human rights violations, weak states, and civil war

Abstract This study examines the role of human rights violations as a harbinger ofcivil wars to come, as well as the links between repression, state weakness, andconflict. Human rights violations are both part of the escalating process that may endin civil war and can contribute to an escalation of conflict to civil war, particularly inweak states. The role of government repression and state weakness in leading to civilwar is tested empirically. The results show that both closely correlate with civil waronset, especially if they are observed in combination. A two-stage model shows that,while low-level conflict leads to human rights violations, they increase the risk of anescalation to civil war in turn. Human rights violations are identified as an importantaspect of understanding civil war onset as the result of an escalation over time and aclear early warning sign of wars to come.

Keywords Human rights . Repression . Civil war . State weakness

Civil wars rarely erupt. Rather, they are the result of an often-long escalation. Theescalation that leads to a civil war is a complex process, in which a governmentand an opposition group might interact for a long time before war starts. In manycases, the two (or more) adversaries will engage in low-level violence before full-

I would like to thank the late Steve Poe, David Mason, Michael Greig, Susumu Shikano, the editor andanonymous reviewers at Human Rights Review, Emily Clough, Nico Petrovsky, Sabine Carey, and JimBattista for their very helpful comments and suggestions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions inthis paper are those of the author and do not represent the views of the United Nations or of OCHA.

N. RostDepartment of Politics and Management, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

N. Rost (*)United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for Somalia,OCHA-Somalia, PO Box 28832, Nairobi 00200, Kenyae-mail: [email protected]

Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

Nicolas Rost

Published online: 1 March 2011# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Hum Rights Rev (2011) 12:417–440DOI 10.1007/s12142-011-0196-9

scale war starts. Often in such cases, in anticipation of the perceived threat, thegovernment will use violence to try to repress an opposition group, committingatrocities against members of the group or, especially if they cannot get hold ofmilitants, against civilians (Pion-Berlin and Lopez 1991; Davenport 1995; Gartnerand Regan 1996; Regan and Henderson 2002; Carey 2004). Sometimes, govern-ments succeed in violently repressing political opposition. Oftentimes, however,such a strategy will fail, and it may even backfire by creating grievances and hatredamong civilians and driving them into the arms of militant groups. In any case,human rights violations are frequently part of the escalatory process and an earlywarning sign of civil war onset. Government-sponsored violations of personalintegrity rights both contribute to causing civil war and are part of the escalatingprocess that may lead to war.

Situations in which government repression and state weakness coexist areespecially civil war-prone, as weak governments trying to repress unrest or anemerging rebellion are often unable to do so effectively. Thus, potential rebelleaders act on the opportunity provided by a weak state (Fearon and Laitin2003a) and repression may drive more people into the arms of the rebels as citizensturn to emerging rebel organizations for protection (Mason and Krane 1989). Rebelgroups that control a territory, which is more likely in weak states, may also try tocoerce citizens into participation (Gates 2002). Under indiscriminate repression,people that join the rebels may be better off than civilians who remain neutral(Kalyvas 2006). While repression thus contributes to causing war, it is also agovernment reaction to an emerging rebellion and part of the complex process thatprecedes a war. Repression is thus an important early warning sign that has oftenbeen overlooked.

If repression is often such a bad choice, why do governments so often choose toemploy it? Civil wars are distinguished from most interstate conflicts by a powerasymmetry between government and rebels (Zartman and William 1995). Rebelorganizations therefore often employ a military strategy of hit-and-run, waging aguerilla war. By doing so, they have to rely on popular support, and governmentforces might try to undercut this support by “draining the sea” (Valentino et al. 2004;Azam and Hoeffler 2002). Where the rebels hide in the mountains, the state is weak,and the government chooses to use a repressive strategy, civilians become easytargets.

Building on studies by Fearon and Laitin (2003a) and Sambanis (2004), the roleof rights violations in leading to civil war is tested empirically, yielding strongsupport for a close link between repression and civil war onset, especially in weakstates. According to one empirical model, the yearly probability of civil war onset isonly 0.04% in strong, non-repressive states, but it is about 78% in weak states wherethe government violates basic human rights. This study contributes to theunderstanding of the repression–rebellion nexus by testing the impact of violationsof personal integrity rights—political imprisonment, torture, “disappearances”, andextrajudicial killings—on the probability of civil war onset in multivariate models.Two-stage models show that the link between repression and civil war is complex:Repression is more likely during low-level conflict, but it increases the risk of anescalation to full-scale civil war. This risk is particularly high in weak states, whichsee both more human rights violations and more civil war.

418 N. Rost

Literature and Theory

I group the relevant literature on the onset of civil war into two categories, referringto two factors that interact and correlate with the probability of civil war onset:repression and state weakness.

The Repression–Rebellion Nexus

In the past two decades, quantitative human rights research has proliferatedconsiderably. Typically, the vast amount of these studies has tried to explain underwhat conditions human rights violations occur. Six factors have consistently beenfound to influence the level of violations of personal integrity rights (Poe and Tate1994; Poe et al. 1999): past repression (Davenport 1995; Richards et al. 2001),democracy (Henderson 1991; Fein 1995; Rummel 1994, 1995; Davenport 1995,2004; Zanger 2000; Regan and Henderson 2002; Harff 2003; Davenport andArmstrong 2004; Valentino et al. 2004; Easterly et al. 2006; Eck and Hultman 2007;Colaresi and Carey 2008), the level of economic development (Mitchell andMcCormick 1988; Carey 2004; Besançon 2005), population size (Henderson 1993;Carey 2004), international war, and civil war (Krain 1997; Zanger 2000; Harff 2003;Wayman and Tago 2009).

In the reverse, repression also seems to be linked with an increased risk of violentconflict in following years. Numerous studies in the civil war literature have found thatstate suppression of political rights and civil liberties, instead of deterring rebellions,often helps to provoke uprisings (Gurr 1970; Tilly 1978; Muller 1985; Muller andSeligson 1987; Muller and Weede 1990; Boswell and Dixon 1990; Schock 1996).Studies focusing on ethnic rebellion and discrimination have confirmed thisrelationship (Gurr and Moore 1997; Goldstone et al. 2000:35). The same may betrue for violations of personal integrity rights. Indiscriminate repression sometimesbackfires and leads to an escalation of the conflict. This is not always the case;otherwise, governments would not use repression. In some cases, governments userepression successfully, at least in the short run (from their point of view). Lichbach(1987) argues that opposition movements respond to government oppression byswitching to alternative strategies. Gupta et al. (1993) find that the effects ofgovernment sanctions vary with the regime type of the country (see also Moore 1998).

Clearly, the process leading to war is complex. Opposition groups, thegovernment, and the general population interact over an extended period of timebefore it comes to a civil war. For example, in the 1980s, Somali President SiadBarre responded to the emergence of an armed independence movement inSomaliland by employing his secret services, which “arbitrarily detained, tortured,or murdered hundreds of Issaq civilians […] Government forces poisoned wells andslaughtered the livestock rural Issaq depended on for their livelihoods” (HumanRights Watch 2009). While in Somalia, full-blown civil war occurred, this does notalways have to be the case. In the Central African Republic, the army “wasresponsible for numerous rights violations in the north of the country, wherehundreds of civilians were summarily executed and many thousands of homes wereburned, typically in the context of counter-insurgency operations against anti-

Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War 419

government groups” (Human Rights Watch 2008). Still, since 2002, ongoing conflicthas not reached the level of a civil war.

A few studies try to describe the strategic interaction between the government andan opposition group that takes place before a civil war starts. Mason and Krane(1989) develop a rational choice model that lays out how repression can create aconflict spiral and drive civilians into joining the rebels. According to theirargument, as a government reverts to indiscriminate repression, civilians are nolonger safe by staying neutral and become more likely to join a rebel group in searchfor protection from government persecution. There is simply No Other Way Out forcivilians (Goodwin 2001). Governments use indiscriminate repression when they donot have the “institutional machinery, redistributable resources, and politicalinclination” to accommodate opposition demands (Mason and Krane 1989:184).

Pierskalla (2010) develops a strategic game to illustrate how under certainconditions—incomplete information or a third-party threat, such as from the military—government repression can lead to an escalation from conflict to full-blown civilwar. Semi-democratic regimes, which are neither fully authoritarian nor democraticbut mix elements of both, should also be at a higher risk of experiencing civil waronset following government repression, according to his model. Below, I discuss thatit is not only the interaction between repression and politically unstable and weakregimes that increases the risk of civil war onset, but the interaction betweenrepression and many aspects of state weakness.

Violence, of course, is not only used by the government during the escalatingprocess leading to civil war. Weinstein (2005, 2007) finds that rebel groups that relyon resource rents, and therefore less on the support of the population, are more likelyto use indiscriminate violence against civilians. Bueno de Mesquita (2010) shows ina game-theoretical model that terrorist groups may have an interest in using violenceto recruit new members.

Kalyvas (2006) and Wood (2010) examine the use of violence by both governmentand rebel groups during, rather than before, civil war. In a detailed study of the Greekcivil war, Kalyvas (2006), similar to Mason and Krane (1989), finds that, in situationsof indiscriminate repression, particularly if used by both sides, it may be beneficial forcivilians to join either side, rather than to remain neutral, as people who stay neutralare at a higher risk of experiencing indiscriminate repression. Members of armedgroups have privileged access to information, are trained on how to react whenarrested or interrogated, receive protection and support from their organizations, andwill often be more careful in avoiding contact with members of the opponent group.

Wood (2010) examines how both rebels and the government use repressionagainst civilians strategically. Weak rebel groups that cannot provide selectiveincentives to their members are more likely to use violence to recruit civilians intotheir ranks. As long as rebels are strong enough to provide some protection tocivilians, indiscriminate government violence helps them overcome the collectiveaction problem and reduces their reliance on violence and selective incentives.

Building on this body of literature, I propose that there are two ways in whichindiscriminate repression is linked to the risk of civil war onset: first, human rightsviolations cause an increase in the risk of civil war onset; second, repression is partof the escalating process that may lead to civil war, and thereby constitutes an earlywarning sign of an increased risk of war.

420 N. Rost

First, as Mason and Krane (1989), Kalyvas (2006), and others have proposed,staying neutral may not be the best, least costly option for civilians that are faced withindiscriminate repression. Thus, rationally acting civilians caught in the crossfire preferto join either of the two sides. If it is mainly the government that uses indiscriminaterepression, then rational civilians may join the rebels. This increases their strength andthereby makes an escalation of conflict more likely. If the government uses violent,indiscriminate repression when faced with demands from an emerging armed groupand the group grows stronger, the risk of civil war to start should increase.

In addition to this effect on rationally acting people, both Thoms and Ron (2007)and Jakobsen and de Soysa (2009) argue that indiscriminate repression can causegrievances, which may drive formerly neutral civilians to support or join a rebelgroup. When the army burns down one’s village or a death squad kills one’s familymembers although they had not supported the rebels, people may join the rebelgroup to seek revenge or because of their hatred of the government.

In either case, “indiscriminate” does not necessarily mean that people are targetedat random. Rather, armed forces may arbitrarily arrest, torture, or kill members of acertain ethnic group, people who live in a certain village or area, or members of acertain class or political group. Such violence is indiscriminate in the sense that nodistinction is made between people who are members or supporters of a rebel groupand those that are not (Kalyvas 2006).

The second link between human rights violations and civil war onset is simplythat they are both part of the same process: escalating but strategic interactionbetween the government and an armed opposition group. For instance, an armedopposition group emerges and challenges the government leading to low-levelconflict. To respond to the threat, the government uses repression, but the rebelgroup grows stronger (whether as a consequence of repression or for other reasons)and the conflict escalates to civil war. In this sense, human rights violations may notbe one of the causes of the war, but there are other underlying causes that lead first tolow-level conflict and repression, and then to war.

Many studies examine the link between the repression of political rights and civilwar onset, but there are few studies on the link between violations of personalintegrity rights and civil war. Pierskalla (2010), for instance, does not test theimplications of his model empirically. Mason and Krane (1989) present a case studyof the civil war in El Salvador but no large-N tests. Two recent studies use globalsamples to examine the link between repression and civil war: Thoms and Ron(2007), examining bivariate relationships, find that violations of civil and politicalrights are “conflict triggers”, that violations of personal integrity rights are associatedwith conflict escalation, but that violations of social and economic rights contributeto underlying causes. Jakobsen and de Soysa (2009), focusing on ethnic conflict, donot find a lack of empowerment (an indicator including freedom of movement,speech, and religion, workers and political rights) to increase the risk of civil war.

Neither of the two studies directly gets at the relationship between personalintegrity rights, state weakness, and the risk of civil war onset, which I am interestedin for this study. Thoms and Ron (2007) examine only bivariate relationships, andJakobsen and de Soysa (2009) look at empowerment rather than personal integrityrights. Many other studies have used an extended definition of repression thatincludes repression of political rights. While repression is usually reduced as the


level of democracy increases, democracy and non-repressiveness are conceptuallyand empirically distinct phenomena. Civil liberties and political rights may besuppressed without widespread violations of the most basic human rights. Davenportand Armstrong (2004) show that the level of repression varies greatly in the mostauthoritarian regimes. The level of personal integrity rights violations ranges fromabsent and almost absent to widespread in the least democratic countries. Democracy—political rights and civil liberties—is often more a matter of political institutions,whereas repression is more a matter of government strategy and the behavior of itsarmed forces. This distinction is reflected in the way these two concepts are usuallymeasured: The Polity2 scale of democracy measures mostly institutional aspects,whereas measures of personal integrity violations are based on state behavior. Thus,it is important to distinguish between institutional democracy and repression whenstudying their impact on the risk of civil war onset. In this study, repression is definedrestrictively as state-sponsored violations of the basic human rights to personalintegrity. Such abuses include political imprisonment, torture, “disappearances”, andextrajudicial killings.1

If indiscriminate repression can backfire and lead to an escalation of conflict, whydo governments still use it? There are at least six reasons, most of them linked tostate weakness. First, a country’s armed and security forces need very goodintelligence on a rebel group, its members, and supporters in order to carry outdiscriminatory or targeted repression. While such information is often not evenavailable to the most advanced armies (Kalyvas 2006), it should particularly belacking in poor countries with underfunded, badly trained, and badly equippedarmed and security forces and intelligence services. The quality of information onrebel groups is further eroded when armed forces have to rely on locals who havetheir own agendas, using the opportunity to denounce their personal rivals andthereby “privatizing” the conflict (Kalyvas 2006).

Second, Fearon and Laitin (2003a: 75–76) argue that police forces in poorcountries are more likely to use indiscriminate repression when they are weak andcorrupt, driving civilians to join rebel forces.

Third, Buhaug et al. (2009) find that civil conflicts that take place far away from acountry’s capital last longer on average. Weak governments may allow conflicts inthe periphery of their country to drag on, rather than enforcing an end to them. Asgovernments neither have the necessary resources and intelligence to use targetedrepression in their country’s periphery, nor the political will to find a proper solutionto a conflict that does not threaten them directly, this may increase their propensity touse indiscriminate repression.

Fourth, politically and economically weak states may not have the resourcesnecessary to accommodate the demands of an armed opposition group (Mason andKrane 1989). If they also do not have the resources to gather the intelligencenecessary for targeted repression, they may not have much of a choice but to useindiscriminate repression in response to a threat posed by an emerging rebel group.

Fifth, Mason and Krane (1989) also argue that a lack of repression maydemonstrate a government’s weakness. Thus, especially governments that are already

1 In the remainder, I will use the terms indiscriminate repression, human rights violations, and violationsof personal integrity rights interchangeably.

422 N. Rost

(perceived as being) weak should be likely to resort to repression to convince theiropponents of their strength and determination.

Sixth, even if a conflict escalates to war because the government usesindiscriminate repression, a weak government may still win the civil war, andtherefore risk an escalation. Of course, a government using indiscriminate repressionmay also prevail in ending an emerging insurgency before it escalates to civil war. Ineither case, weak governments with few other options may take the gamble ofindiscriminate repression, hoping either to avoid an escalation to war or, if it cannotbe avoided, to win the war.

All these six points indicate that, particularly when human rights violations andstate weakness are both present, the risk of civil war onset is high. In the followingsection, I analyze the different aspects of state weakness.

Weak States and Civil War Onset

State weakness has long been associated with the occurrence of civil war (e.g.,Skocpol 1979). State weakness produces openings in the political opportunitystructure that can be seized upon by “greedy” political entrepreneurs initiating aninsurgency. If the state is strong enough, an insurgency will be crushed soon, leavingno room for would-be rebels to realize their gains. State weakness, on the contrary,creates an opportunity for rebellion (Collier and Hoeffler 2004).

State weakness is not a one-dimensional concept; rather, it consists of an array ofdifferent aspects, which cannot easily be integrated, neither on a theoretical norempirical level. Consequently, state weakness is disaggregated into its variouscomponents (economic, demographic, political, and geographic), and their impact onthe probability of civil war is examined separately in both the theoretical andempirical models. All these components make it more difficult for a government toextend effective control over the entirety of the country’s territory and to reduce therisk of a civil war breaking out. They also increase the risk of repression backfiringand leading to an escalation of conflict.

Economic and Demographic Aspects of State Weakness In Sambanis’ (2004:Table 4) study on civil war onset, the only two variables that show a statisticallysignificant impact across 12 different lists of civil wars, 1960–1993, are GDP percapita and the log of population size (see also Elbadawi and Sambanis 2002).2 Botha very low level of economic development and a large population produce relativelyweak states and make it easier to organize and start a violent rebellion. A loweconomic standing makes it more complicated for a government that is not willing toshare power to accommodate contending groups. As noted above, Mason and Krane(1989) argue that governments that do not have the economic resources toaccommodate opposition demands are likely to switch to a repressive strategy.Equally, a large population makes it harder for governments to control the wholecountry. This also increases the probability that contending groups exist that may be

2 With one exception: population size was not significant with Regan’s (1996) list of civil conflicts.


willing to take advantage of opportunities to launch an insurgency. In addition, boththese conditions have consistently been found to be associated with higher levels ofrepression (Mitchell and McCormick 1988; Henderson 1993; Poe and Tate 1994;Poe et al. 1999; Carey 2004).

Political Aspects of State Weakness Hegre et al. (2001) find support for a domesticdemocratic peace, but they also argue that both anocracies (countries that are neitherfully democratic nor authoritarian) and politically unstable countries are moreconflict prone. Similarly, Fearon and Laitin (2003a) and Sambanis (2004) findsignificant effects for anocracy and political instability in some of their models.Anocracies are more civil war-prone because neither are democratic institutions fullyestablished, nor has an authoritarian regime consolidated its power. Anocraciesusually have unstable, unconsolidated political systems. Several groups maycompete for control of the government while the rules of the game have not beeninstitutionalized. Similarly, political instability de-legitimizes the ones in power andindicates that they are vulnerable.

The same should be especially true in newly independent states. The politicalsystem has not been consolidated, and there are often many groups competing forpower and influence. In Fearon and Laitin (2003a: 84), model 1, “new state” was thesubstantially and statistically most significant dichotomous variable. Furthermore,new states have been found to be more likely to experience other forms of politicalinstability, including interstate disputes (Brecher et al. 2000; Carment 1993) andgenocides (Krain 1997: 346, Harff 2003: 62).

Finally, military regimes are likely to be associated with an increase in theprobability of civil war onset. Military regimes can be expected to representpolitically weak governments. They have installed themselves by staging a coup andrarely enjoy widespread popular support. Furthermore, the very fact that a coup wasstaged indicates that government structures were weak in the first place.

Geographic Aspects of State Weakness In addition to economic, demographic, andpolitical aspects, geographic aspects of a country may contribute to state weakness.Specifically, rough terrain makes it easier for rebels to hide from government troops,to wage a guerilla-style war (Collier and Hoeffler 2004; Fearon and Laitin 2003a).

State weakness, as outlined above, consists of several aspects that arehypothesized to increase the probability of civil war onset. Repression is alsohypothesized to correlate with an increase in the probability of civil war onset. Insummary, civil wars are particularly likely to break out in weak states with repressivegovernments. The next section describes the research design for empirical tests onthe link between repression and civil war.

Empirical Tests

Research Design

As described above, human rights violations are often part of the escalating conflictprocess preceding civil war. In some ways, indiscriminate repression may cause such

424 N. Rost

escalation, for instance, by driving civilians into the arms of a rebel group in searchof protection. In other ways, repression is just one of the strategies that thegovernment uses in response to a threat from a rebel group, in particular, when itdoes not have the possibility to use other strategies, such as accommodation ortargeted repression. Thus, repression and civil war may partly be caused by a similarset of factors, or independent variables. This raises concerns about endogeneity ofrepression, when examining its impact on the risk of civil war onset. The researchdesign to test the link between human rights and civil war onset empirically has totake these theoretical expectations into account. In contrast to other studies (e.g.,Jakobsen and de Soysa 2009), which avoid the use of personal integrity abuses intheir model to avoid problems of endogeneity, I use a set of different measures toavoid such problems.

To include personal integrity abuses in the model, I opt for a differentapproach: First, I test rare events logit models (King and Zeng 2001a, b), withrepression added to a set of variables, mostly measuring state weakness, thatauthors have shown to influence the risk of civil war onset (Fearon and Laitin2003a, b; Sambanis 2004). I use both the five-point Political Terror Scale (PTS)and the nine-point Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) measure of physical integrityas a measure of repression. In addition, to test the relationship between violationsof specific rights and the risk of war onset in greater detail, I include the fourcomponents of the CIRI measure (political imprisonment, torture, “disappear-ances”, and extrajudicial killings) individually in additional models. Whilerepressive governments often commit all four types of crime and the componentvariables are conceptually linked, they are correlated with each other at betweenonly 39% and 59%. In a second step, I test whether, as expected, the two variablesof interest are jointly influenced by the set of independent variables, using abivariate probit model. The model shows that they are. Thus, as a third test, Iemploy a two-stage Heckman selection probit model. As the civil wars in thesample only started in countries with at least some repression in the precedingyear, the selection stage includes the factors leading to repression (democracy,GDP per capita, population size, and internal conflict). The outcome stage issimilar to the logit models. The unit of analysis for all models is the country-year,and all country-years for which data are available are included. The PTS modelsinclude 151 countries and 50 civil war onsets between 1977 and 1999; the CIRImodels include 147 countries and 33 wars between 1981 and 1999.

Dependent Variable The dependent variable for the first set of models, the rareevents logit models, is civil war onset, a binary variable. The data come fromSambanis’ (2004) list of civil wars, one of the best-documented datasets.3 With athreshold of about 1,000 battle deaths over 3 years, it provides a good middleground between very low thresholds (such as 25 battle deaths per year for ‘minorconflicts’ in the UCDP/PRIO dataset, see Gleditsch et al. 2001) and highthresholds (1,000 battle deaths per year for ‘civil wars’ in the UCDP/PRIO

3 See the detailed case descriptions available at http://www.yale.edu/unsy/jcr/jcrdatadec04.htm, accessedMarch 2005.


http://www.yale.edu/unsy/jcr/jcrdatadec04.htm

dataset).4 All models use Sambanis’ ‘a-versions,’ excluding country-years duringan ongoing civil war.

Independent Variables Different measures for human rights violations are used.First, the Political Terror Scale (Gibney 2004) ranges from ‘1,’ where repression is(almost) absent, to ‘5’ where state terror is inflicted indiscriminately on the wholepopulation.5 The codings are based on country reports compiled by AmnestyInternational and the US State Department. Following Poe and Tate (1994), theAmnesty International measure is used, replacing missing values with the StateDepartment scores, where possible.

Second, the Cingranelli and Richards or CIRI scale is an additive nine-point indexconstructed from four three-point measures of the extent of political imprisonment,torture, “disappearances”, and extrajudicial killings (Cingranelli and Richards 1999).These four measures are also used individually to test the relationship betweenviolations of specific rights and war onset. Using the variables for politicalimprisonment and torture also avoids a possible overlap between killings that occuras a result of a government repression and killings of civilians that occur as animmediate result of low-level conflict that precedes full-blown civil war.

To avoid any conceptual overlap between human rights behavior and democracy,the institutional Polity2 measure from the Polity IV dataset is used (Marshall et al.2002). This 21-point measure is created by subtracting the 11-point autocracy scalefrom the 11-point democracy scale, which results in a scale that ranges from −10(most autocratic) to +10 (most democratic). Countries with scores from −5 to +5 onthe Polity scale are dichotomously coded as anocracies. To facilitate theinterpretation of the model, the anocracy variable is reversed so that ‘0’ denotesanocracy and ‘1’ denotes no anocracy.6

Most of the remaining variables are similar to those used in other studies on civilwar onset, and some are directly adopted from existing datasets. More detailedinformation on theoretical expectations and the measurement of some of thevariables can be found in Fearon and Laitin (2003a, b) and Sambanis (2004). Fearonand Laitin (2003a) measure of political instability is employed, which isdichotomously coded ‘1’ if there has been a change of at least three points on thePolity2 scale in any of the three preceding years, and ‘0’ otherwise. The level ofeconomic development is approximated by GDP per capita. Because of manymissing values in other data sources, Fearon and Laitin’s data on GDP per capita isemployed. They use data from the Penn World Tables7 and from the World Bank’sWorld Development Indicators, but estimate missing values using data on energyconsumption from the COW project Fearon and Laitin (2003b). The WorldDevelopment Indicators also provide data on population size. This variable islogged (skewness=8.08). Countries are coded as newly independent states in their

4 Robustness tests with a number of alternative civil war measures (Sarkees et al. 2001; Gleditsch et al.2001; Fearon and Laitin 2003a; Regan 1996; Doyle and Sambanis 2000) show roughly similar results.5 The coding scheme is available at www.politicalterrorscale.org, accessed July 2009.6 The Polity2 variable is centered on ‘0,’ implying that such a country is an anocracy. The size andinterpretation of coefficients and odds-ratios are not affected by the decision to reverse the anocracyvariable.7 http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu, accessed October 2004.

426 N. Rost

http://www.politicalterrorscale.org

http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu

first 2 years after independence, similar to Fearon and Laitin (2003a) measure.However, this variable dropped out of the logit models because it perfectly predictedfailure, similar to Sambanis’ analyses (2004; results not shown). Therefore, the newstates variable was excluded from all models before re-estimating them. Tooperationalize military regimes, countries are dichotomously coded ‘1’ as long asa regime led by a military person as the chief executive came to power by means of amilitary coup (Madani 1992). The data are adopted from Poe et al. (2006) whoupdated it through 2003. Rough terrain is measured as the percentage ofmountainous terrain, with missing values estimated using the difference betweenthe highest and lowest point of elevation; the data are from Fearon and Laitin(2003b).

Control Variables

Two types of control variables are added to the model, to capture potential warspoils, and ethnic and religious fractionalization.

Potential War Spoils Fearon and Laitin (2003a) find that civil wars are more likelyto start in states with a high amount of oil exports. Oil exports represent potentialwar spoils for the rebels should they win. Fearon and Laitin (2003a) dichotomouslycode countries whose export revenues from oil sales exceed one third of their totalexport revenues as oil exporters. Countries are coded in 5-year intervals, based onWorld Bank data.

Cultural Factors While neither Fearon and Laitin (2003a) nor Sambanis (2004) findmuch evidence for an increasing civil war probability with rising levels ofethnic and religious fractionalization, I control for these cultural factors, asmany civil wars are fought over ethnic or religious issues (Kaufmann 1996).Measures for ethnic and religious fractionalization denote the probability that tworandomly chosen individuals in a country are from two different ethnic orreligious groups, respectively. The data are adopted from Fearon and Laitin’sdataset (2003a, b).8

All non-dichotomous independent variables, except for state repression anddemocracy,9 are centered on their means, to facilitate interpretation of the statisticaloutputs. From the PTS, ‘1’ is subtracted so that the constant in a logistic regressionmodel now represents the logarithm of the probability of civil war onset in any givenyear for a country with average levels of economic development, population size,mountainous surface, and ethnic and religious fractionalization. This “averagecountry” has almost no repression (PTS=1), is an anocracy (since Polity2=0), hasexperienced no political instability in the past 3 years, is not led by a militarygovernment, and is not an oil exporter (all dummies are at ‘0’). Similarly, the CIRImeasures are inverted so that ‘0’ indicates no abuses and ‘8’ (for the additivephysical integrity measure) or ‘2’ (for the component measures) indicates a highextent of abuse.

8 The independent variables in the model do not show strong signs of multicollinearity.9 The Polity2 scale is not centered because the mean (−0.031) is very close to zero.


Rare Events Logit Models

First, I present the results from rare events logit models, which correct for the rareoccurrence of civil war onset among a high number of country-years included in theanalysis (Tomz et al. 1999; King and Zeng 2001a, b). In model 1, the null-model inTable 1, government repression is omitted from the list of variables. As the resultsfor the other independent variables, except democracy, only change marginally whenit is included, mainly the results from models 2 to 7 are discussed in detail. Thiscongruence between the null-model and the other models indicates that repressioncorrelates with civil war onset without altering the effects of other variables.

The repression–rebellion link receives major support from the findings of thisanalysis: Both the PTS and CIRI indices of past repression, as well as three of thefour CIRI component measures, for political imprisonment, torture, and killings,significantly correlate with the probability of a civil war to break out. While thesemodels do not address concerns of endogeneity and can therefore not say muchabout causality, they show that there is a strong link between human rights violationsand the risk of civil war onset in the following year. Clearly, government repressionis part of the process leading to civil war and can be used as an early warningindicator of a high risk of war.

The CIRI measure for “disappearances” does not correlate with the risk of civilwar onset in the multivariate model. This is confirmed in simple cross-tabulations:While there was no torture in only one of 36 cases in the year before civil war start,no political imprisonment in three, and no extrajudicial killings in nine cases, therewere no “disappearances” in 27 of the 36 cases. In 18 cases—such as Haiti 1991,Russia/Chechnya 1999, Sierra Leone 1991 or Pakistan 1994—political imprison-ment, torture, and extrajudicial killings were observed in the previous year but no“disappearances”.

The often hypothesized, and empirically supported, curvilinear impact ofrepression on domestic political violence discussed in previous research (Gurr1970; Tilly 1978; Muller 1985; Muller and Seligson 1987; Muller and Weede 1990;Boswell and Dixon 1990; Schock 1996) was also tested.10 These tests do not showstatistically significant results (results not shown). Any increase in the level ofrepression, therefore, seems to be linked with an increase in the probability of civilwar onset.

Other than what may be expected, democracy positively influences the probabilityof civil war onset and reaches statistical significance in model 1.11 In addition,anocracies have a significantly higher chance of experiencing a civil war than eitherfully authoritarian or democratic countries. On average, both democracies andautocracies are less likely to experience civil war than anocracies but democraciesstill have a higher probability than authoritarian systems. However, this effect shouldbe moderated by the higher occurrence of human rights violations in autocratic ascompared with democratic regimes. Taken together, these findings underline theimportance of modeling specific aspects of a country’s political system, rather than

10 By adding a variable that assumes a value of 0 if PTS=3, 1 if PTS=2 or 4, and 2 if PTS=1 or 5.11 The level of democracy also has a positive coefficient in Fearon and Laitin (2003a) model 1 but is notstatistically significant.

428 N. Rost

just including the overall level of democracy. Yet, they clearly deserve increasedexamination in future studies, especially since all other variables related to acountry’s political system are signed in the expected direction.

One likely explanation is that half-hearted democratization processes open accessto the political system for a number of groups without effectively sharing politicalpower among them. At the same time, state leaders feel domestic and internationalpressures to democratize but are not willing to give up power. If they pretend to givein to these pressures and hold meaningless elections, this may be a signal of stateweakness (Huntington 1991). In From Voting to Violence, Snyder (2000) describeshow, under certain circumstances, democratizing and pseudo-democratic countriesmay experience nationalist or ethnic conflict (see also Collier 2009).

The level of democracy, however, has a different effect on other aspects of civilwar. Lacina (2006) finds democracy to be one of the strongest factors in reducing thenumber of battle deaths in a civil war, once started. Elbadawi and Sambanis (2002)find that democracy reduces civil war prevalence. The link between democracy andcivil war seems to be more complicated than the democratic peace in internationalpolitics.12

Of the state weakness variables, the level of economic development is statisticallysignificant across all models. This is one of the most robust findings in empiricalcivil war research. Surprisingly, population size does not even come close tostatistical significance in either of the models, and the coefficient changes signs,while it was one of the most robust variables in Sambanis (2004) and Fearon andLaitin (2003a), and significant in at least some of Collier and Hoeffler’s (2004)models. Next, civil wars are significantly more likely to occur in countries governedby military regimes. This finding adds to existing theory on the causes of civil wars,as it was not tested in any of the three studies cited above. Political instability,contrary to earlier findings (Fearon and Laitin 2003a; Sambanis 2004), is notsignificant and changes signs from the null-model to the following models. Thepercentage of mountains of a country’s surface is not related to the probability ofcivil war onset.

Oil-exporting states face a higher risk of seeing a civil war, possibly because ofthe potential war spoils that oil rents represent. The variables for ethnic and religiousfractionalization are not significant, neither is each of these variables when the otherone is excluded from the model (results not reported).

Substantial Interpretation and Simulations Based on model 2, the expectedprobabilities for civil war onset under different scenarios of interest are calculated(King et al. 2000). An “average country” with all dummy variables at zero, a Polity2score of ‘0’ (thus, an anocracy), mean values on the continuous variables, and norepression, has an expected yearly probability of civil war onset of 0.6%. The 95%confidence interval, based on 10,000 simulations, ranges from 0.2% to 1.3%. With aone-point increase on the Political Terror Scale, the expected probability of waronset doubles to 1.3% (confidence interval: 0.6%–2.6%). If there is a high amount ofrepression in the “average” country, the risk of civil war increases to 11.3% (3%–30%).

12 However, even with regard to interstate war, Mansfield and Snyder (2002) report findings thatincomplete transitions toward democracy increase the probability of war.


Tab

le1

Rareeventslogitregression

ontheprobability

ofcivilwar

onset

Independ

entvar.

Mod

el1

Mod

el2

Model

3Model

4Model

5Model

6Model

7

Null-model

Politicalterror

scale

CIRIphysical

integrity

CIRIpo

litical

imprison

ment

CIRItorture

CIRI

“disappearances”

CIRIun

lawful

killings

Coef.

pValue

Coef.

pValue

Coef.

pValue

Coef.

pValue

Coef.

pValue

Coef.

pValue

Coef.

pValue

Rightsviolations

a0.77

10.000

0.236

0.007

0.627

0.01

00.646

0.02

1−0

.227

0.53

40.585

0.01

2

(0.178

)(0.088

)(0.243

)(0.281

)(0.364

)(0.232

)

Dem

ocracy

(Polity

2)a

0.03

80.207

0.06

50.032

0.102

0.010

0.119

0.00

40.088

0.01

70.081

0.03

20.085

0.03

0

(0.30)

(0.030

)(0.040

)(0.041

)(0.037

)(0.037

)(0.039

)

Noanocracy

a−0

.746

0.020

−0.715

0.023

−0.789

0.050

−0.823

0.04

2−0

.729

0.07

0−0

.829

0.04

6−0

.837

0.04

1

(0.322

)(0.314

)(0.403

)(0.404

)(0.403

)(0.415

)(0.409

)

Politicalinstability

0.18

80.612

−0.069

0.846

−0.380

0.370

−0.337

0.42

6−0

.198

0.62

8−0

.115

0.77

6−0

.335

0.42

5

(0.371

)(0.353

)(0.424

)(0.424

)(0.403

)(0.403

)(0.420

)

Military

regimea

0.83

40.044

0.73

90.051

1.169

0.029

1.135

0.04

01.132

0.02

81.079

0.04

71.123

0.03

7

(0.413

)(0.378

)(0.537

)(0.552

)(0.516

)(0.543

)(0.538

)

GDPpercapitaa,

b,c

−0.636

0.001

−0.524

0.006

−0.753

0.004

−0.830

0.00

1−0

.750

0.00

6−0

.884

0.00

1−0

.765

0.00

5

(0.200

)(0.192

)(0.265

)(0.255

)(0.272

)(0.261

)(0.274

)

430 N. Rost

Pop

ulationsize

a,b,c

0.136

0.176

−0.062

0.568

0.12

80.374

0.116

0.415

0.159

0.245

0.227

0.105

0.151

0.293

(0.101

)0.109

(0.144

)(0.142

)(013

6)(0.140

)(0.143

)

Oilexpo

rta

0.968

0.014

0.954

0.010

0.94

50.080

0.97

70.078

1.000

0.074

1.119

0.047

1.029

0.054

(0.395

)(0.371

)(0.540

)(0.555

)(0.559

)(0.563

)(0.534

)

%Mountaino

usb

0.011

0.099

0.008

0.282

0.01

00.292

0.01

00.247

0.013

0.158

0.013

0.108

0.012

0.210

(0.007

)(0.007

)(0.010

)(0.009

)(0.009

)(0.008

)(0.009

)

Ethnicfractio

nalizationb

0.215

0.745

0.223

0.717

−0.361

0.642

−0.473

0.523

−0.357

0.643

−0.399

0.593

−0.294

0.706

(0.660

)(0.613

)(0.776

)(0.740

)(0.772

)(0.747

)(0.781

)

relig

ious

fractio

nalizationb

0.510

0.490

1.039

0.211

1.43

80.156

1.49

30.116

1.490

0.148

1.205

0.183

1.244

0.218

(0.739

)(0.831

)(1.013

)(0.950

)(1.031

)(0.904

)(1.011)

Con

stant

−4.057

0.000

−5.132

0.000

−5.021

0.000

−4.911

0.000

−5.190

0.000

−4.309

0.000

−4.648

0.000

(0.404

)(0.441

)(0.571

)(0.616

)(0.671

)(0.542

)0.535

Num

berof

obs.

2,530

2,452

1,91

21,92

61,922

1,92

61,917

Num

berof

coun

tries

151

151

147

147

147

147

147

Num

berof

civilwars

5050

3333

3333

33

Rob

uststandard

errors

clusteredby

countryin

parentheses

aLaggedby

1year

bCenteredon

themean

cNatural

logtaken


To examine the combined effect of indiscriminate repression and stateweakness, I create two scenarios of a strong and weak state. A strong state hasa fully established autocracy (is therefore not an anocracy), but not a militaryregime with a maximum level of economic development, and no or only low-leveloil exports. The ideal type of a weak state refers to an anocracy at Polity2=5,governed by a military regime, with significant oil exports, and a minimal level ofeconomic development. For both cases, population, the percentage of mountainousterrain, ethnic and religious fractionalization are held at their respective means, andboth hypothetical countries are politically stable, since these variables are notsignificant in model 2. Strong states with no state-sponsored human rightsviolations, as expected, are the least likely to experience a civil war; theprobability reduces to .04% (0.01%–0.17%). Strong states with high levels ofrepression are 22 times more likely to face a civil war, with a probability of civilwar onset of 0.9% (0.2%–4.2%). The effect of state weakness (combined withhigh potential spoils and no repression) increases the likelihood to 13.9% (3.2%–44.5%). While repression is strongly correlated with civil war onset, thecombination of different aspects of state weakness and large potential spoilsoutweighs the impact of the single repression variable. However, even in weakstates, repression is associated with a further increase in the probability of civilwar onset. Combining state weakness and repression, the expected probability ofcivil war onset skyrockets to 77.6% (41.5%–94.4%), almost six times higher thanwithout repression, 130 times higher than the “average country,” and almost 2,000times higher than in a strong state with no government repression.13 Thesesimulated probabilities strongly support the theorized combined effect of stateweakness and repression on the probability of civil war onset.

Bivariate Probit Model

To test for possible problems of endogeneity, and whether the two variables ofinterest, civil war onset and human rights violations, are jointly influenced by the setof independent variables, a bivariate probit model is employed, with both war onsetand rights violations as dependent variables. The results, in Table 2, show that onlyone of the variables that increase the risk of civil war onset also leads to a higherlevel of human rights violations: the level of economic development. Other variablesare statistically significant for one but not the other dependent variable: According tothis model, lack of democracy increases repression but not the risk of war in thismodel; anocracy increases the risk of war, which is also higher under militaryregimes; larger countries have more repression on average; the risk of war is higherin oil-exporting and mountainous countries; and religiously diverse countriesexperience fewer rights violations, other things being equal. Including the CIRIphysical integrity measure instead of PTS leads to roughly similar results, althoughmore variables seem jointly to influence repression and war in this alternative model(results not shown).

13 One might argue that this effect should empirically be tested by using interaction terms. Yet, interactionterms between repression and economic development and, alternatively, repression and democracy, werenot significant (results not shown).

432 N. Rost

Table 2 Bivariate probit regression on civil war onset and rights violations

Model 8

Bivariate probit

Dependent var. Independent var. Coef. p Value

Civil war onset Democracy (Polity2)a 0.013 0.296

(0.012)

No anocracya −0.376 0.006

(0.136)

Political instability 0.081 0.605

(0.158)

Military regimea 0.360 0.027

(0.163)

GDP per capitaa, b, c −0.288 0.000

(0.081)

Population sizea, b, c 0.055 0.218

(0.044)

Oil exporta 0.401 0.017

(0.168)

% Mountainousb 0.005 0.082

(0.003)

Ethnic fractionalizationb 0.107 0.687

(0.265)

Religious fractionalizationb 0.200 0.529

(0.318)

Constant −2.109 0.000

(0.161)

Rights violations (Political Terror Scale) Democracy (Polity2)a −0.073 0.000

(0.011)


(0.243)

Political instability 0.272 0.113

(0.172)


(0.212)


(0.109)


(0.067)


(0.270)


(0.007)


As a set, the independent variables influence both the level of personal integrityabuses and the risk of civil war onset, as indicated by the fact that Rho is statisticallysignificant from zero. Thus, as a third step, a sample selection probit model iscalculated, to address concerns of endogeneity.

Heckman Selection Probit Model

Human rights violations may increase the risk of civil war onset, but they may inturn be caused by the low-level violent conflict that precedes civil war until itescalates. Furthermore, civil war, at least in the sample used, only occurs when thereare at least some human rights violations in the preceding year (PTS>1 at t-1). Thus,a probit model with a two-stage selection process (Heckman 1979) is calculated. Atthe first, selection stage, the factors that influence the occurrence of at least somelevel of repression are examined. A binary variable coded ‘1’ if there are at leastsome human rights violations (PTS>1), is the dependent variable at this stage. Thesecond, outcome stage is set up similarly to model 2 above, with civil war onset asthe dependent variable and the same set of independent variables (Table 3).

At the selection stage, a high level of democracy and economic developmentdecrease the likelihood of repression, while it is higher in countries with a largepopulation, as well as during internal conflict (based on the ‘minor conflict’ variablein the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset, see Gleditsch et al. 2001). Allcoefficients are highly statistically significant. International war, which otherscholars have found to influence the likelihood of repression, was not statistically

Table 2 (continued)

Model 8

Bivariate probit

Dependent var. Independent var. Coef. p Value

Ethnic fractionalizationb −0.311 0.420

(0.386)

Religious fractionalization b −0.917 0.028

(0.418)

Constant 1.091 0.000

(0.241)

Rho 0.715

(0.111)

Number of obs. 2,452

Number of countries 151

Number of civil wars 50

Robust standard errors clustered by country in parenthesesa Lagged by 1 yearb Centered on the meanc Natural log taken

434 N. Rost

Table 3 Heckman selection probit regression on civil war onset given that human rights violations occur

Model 9

Heckman probit

Stage Independent var. Coef. p Value

Outcome: civil war onset Rights violationsa 0.134 0.075

(0.075)

Democracy (Polity2)a 0.069 0.000

(0.011)


(0.089)

Political instability −0.145 0.161

(0.104)


(0.111)

GDP per capitaa, b, c 0.105 0.306

(0.103)

Population sizea, b, c −0.162 0.001

(0.049)


(0.105)


(0.002)

Ethnic fractionalizationb 0.224 0.194

(0.173)

Religious fractionalizationb 0.510 0.056

(0.267)

Constant −1.312 0.000

(0.267)

Selection: human rights violations dummy (PTS>1) Democracy (Polity2)a −0.082 0.000

(0.011)


(0.093)


(0.066)

Internal conflicta 1.380 0.000

(0.298)

Constant 0.985 0.000

(0.096)

Number of obs. 2,453

Number of countries 151

Number of civil wars 50

Standard errors clustered by country in parenthesesa Lagged by 1 yearb Centered on the meanc Natural log taken


significant in an alternative model (not shown). Even though a binary dependentvariable is used here, these results are in line with other models on human rightsviolations (e.g., Poe and Tate 1994; Davenport 1995; Poe et al. 1999). An importantaspect of the selection stage is that low-level conflict is shown to be a factor leadingto repression, which at the outcome stage is linked to a higher risk of civil war onsetin turn.

The second, outcome stage includes the same independent variables as the rareevents logit models above. The interpretation of coefficients in two-stage selectionmodels is not straight-forward, in particular for variables that are included at bothstages (democracy, economic development, and population size). Yet, the results formost variables hardly differ from the earlier models, and the coefficient forrepression remains highly statistically significant. When a government uses violent,indiscriminate repression, the risk of a civil war to start is high.

The results for democracy, anocracy, military regimes, and oil exports are similarto those in the rare events logit and binary probit models. Autocratic regimes have aslightly lower risk of war than democracies (if they can steer clear of human rightsviolations), while military regimes, regimes in the middle, and oil-exporting statesare at a higher risk. Surprisingly, the level of economic development no longershows a significant impact on the risk of civil war onset, although it continues toinfluence civil war indirectly via its impact on repression. Population size, on thecontrary, becomes statistically significant but in the opposite direction of what wouldbe expected from other studies on civil war onset. While repression seems more likelyin countries with a large population, according to this model, war seems less likelygiven that repression has already occurred. Political instability, mountains, ethnic andreligious fractionalization continue to show no statistically significant impact.

In sum, all three types of models consistently show that government-sponsoredviolations of the most basic human rights to personal integrity are closely linkedwith a high risk of civil war onset. Furthermore, state weakness contributes toincreasing the risk of civil war, which is in line with most studies on civil war onset.As the simulations show, it is the combination of state weakness and repression thatpushes civil war risk to its highest levels.

Conclusion

The rare events logit models show that state-sponsored repression is closely linked toa high risk for a civil war to start. It is thus an important early warning sign of warsto come. As can be seen from the simulated effects of state weakness and repressionbased on these models, it is when these factors operate simultaneously that the riskof a new civil war reaches its highest levels. The bivariate probit and probit selectionmodels further show that the relationship between repression and civil war onset ismore complicated: Human rights violations are high in undemocratic, poor, and largecountries, and increase during internal low-level conflict. Indiscriminate repression,in turn, influences the risk of civil war onset, as it drives neutral civilians into thearms of the rebels. These findings indicate that, even in weak states, governmentshave a choice between confrontational and accommodative strategies, which cansignificantly reduce the probability of a civil war to break out.

436 N. Rost

This study has its limitations. First, in particular, the two-stage probit modelindicates that repression is not only part of the escalating conflict leading to civil warbut that it also contributes to increasing the risk of civil war. If a government decidedto stop human rights violations, the risk of war should reduce. Yet, the exact causalmechanism linking the two cannot be explained with large-N empirical models andshould be examined further. Second, the analyses presented here cannot trace theexact process of conflict escalation from low-level conflict to full-scale civil war.Third, the time frame of the study, due to limited data availability, is relatively short.Especially in the CIRI models, a high number of civil war onsets are not included.

Despite these limitations, possible implications of this study and options forfurther research are discussed. First, the findings in this study suggest that repressioncorrelates with civil war onset and, judging from the selection probit model, thatrepression contributes to increasing the risk of civil war. Future research shouldexamine this process more closely, maybe rather in comparative case studies thanwith a large-N research design. The strategic interplay between emerging rebelmovements and the government deserves special attention in this context. Second,the link between democracy and civil war onset, but also civil war duration,intensity, and outcome should be examined more closely. The finding thatdemocracies have a slightly higher risk of civil war than autocracies (but a lowerrisk than anocracies) is surprising. Third, rather than looking at repression alone,future studies could focus on how governments accommodate opposition demands,and what effects accommodation has on opposition group strategies. Chong (1991),for example, argues that accommodation could have the counterintuitive effect ofencouraging the opposition, leading to more extreme demands. Fourth, the practicalrelevance of these and related theoretical findings should be investigated.Specifically, since repression clearly seems to be associated with civil war onset, itcould be used as an early warning sign of wars to come.

References

Azam, Jean-Paul, and Anke Hoeffler (2002): Violence Against Civilians in Civil Wars: Looting or Terror?Journal of Peace Research 39(4): 461–485.

Besançon, Marie L. (2005): Relative Resources: Inequality in Ethnic Wars, Revolutions, and Genocides.Journal of Peace Research 42(4): 393–415.

Boswell, Terry, and William J. Dixon (1990): Dependency and Rebellion: A Cross-National Analysis.American Sociological Review 55(4): 540–559.

Brecher, Michael, Patrick James, and Jonathan Wilkenfeld (2000): Escalation and War in the TwentiethCentury—Findings from the International Crisis Behavior Project. In John A. Vasquez (ed.): What DoWe Know About War? Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield: 37–53.

Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan L (2010): Regime Change and Revolutionary Entrepreneurs. AmericanPolitical Science Review 104(3): 446–466.

Buhaug, Halvard, Scott Gates, and Päivi Lujala (2009): Geography, Rebel Capability, and the Duration ofCivil Conflict. Journal of Conflict Resolution 53(4): 544–569.

Carey, Sabine C. (2004): Domestic Threat and Repression: An Analysis of State Responses to DifferentForms of Dissent. In: Sabine C. Carey, Steven C. Poe (eds.): Understanding Human RightsViolations: New Systematic Approaches. Aldershort: Ashgate: 207–225.

Carment, David (1993): The International Dimensions of Ethnic Conflict: Concepts, Indicators, andTheory. Journal of Peace Research 30(2): 137–150.

Chong, Dennis (1991): Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement. Univ. of Chicago Press.


Cingranelli, David L, and David L. Richards (1999): Measuring the Level, Pattern, and Sequence ofGovernment Respect for Physical Integrity Rights. International Studies Quarterly 43(2): 407–417.

Colaresi, Michael, and Sabine C. Carey (2008): To Kill or to Protect: Security Forces, DomesticConstraints, and Genocide. Journal of Conflict Resolution 52(1): 39–67.

Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler (2004): Greed and Grievance in Civil War. Oxford Economic Papers 56(4): 563–595.

Collier, Paul (2009): Wars, Guns, and Votes—Democracy in Dangerous Places. New York: HarperCollins.Davenport, Christian (1995): Multi-Dimensional Threat Perception and State Repression: An Inquiry Into

Why States Apply Negative Sanctions. American Journal of Political Science 39(3): 683–713.Davenport, Christian (2004): The Promise of Democratic Pacification: An Empirical Assessment.

International Studies Quarterly 48(3): 539–560.Davenport, Christian, and David A. Armstrong II (2004): Democracy and the Violation of Human Rights:

A Statistical Analysis from 1976 to 1996. American Journal of Political Science 48(July): 538–554.Doyle, Michael W., and Nicholas Sambanis (2000): International Peacekeeping: A Theoretical and

Quantitative Analysis. American Political Science Review 94(4): 779–801.Easterly, William, Roberta Gatti, and Sergio Kurlat (2006): Development, Democracy and Mass Killings.

Journal of Economic Growth 11(2): 129–156.Eck, Kristine, and Lisa Hultman (2007): One-Sided Violence Against Civilians in War: Insights From

New Fatality Data. Journal of Peace Research 44(2): 233–246.Elbadawi, Ibrahim, and Nicholas Sambanis (2002): How Much War Will We See? Explaining the

Prevalence of Civil War. Journal of Conflict Resolution 46(3): 307–334.Fearon, James D., and David D. Laitin (2003a): Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War. American Political

Science Review: 75–90.Fearon, James D., and David D. Laitin (2003b): Additional Tables for “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil

War.” http://www.stanford.edu/group/ethnic/, accessed November 2004.Fein, Helen (1995): More Murder in the Middle: Life-Integrity Violations and Democracy in the World,

1987. Human Rights Quarterly 17(1): 170–191.Gartner, Scott Sigmund, and Patrick M. Regan (1996) Threat and Repression: The Non- Linear

Relationship between Government and Opposition Violence. Journal of Peace Research 33(3): 273–87.Gates, Scott (2002): Recruitment and Allegiance—The Microfoundations of Rebellion. Journal of Conflict

Resolution 46(1): 111–130.Gibney, Mark (2004): Political Terror Scale. http://www.unca.edu/politicalscience/faculty-staff/gibney.

html, accessed October 2004.Gleditsch, Nils Petter, Håvard Strand, Mikael Eriksson, Margareta Sollenberg, and Peter Wallensteen

(2001): Armed conflict 1945–99: A new dataset. Unpublished paper, PRIO, Oslo Norway [adoptedfrom Sambanis 2004].

Goldstone, Jack A., Ted Robert Gurr, Barbara Harff, Marc A. Levy, Monty G. Marshall, Robert H.Bates, David L. Epstein, Colin H. Kahl, Pamela T. Surko, John C. Ulfelder, and Alan N. Unger(2000): State Failure Task Force Project: Phase III Findings. http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/stfail/SFTF%20Phase%20III%20Report%20Final.pdf, accessed August 2003.

Goodwin, Jeff (2001): No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945–1991. New York:Cambridge University Press.

Gupta, Dipak K., Harinder Singh, and Tom Sprague (1993): Government Coercion of Dissidents:Deterrence or Provocation? Journal of Conflict Resolution 37(2): 301–339.

Gurr, Ted Robert (1970): Why Men Rebel. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Gurr, Ted Robert, and Will H. Moore (1997): Ethnopolitical Rebellion: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of

the 1980s with Risk Assessments for the 1990s. American Journal of Political Science 41: 1079–1103.

Harff, Barbara (2003): No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide andPolitical Mass Murder since 1955. American Political Science Review 97(1): 57–73.

Heckman, James J. (1979): Sample Selection Bias as a Sample Selection Error. Econometrica 47(1): 153–161.

Hegre, Håvard, Tanja Ellingsen, Scott Gates, and Nils Petter Gleditsch (2001): Toward a Democratic CivilPeace? Democracy, Political Change, and Civil War, 1816–1992. American Political Science Review95(1): 33–48.

Henderson, Conway W. (1991): Conditions Affecting the Use of Political Repression. Journal of ConflictResolution 35(1): 120–142.

Henderson, Conway W. (1993): Population Pressures and Political Repression. Social Science Quarterly74: 322–333.

438 N. Rost

http://www.stanford.edu/group/ethnic/

http://www.unca.edu/politicalscience/faculty-staff/gibney.html

http://www.unca.edu/politicalscience/faculty-staff/gibney.html

http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/stfail/SFTF%20Phase%20III%20Report%20Final.pdf

http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/stfail/SFTF%20Phase%20III%20Report%20Final.pdf

Human Rights Watch (2008): Improving Civilian Protection in Northwest Central African Republic. NewYork: Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org, accessed December 2008).

Human Rights Watch (2009): Hostages to Peace—Threats to Human Rights and Democracy inSomaliland. New York: Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org, accessed July 2009).

Huntington, Samuel P. (1991): The Third Wave—Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman:University of Oklahoma Press.

Jakobsen, Tor G., and Indra de Soysa (2009): Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death! State Repression,Ethnic Grievance, and Civil War, 1981–2004. Civil Wars 11(2): 137–157.

Kalyvas, Stathis N. (2006): The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Kaufmann, Chaim (1996): Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars. International Security

20(4): 136–175.King, Gary, Michael Tomz, and Jason Wittenberg (2000): Making the Most of Sta- tistical Analyses:

Improving Interpretation and Presentation. American Journal of Political Science 44(2): 347–361.

King, Gary, and Langche Zeng (2001a): Logistic Regression in Rare Events Data. Political Analysis9:137–163.

King, Gary, and Langche Zeng (2001b): Explaining Rare Events in International Relations. InternationalOrganization 55(3): 693–715.

Krain, Matthew (1997): State-Sponsored Mass Murder: The Onset and Severity of Genocides andPoliticides. Journal of Conflict Resolution 41(3): 331–360.

Lacina, Bethany (2006): Understanding and Explaining the Severity of Civil Wars. Journal of ConflictResolution 50(2): 276–289.

Lichbach, Mark Irving (1987): Deterrence or Escalation? The Puzzle of Aggregate Studies of Repressionand Dissent. Journal of Conflict Resolution 31(2): 266–297.

Madani, Hamed (1992): Socioeconomic Development and Military Policy Consequences of Third WorldMilitary and Civilian Regimes, 1965–1985. PhD dissertation, University of North Texas.

Mansfield, Edward D., and Jack Snyder (2002): Democratic Transitions, Institutional Strength, and War.International Organization 56(2): 297–337.

Marshall, Monty G., and Keith Jaggers (2002): Polity IV Project—Political Regime Characteristics andTransitions, 1800–2002—Dataset User’s Manual. www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/polity, accessed October2004.

Mason, T. David, and D. Krane (1989): The Political Economy of Death Squads: Toward a Theory of theImpact of State-Sanctioned Terror. International Studies Quarterly 33: 175–198.

Mitchell, Neil J., and James M. McCormick (1988): Economic and Political Explanations of HumanRights Violations. World Politics 40(4): 476–498.

Moore, Will H. (1998): Repression and Dissent: Substitution, Context, and Timing. American Journal ofPolitical Science 42(3): 851–873.

Muller, Edward N. (1985): Income Inequality, Regime Repressiveness, and Political Violence. AmericanSociological Review 50(1): 47–61.

Muller, Edward N., and Mitchell A. Seligson (1987): Inequality and Insurgency. American PoliticalScience Review 81(2): 425–452.

Muller, Edward N., and Erich Weede (1990): Cross-National Variation in Political Violence: A RationalAction Approach. Journal of Conflict Resolution 34(4): 624–651.

Pierskalla, Jan Henryk (2010): Protest, Deterrence, and Escalation: The Strategic Calculus of GovernmentRepression. Journal of Conflict Resolution 54(1): 117–145.

Pion-Berlin, David, and George A. Lopez (1991): Of Victims and Executioners: Argentine State Terror,1975–1979. International Studies Quarterly 35(1): 63–86.

Poe, Steven C., and C. Neal Tate (1994): Repression of Human Rights to Personal Integrity in the 1980s:A Global Analysis. American Political Science Review 88(4): 853–872.

Poe, Steven C., C. Neal Tate, and Linda Camp Keith (1999): Repression of the Human Right to PersonalIntegrity Revisited: A Global Cross-National Study Covering the Years 1976–1993. InternationalStudies Quarterly 43: 291–313.

Poe, Steven C., Nicolas Rost, Sabine C. Carey (2006): Assessing Risk and Opportunity in ConflictStudies: A Human Rights Analysis. Journal of Conflict Resolution 50(4): 484–507.

Regan, Patrick (1996): Conditions of Successful Third-Party Intervention in Intrastate Conflicts. Journalof Conflict Resolution 40(2): 336–359.

Regan, Patrick, and Errol Henderson (2002): Democracy, threats and political repression indeveloping countries: are democracies internally less violent? Third World Quarterly 23(1):119–136.


http://www.hrw.org

http://www.hrw.org

http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/polity

Richards, David L., Ronald Gelleny, and David H. Sacko (2001): Money with a Mean Streak? ForeignEconomic Penetration and Government Respect for Human Rights in Developing Countries.International Studies Quarterly 45: 219–239.

Rummel, Rudolph J. (1994) Power, Genocide, and Mass Murder. Journal of Peace Research 31(1): 1–10.Rummel, Rudolph J. (1995) Democracy, Power, Genocide, and Mass Murder. Journal of Conflict

Resolution 39(1): 3–26.Sambanis, Nicholas (2004): What Is Civil War? Conceptual and Empirical Complexities of an Operational

Definition. Journal of Conflict Resolution 48(6): 814–858.Sarkees, Meredith Reid, and J. David Singer (2001): The Correlates of War datasets: The totality of war.

Paper prepared for the 42nd Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, February 20–24, Chicago [adopted from Sambanis 2004].

Schock, Kurt (1996): A Conjunctural Model of Political Conflict: The Impact of Political Opportunities onthe Relationship between Economic Inequality and Violent Political Conflict. Journal of ConflictResolution 40(1): 98–113.

Skocpol, Theda (1979): States and Social Revolutions—A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, andChina. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press.

Snyder, Jack (2000): From Voting to Violence—Democratization and Nationalist Conflict. New York:Norton.

Thoms, Oskar N.T., and James Ron (2007): Do Human Rights Violations Cause Internal Conflict? HumanRights Quarterly 29(3): 674–705.

Tilly, Charles (1978): From Mobilization to Revolution. New York: McGraw-Hill.Tomz, Michael, Gary King, and Langche Zeng (1999) RELOGIT: Rare Events Logistic Regression,

Version 1.1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, http://gking.harvard.edu/, accessed June 2006.Valentino, Benjamin, Paul Huth, and Dylan Balch-Lindsay (2004): “Draining the Sea”: Mass Killing and

Guerilla Warfare. International Organization 58: 375–407.Wayman, Frank W., and Atsushi Tago (2009): Explaining the Onset of Mass Killing, 1949–87. Journal of

Peace Research 47(1): 3–13.Weinstein, Jeremy M. (2005): Resources and the Information Problem in Rebel Recruitment. Journal of

Conflict Resolution 49(4): 598–624.Weinstein, Jeremy M. (2007): Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence. Cambridge, New York:

Cambridge University Press.Wood, Reed M. (2010): Rebel Capability and Strategic Violence Against Civilians. Journal of Peace

Research 47(5): 601–614.Zanger, Sabine (2000): A Global Analysis of the Effect of Political Regime Changes on Life Integrity

Violations, 1977–1993. Journal of Peace Research 37(2): 213–233.Zartman, I. William (1995): Dynamics and Constraints in Negotiations in Internal Conflicts. Introduction

in I. William Zartman (ed.): Elusive Peace—Negotiating an End to Civil Wars. Washington DC:Brookings Institution: 3–29.

440 N. Rost

http://gking.harvard.edu/

Copyright of Human Rights Review is the property of Springer Science & Business Media B.V. and its content

may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express

written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

human rights violations, weak states, and civil war

Documents