Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-5-2020
Department 1
Political Science
Abstract
The spread of civil war poses serious risks and costs. We argue that conflict environments, which vary across time and space, systematically exacerbate the spread of civil war. As conflict in a state’s neighborhood becomes more spatially proximate and as lingering effects of conflict accumulate over time, that state’s risk of civil war onset increases. To theorize and test this argument, we construct the conflict environment (CE) score, a concept that taps into spatial and temporal dimensions of violence in a state’s neighborhood. Using the CE score in established empirical models of civil war onset, we demonstrate that a dangerous conflict environment consistently elevates the risk of civil war, outperforming traditional measures of nearby violence, even when domestic factors are taken into account.
Copyright Note
This is the author's verison of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
DOI
10.1093/jogss/ogz064
Version
Post-Print
Recommended Citation
Reid, Lindsay, Rachel Myrick, Kelly M. Kadera, and Mark J.C. Crescenzi. “Conflict Environments and Civil War Onset.” Journal of Global Security Studies, 2020.
Required Publisher's Statement
This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Global Security Studies following peer review. The version of record (Lindsay Reid, Rachel Myrick, Kelly M Kadera, Mark J C Crescenzi, Conflict Environments and Civil War Onset, Journal of Global Security Studies, ogz064) is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogz064.