Beyond Civil War: A Quantitative Analysis of Sub-State Violence

Abstract

A large quantitative literature examines the onset, duration, severity, and outcome of civil war. The literature generally treats civil war as involving (1) violence within a state, (2) organized forces on both sides of the violence, and (3) the state as a participant. However, many of the theoretical arguments used to derive empirical predictions about civil war are primarily arguments about when violence will happen without addressing the other two elements. In this article, we examine how variables identified as causing civil war affect other forms of sub-state violence such as communal conflict, one-sided violence, and riots. We find that factors such as ethnic fractionalization, population, economic development and regime type have similar effects on different measures of sub-state violence.