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Domestic strife define4/15/2023 ![]() ![]() Civil wars also disrupt trade and investment and leave large social legacies in unemployed former combatants and displaced individuals. Studies have indicated that countries experiencing civil war suffer a pronounced decline in gross domestic product and never recover their earlier economic-growth trajectory. Furthermore, war can have a substantial indirect impact on human welfare beyond the direct loss of life. However, civil wars have been more frequent and lengthier, and the great majority of the recorded deaths in battle since the Cold War stem from civil wars. ![]() The specific causes that may underlie that decline remain disputed, and the number of ongoing civil wars remains high in absolute terms.Ĭivil wars are generally less severe than interstate wars, as measured in direct battle deaths. Yet the number of new civil wars actually declined in relative terms after the initial peak after the Cold War. Many experts regarded the outbreak of new civil conflicts immediately following the Cold War as evidence that the world would be more turbulent and violent after a long period of stability based on the strategy of nuclear deterrence adopted by the United States and the Soviet Union. Whereas interstate conflicts tend to be short, civil wars often persist for a long time, are less likely to be settled by formal agreements, and are much more likely to recur. Although there have been relatively few interstate wars since then, civil wars have been common. Despite numerous historical accounts of civil wars, however, there is little empirical data on civil conflicts prior to 1945. Trends from the mid-20th centuryĪrmed challenges to state authority are as old as states themselves. For example, insurgencies may be both ethnic and ideologically based, and the insurgents’ aims can shift over time from secession for a limited territory to controlling the entire state. Notwithstanding those distinctions, a given civil war will often combine several elements. Colonial conflicts are sometimes singled out as a type distinct from civil wars on a state’s core territory. Other analysts distinguish between ethnic civil wars, in which the insurgents and individuals in control of the central government have separate ethnic identities, and revolutionary conflicts, in which insurgents aim for major social transformation. Conflicts over government control may involve insurgents originating from within the centre or state apparatus, as in military coups, or challengers from outside the political establishment. Some analysts distinguish between civil wars in which insurgents seek territorial secession or autonomy and conflicts in which insurgents aim for control of the central government. ![]() The definition of civil war clearly encompasses many different forms of conflict. Civil wars are thus distinguished from interstate conflicts (in which states fight other states), violent conflicts or riots not involving states (sometimes labeled intercommunal conflicts), and state repression against individuals who cannot be considered an organized or cohesive group, including genocides, and similar violence by non-state actors, such as terrorism or violent crime.
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