73.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
