Newsletter StaffUniversity of Notre Dame

Editors

Michael Coppedgecoppedge.1@nd.edu

Anthony M. Messinamessina.3@nd.edu

Assistant Editor

Kate M. Schuenkekschuenk@nd.edu

Book Review Editor

Naunihal Singhsingh.16@nd.edu

Editorial Board

Robert Dowd, C.S.C.

Andrew Gould

Frances Hagopian

Victoria Tin-Bor Hui

Debra Javeline

Donald Kommers

Scott Mainwaring

A. James McAdams

Guillermo O’Donnell

Vineeta Yadav

Contact: 217 O’Shaughnessy HallUniversity of Notre Dame, Notre Dame,Indiana 46556. Tel. 574-631-5681http://www.nd.edu/~apsacp

The Organized Section in Comparative Politics of the American Political Science Association

APSA - CP Volume 18, Issue 2 Summer 2007 Newsletter

Letter from theEditors

Michael CoppedgeUniversity of Notre Damecoppedge.1@nd.edu

Anthony M. MessinaUniversity of Notre Damemessina.3@nd.edu

On behalf of all of the members of theOrganized Section in ComparativePolitics the editors wish to extendtheir sincerest appreciation andwarmest wishes to Sid Tarrow, ouroutgoing President, for his dedicatedservice to the section during the pasttwo years. Following in the large foot-steps of the section’s past presidents– Peter Lange, Ron Rogowski, DavidLaitin, Bob Bates, David Collier, thelate Michael Wallerstein, EvelyneHuber, and Peter Hall – Sid Tarrowinspired us in his annual Letters fromthe President with his insights into thespatial dimensions of politics and hischallenge to renew the intellectualbonds between the disciplines of soci-ology and political science. Under hisactive and able leadership the sec-tion’s paid membership has remainedrobust, even as the number of formal,organized sections has proliferated.Thanks to his entrepreneurship andparticularly his successful efforts toengage the talents of others, our sec-tion continues as the largest organ-ized section of the American PoliticalScience Association.

With Sid Tarrow’s departure, we wel-come to the pages of this newsletterour incoming section president, PeterGourevitch, professor at the GraduateSchool of International Relations andPacific Studies at the University ofCalifornia at San Diego. An intellectu-al whose work has uniquely bridgedthe divide between the subfields ofinternational relations and compara-tive politics, Peter’s scholarship is pri-marily rooted in the field of interna-tional political economy with anemphasis on international trade andeconomic globalization, trade dis-putes, and regulatory systems.Comparativists whose intellectualtraining began more than a few yearsago more often than not first cameacross Peter’s work when his path -breaking article, “The Second ImageReversed: The International Sourcesof Domestic Politics” appeared in1978 in International Organization(IO) and his classic book, Politics inHard Times: Comparative Responsesto International Crises, was publishedin 1986. As a small measure of itsglobal reach, Politics in Hard Timeswas subsequently translated intoKorean, Italian, and Spanish. Bothestablished and younger compara-tivists, of course, also know Peterwell from his superb stewardship, withco-editor David Lake, of IO between1997-2001. In addition to Politics inHard Times Peter has produced ninebooks including, with James P. Shinn,Political Power and CorporateControl: The New Global Politics ofCorporate Governance (2005). Hehas also authored or coauthoredmore than 30 articles. We are gratefulto Peter for committing to serve ascomparative politics section presidentand look forward to his contributionsto this newsletter.

LetterAPSA-CP Vol 18, No. 22

Section OfficersPresident

Sidney TarrowCornell Universitysgt2@cornell.edu

Vice President, President-Elect

Peter A. GourevitchUniversity of California, San Diegopgourevitch@ucsd.edu

Secretary-Treasurer

Karen RemmerDuke Universityremmer@duke.edu

2007 Program Chair

Pauline Jones LuongBrown UniversityPauline_Luong@brown.edu

Executive Council

Elisabeth WoodYale Universityelisabeth.wood@yale.edu

Isabela MaresColumbia Universityim2195@columbia.edu

Anna Gryzmala-BusseUniversity of Michigan abusse@umich.edu

Elizabeth PerryHarvard Universityeperry@gov.harvard.edu

Despite Hugo Chávez’s recent claimsto be establishing Bolivarian demo-cracy in Venezuela, Simón Bolívarhimself was no democrat. DuringEuropean tours between 1799 and1807, he acquired broad familiaritywith Enlightenment thought, but hefavored the Enlightenment’semphases on rationality and freedomover its themes of equality anddemocracy. Starting in 1811, he ledthe military campaign for indepen-dence from Spain in Latin America’snorthern mainland. He eventuallybecame famous as El Libertador, theliberator.

Chávez’s evocation of Bolívar as hismodel calls attention especially toChávez’s expressed hope of liber-ating Venezuela and Latin Americafrom North America’s imperial influ-ence. But his claim to be creating adistinctively Bolivarian form of democ-racy raises some important questionsabout his regime and about democra-tization in general. To what extent isChávez’s commandeering of nationaloil revenues to check his domesticopposition, pursue his populist pro-grams, and support anti-Americanprograms elsewhere actually promot-ing democracy in the long run?

Instead of answering that questionfully, this brief provocation draws outtwo related implications of my recentbook (Tilly 2007) for ways of address-ing the question both in Venezuelaand across the world. First, existinganalyses of democratization and de-

democratization greatly underesti-mate the influence of the politicalarrangements by which rulers acquirethe means of rule – resources sup-porting administration, political con-trol, and patronage. Second, analystsof democratization have exaggeratedthe centrality of competitive electionsas the site of negotiated consent torule. They have slighted the day-to-day negotiation of compliance withstate demands in such domains astaxation, military service, policing, andprovision of information.

Joseph Schumpeter set the prevailingnarrow view: “[T]he democraticmethod is that institutional arrange-ment for arriving at political decisionsin which individuals acquire the powerto decide by means of a competitivestruggle for the people’s vote”(Schumpeter 1947: 269). This essayargues for a broader and differentconception of consent. Grudging con-sent remains essential to democracy.But it concerns not only who is torule, but also how they rule, with whatresources, supplied by whom, andhow.

“Grudging consent remains

essential to democracy. But

it concerns not only who is to

rule, but also how they rule,

with what resources, sup-

plied by whom, and how.”

Guest LetterBolivarian Democracy

Charles TillyColumbia Universityct135@columbia.edu

Before getting to the heart of thatargument, it will help to compareChávez’s liberation of Venezuela with

3APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2

that of his claimed predecessor,Bolívar. It took Bolívar from 1813 to1819 to become dictator of a perma-nently independent Gran Colombiaincluding Venezuela and Colombia. In1821, Gran Colombia annexedEcuador as well. Soon Bolívar’stroops and allies had also liberated areluctant Peru. This newly liberatedregime soon split into Peru and aseparate country named for the liber-ator: Bolivia. As his political experi-ence and power accumulated, Bolívarcame to value order and authority farmore than liberty, equality, and frater-nity.

Within a few years, political rivalriesundermined Bolívar’s prestige andinfluence. Instead of giving him creditfor national liberation, his rivals andsuccessors blamed him for the arbi-trary use of power. Bolívar spent hisfinal days exiled from Bogotá andCaracas to Colombia’s Caribbeancoast. By that time he had lost what-ever little faith in democratic constitu-tions he had expressed when launch-ing the Republic of Gran Colombia in1819 (Bushnell 2003: 31-53). On 9November 1830, he wrote sadly fromBarranquilla to General Juan JoséFlores:

You know that I have ruled for twenty years, and I have derived from these only a few sure conclu-sions: (1) America is ungovernable, for us; (2) Those who serve revolu-tion plough the sea; (3) The only thing one can do in America is emi- grate; (4) This country will fall inevitably into the hands of the unrestrained multitudes and then into the hands of tyrants so insignif-icant they will be almost impercepti-ble, of all colors and races; (5) Once we’ve been eaten alive by every crime and extinguished by ferocity, the Europeans won’t even bother to conquer us; (6) If it were possible for any part of the world to revert to primitive chaos, it would

be America in her last hour (Bushnell 2003: 146).

Democracy, he concluded, inevitablygave way to demagoguery, anarchy,and tyranny. Five weeks later, Bolívardied on his way to exile in Europe.

Letter

became their leader. In 1992, theBolivarians almost seized power in amilitary coup whose failure sentChávez to prison. In 1993, whileChávez languished behind bars, theVenezuelan congress impeachedPresident Carlos Andrés Pérez’s forcorruption, and removed him fromoffice. But Pérez’ successor, RafaelCaldera, soon faced a collapse of thecountry’s banks, a surge of violentcrime, rumors of new military coups,and charges of his own corruption. AsChávez left prison and entered poli-tics, popular demands for politicalhousecleaning swelled. Ex-convictChávez ran for president.

Chávez billed himself as a populist,and won by a large majority. AsChávez came to power in 1999,street confrontations between hissupporters and his opponents accel-erated. The new president’s state visitto Fidel Castro’s officially socialistCuba later the same year dramatizedhis plan to transform the governmentand its place in the world at large. Herenamed his country the BolivarianRepublic of Venezuela. He alsobegan squeezing the state oil compa-ny, Petróleos de Venezuela, for moreof its revenues, and chipped away atits fabled autonomy. Venezuelamoved into a new stage of struggleover the country’s future. Chávezdefined that future as Bolivariandemocracy.

When Chávez addressed a June2000 meeting of the AndeanCommunity in Lima, Peru, he deniedthat pre-Chávez Venezuela had beendemocratic. He announced his ownversion of democracy:

We in Venezuela have had the idea – maybe a daring one – of referring to a Bolivarian democracy; we have taken up Bolivarian thinking to try to direct our people and to try to sow that awareness and to build that new model. Bolívar, for example, on

“[...] Bolívar came to value

order and authority far more

than liberty, equality, and fra-

ternity [...] Democracy, he

concluded, inevitably gave

way to demagoguery, anar-

chy, and tyranny.

Until the early 20th century Venezuelastaged a familiar, dreary LatinAmerican drama of military dictators,caudillos, coups, and occasional civil-ian rule. In 1908, however, a coup ledby General Juan Vicente Gómezintroduced a new era. He didn’t ruleexclusively by brute force. The open-ing of Venezuela’s vast oil fields in1918 provided him with revenues thatallowed him to pay off his followersand hold off his enemies. From thatpoint to the present, the regime oscil-lated uneasily, and sometimes abrupt-ly, between outright authoritarian ruleand partial democratization, both ofthem powered by oil revenues. De-democratization occurred wheneversome caudillo, general, junta, or cor-rupt president used control over thoserevenues to withdraw from negotiat-ing with representatives of the publicwill.

During the early 1980s, a group ofnationalist army officers organized asecret network called theRevolutionary Bolivarian Movement.Paratroop officer Hugo Chávez

APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 24

February 15, 1819 at the Congress of Angostura (there the idea of Colombia was born) stated in his speech that the most perfect sys-tem of government is that which gives the people the greatest amount of social security, the great-est amount of political stability, and the greatest amount of happiness possible (Chávez 2000: 3).

Chávez added that Bolivarian democ-racy promoted political equality andestablished a “happy balance”between extreme freedom, at oneextreme, and autocracy, at the other.In short, he described a familiar LatinAmerican program of top-down pop-ulism. In contrast to the western mod-els of democracy that he vigorouslyrejected, the program offered plentyof elections, but made little provisionfor popular consultation and consentwith respect to the means of rule. Itfollowed Bolívar, furthermore, in fea-turing rebellion against foreign domi-nation, especially that of the UnitedStates

Over the next seven years, Chávezused his control over oil revenues toconsolidate his power, to cramp hisopposition, to sponsor populism else-where in Latin America, and even tohold off an increasingly hostile UnitedStates. He survived a coup in 2002,concerted resistance from the nation-al oil company in 2002-2003, a gener-al strike during the same period, anda US-supported recall referendum in2004. Step by step he responded withtightened repression. A Chávez-domi-nated legislature packed the SupremeCourt, broadened prohibitions oninsulting or showing disrespect for thepresident, and stepped up surveil-lance of mass media. Meanwhile, thecourts prosecuted increasing num-bers of regime opponents.

Chávez still enjoyed substantial sup-port among Venezuela’s numerouspoor. But like heads of rentier states

elsewhere he was relying on hiscountry’s oil-generated wealth tobypass resistance to his means ofrule. Echoing his 2000 speech to theAndean Community, in 2006 he told asympathetic interviewer that “We arebuilding a true democracy, withhuman rights for everyone, socialrights, education, health care, pen-sions, social security, and jobs”(Palast 2006: 2). He did not mentionrights to opposition and consent.

arbitrary action by governmentalagents. De-democratization (whichcontinues to occur frequently in thecontemporary world) then consists ofnarrowing, increasingly unequal, lessbinding, and more poorly protectedpopular voice.

Letter

“[...] we can think of democ-

ratization as occurring when

popular voice is becoming

broader, more equal, more

binding on governmental

agents, and better protected

from arbitrary action by gov-

ernmental agents.”

“[Chávez] described a famil-

iar Latin American program

of top-down populism. In

contrast to the western mod-

els of democracy that he vig-

orously rejected, the pro-

gram offered plenty of elec-

tions, but made little provi-

sion for popular consultation

and consent with respect to

the means of rule.”

In this brief essay, I am less interest-ed in joining the intense debate overHugo Chávez’s virtues and vices thanin pointing out the long-term institu-tional implications of avoiding orengaging popular consent for stateactions. In very general terms,democratization consists of increasingcorrespondence between a givenregime’s popular voice and its gov-ernmental performance. More pre-cisely, we can think of democratiza-tion as occurring when popular voiceis becoming broader, more equal,more binding on governmentalagents, and better protected from

Serious democratization on a nationalscale has only occurred anywhere inthe world during the last 250 years.Over that period, three main process-es have promoted democratization:insulation of public politics from cate-gorical inequalities such as by gen-der, race, or religion; contingent inte-gration of interpersonal trust networks(e.g. lineages, trade diasporas, andcraft fellowships) into public politics;and elimination of autonomous cen-ters of coercive power (e.g. militiasand mafias) from public politics (Tilly2007). Reversal of any or all of thethree processes promotes de-democ-ratization.

In its own way, each of the threeprocesses contributes to the strength-ening of popular consent. Insulationof public politics from categoricalinequality facilitates political commu-nication and coalition-formationacross categorical boundaries.Contingent integration of trust net-works increases both popular lever-

5APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2

age and popular stakes in the out-comes of public politics. Elimination ofautonomous power centers politicalactivity on bargaining between rulersand ruled. All three processesbecome more likely when rulers mustbargain with their subject populationsfor resources to support state activity.

oil-producing Middle Eastern statesavoid consent by relying on sales ofmonopolized energy supplies. (Yetenergy production does not automati-cally forbid consent; for all their otherdemocratic deficits, the oil-producingAmerican, Mexican, and Nigerianstates do actually bargain with theirsubject populations.)

Letter

seize them and exchange them forstate-sustaining resources, e.g. oil forweapons; c) or extract them fromsubject populations that already holdand/or produce the resources.

[3] Options a and b reduce thereliance of rulers on citizen consentand incentives for bargaining withcivilian populations, hence constituteimpediments to democratization, con-ceived of as increased breadth,equality, protection, and bindingnessof popular voice.

[4] Although c by no means guaran-tees democratization, it opens a pos-sible path to democratization.

[5] Historically (with taxation being themost obvious process), most of theworld’s democratization over the lasttwo hundred years has resulted inpart from c. Alternatives a and b havemostly inhibited democratization.

[6] Nevertheless, if through a transferof power (e.g. revolution or conquest)arrangement a or b becomes subjectto popular collective control, thattransfer likewise opens a path towarddemocratization.

Historically, many rulers supportedthemselves through arrangement a,for example by drawing revenuesfrom their own lands or preying onadjacent populations. Twentieth-cen-tury communist regimes made effortsto institute self-sustaining arrange-ments. But nowhere today do rulerssustain their rule mainly from theirown production of resources.

Arrangement b, on the other hand,became more common during thetwentieth century, as rulers avoidedconsent by monopolizing and sellingresources, most obviously fossil fuels.Today, Venezuela is far from alone.Bolivia, Chad, Kazakhstan, Libya,Russia, Sudan, Tunisia,Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and most

“How rulers acquire the

means of rule [...] has pro-

found consequences for the

long-term development of

relatively broad, equal, bind-

ing, and protracted consulta-

tion of a regime’s population

concerning state actions –

that is, for democratization.”

“[...] during the last 250

years, three main processes

have promoted democratiza-

tion: insulation of public poli-

tics from categorical inequali-

ties [...]; contingent integra-

tion of interpersonal trust

networks [...] into public poli-

tics; and elimination of

autonomous centers of coer-

cive power [...] from public

politics [...].”

How rulers acquire the means of ruletherefore has profound conse-quences for the long-term develop-ment of relatively broad, equal, bind-ing, and protected consultation of aregime’s population concerning stateactions – that is, for democratization.Here is the nucleus of my argument:

[1] No one can run a state withoutsocial arrangements that produceand reproduce resources supportingadministration, political control, andpatronage.

[2] Rulers have three main ways ofacquiring such resources: a) producethem in their own enterprises; b)

Arrangement c — extraction ofresources from a state’s subject pop-ulation — has historically prevailed,as rulers’ demands for resources out-ran their ability to produce them andsalable resources either ran short orslipped out of state control. In theforms of taxation, conscription, forcedloans, and outright confiscation,extraction has marked the main his-torical path of state transformation.Indeed, struggle over extraction soprevailed in the European experienceon which my work long concentratedthat it took me years to recognize thedistinct trajectories of historicalregimes that adopted arrangements aand b.

When democratization has occurred,it has developed in part as an unin-tended by-product of extraction.Taxation, conscription, forced loans,

6 APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2Letter

tration of executive power producedby both arrangements a and – espe-cially – b facilitate the revolutionaryseizure of that power. To be sure, therevolutionaries could turn out, as theyoften do, to be new tyrants who sim-ply displace the old. But they couldalso speak for sufficiently broad popu-lar coalitions to guarantee new open-ings toward democracy.

References

Bushnell, David (2003): ed., ElLibertador. Writings of Simón Bolívar.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chávez, Hugo (2000): "Address bythe President of the BolivarianRepublic of Venezuela, HugoChávez,"www.comunidadandina.org/INGLES/speeches/chavez1, viewed 11 May2007.

Palast, Greg (2006): "Hugo Chávez,"www.progressive.org/mag__intv0706,viewed 11 May 2007.

Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1947):Capitalism, Socialism, andDemocracy. Second Edition. NewYork: Harper & Brothers.

Tilly, Charles (2007): Democracy.Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

and even outright confiscation lead tobargaining, however asymmetrical,between rulers and their subject pop-ulations. Unlike Mongols who couldsimply strike and carry away wealthfrom alien peoples, extractive rulersalways return to the sources of theirsupplies, and must at a minimumdeclare the conditions for futureextraction. Moreover, populations thatare producing, using, and storing theessential supplies – manpower, food,animals, money, information, andmore – retain the capacity to conceal,divert, consume, or otherwise with-hold them from rulers’ agents. Thesecircumstances promote bargaining.And bargaining causes grudging con-sent.

shrewdly combine voice and thethreat of exit. They offer grudgingconsent. Under most circumstances,however, rulers’ successful pursuit ofarrangement a or b bypasses con-sent, even grudging consent.

“Grudging consent is not a

sufficient condition for

democracy, but it is a neces-

sary one. Grudging consent

supports democracy more

surely than happy assent

because it allows political

actors to withdraw consent

from unacceptable state per-

formance.”

“When democratization has

occurred, it has developed in

part as an unintended by-

product of extraction.

Taxation, conscription, forced

loans, and even outright con-

fiscation has led to bargain-

ing, however asymmertical,

between rulers and their sub-

ject populations.”

Grudging consent is not a sufficientcondition for democracy, but it is anecessary one. Grudging consentsupports democracy more surely thanhappy assent because it allows politi-cal actors to withdraw consent fromunacceptable state performance. InAlbert Hirschman’s famous terms,democratic citizens may provide loy-alty when their governments faltertemporarily, but in general they

We fans of democratization can readthis analysis pessimistically or opti-mistically. In a pessimistic version, solong as rulers can produce their ownessential supplies or sell off monopo-lized goods or service in exchange forthe means of rule, attempts atdemocratization will fail. Either ofthese ruling strategies, if successful,baffles consent. As pursued by HugoChávez, Bolivarian democracy doesjust that in the name of top-down pop-ulism.

But two optimistic possibilities appear.First, arrangements a and b tend toexhaust themselves as suppliesdiminish or state demands increase. Ifworld energy prices or demand wereto fall precipitously, type b rulers’comfortable avoidance of consentwould give way to type c extractivepolicies and/or splintering of rulingcoalitions. Second, the very concen-

Note:

Complete citations for this issue areonline at http://www.nd.edu/~apsacp/backissues.html.

7APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2Symposium

Policy Implications of Research on Civil Wars

Introduction

Given the intense public debate aboutthe war in Iraq, we thought it wouldbe a good time to organize a policy-related symposium on the subject.Even those of us who do not special-ize on civil war cannot resist analyz-ing and debating whether there is acivil war there, what is fueling it,whether it can be stopped, and whatis likely to happen if the US with-draws. But some of our colleaguesactually do specialize in the study ofcivil wars and have a well-informedcomparative perspective on thesequestions, and some have offeredtheir advice to policymakers. The pur-pose of this symposium is to haveseveral experts share their thoughtsin order to raise the level of ourunderstanding, teaching, and discus-sion on one of the most salient issuesof the day.

bleak and sobering testimony findsthat Iraq has been engaged in a civilwar for some time, that it is likely toend only with a decisive military victo-ry rather than any power-sharingaccord, and that the best anyone canhope for in the near future is a situa-tion similar to that in Lebanon from1975 to 1991: a long-lasting civil waramong highly decentralized militiasthat ended up drawing in most of theneighboring states. The only brightnote in Fearon’s account – if it can becalled “bright” – is that the US stillhas a small chance of preventing aneven worse outcome if it resists thetemptation to withdraw precipitously.

Politics for Public Life.” Researcherscan help policymakers understandwhat is going on – for example, thatcombat deaths are only a fraction ofthe total casualties from internal con-flict, especially in poor non-democra-cies. But they are not well-equippedto recommend solutions because theytend to identify causal factors –regime type, level of development,state strength – that are not easilymanipulated.

"[...] the best anyone can

hope for in the near future is

a situation similar to that in

Lebanon from 1975 to 1991

[...].”

"[...] powerful incentives

impel actors to challenge

one another's authority."

"[...] combat deaths are only

a fraction of the total casual-

ties from internal conflict [...],

especially in poor non-

democracies.

The lead essay is a condensed ver-sion of invited testimony that JamesFearon gave to the HouseSubcommittee on National Security,Emerging Threats, and InternationalRelations at its hearing on “Iraq:Democracy or Civil War?” inSeptember 2006. We distributed thisessay in advance to the other sympo-sium contributors so that they couldagree, disagree, or weigh in on acomplementary theme. Fearon’s

Moreover, they are only beginning tostudy the effectiveness of interven-tions such as peacekeeping missionsand demobilization that are in the pol-icymakers’ toolkits. And even if theyexpanded such focused research,Lacina and Weinstein note, it wouldnot resolve complex and difficulttradeoffs among the various norma-tive goals that conflicts create. Theycall on scholars to reach out beyondcomparative politics, to political theo-ry, to find answers to these questions.

Barbara Walter uses the example ofthe Iraq war to advance a generalhypothesis about the causes of civilwars. She argues that such conflictsare more likely to break out in newstates governed by a politically tenu-ous coalition that lacks effective con-trol over the armed forces. In thesesituations it is nearly impossible foractors to make credible commitmentsto one another; instead, powerfulincentives impel actors to challengeone another’s authority. Her blow-by-blow recounting of the disintegrationof order in Iraq supports both herhypothesis and Fearon’s bleak prog-nosis.

Bethany Lacina and JeremyWeinstein emphasize the limited use-fulness of research for policy, echoingmany of the sentiments expressed inthe Summer 2003 symposium on“The Relevance of Comparative

8 APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2Symposium

Why Is Successful Power-Sharingto End Civil Wars So Rare?

If successful power-sharing agree-ments rarely end civil wars, this is notfor lack of trying. Negotiations onpower-sharing are common in themidst of civil war, as are failedattempts to implement such agree-ments, often with the help of outsideintervention by states or internationalinstitutions. For example, the point ofdeparture for the Rwandan genocideand the rebel attack that ended it wasthe failure of an extensive power-sharing agreement between theRwandan government, Hutu opposi-tion parties, and the RPF insurgents.

The main reason power-sharingagreements rarely work is that civilwar causes the combatants to beorganized in a way that makes themfear that the other side will try to useforce to grab power, and at the sametime be tempted to use force to grabpower themselves. These fears andtemptations are mutually reinforcing.If one militia fears that another will tryto use force to grab control of thearmy, or a city, then it has a strongincentive to use force to prevent this.The other militia understands thisincentive, which gives it a good rea-son to act exactly as the first militiafeared. In the face of these mutualfears and temptations, agreements onpaper about dividing up or sharingcontrol of political offices or tax rev-enues are often just that – paper.

Civil wars for control of a central gov-ernment typically end with one-sidedmilitary victories rather than power-sharing agreements, because the par-ties are organized for combat and thismakes trust in written agreements onthe allocation of revenues or militaryforce both dangerous and naïve. TheUS government and Iraqi politicianshave attempted to put a power-shar-ing agreement in place in the contextof a new, very weak central govern-

James FearonStanford Universityjfearon@stanford.edu

CongressionalTestimony(excerpts)

Editors’ Note

This an edited and abbreviated ver-sion of Testimony to U.S. House ofRepresentatives, Committee onGovernment Reform, Subcommitteeon National Security, EmergingThreats, and International Relationson "Iraq: Democracy or Civil War?"September 15, 2006. The completetestimony can be found athttp://www.stanford.edu/~jfearon/.See also James Fearon, "Iraq's CivilWar," Foreign Affairs (March/April2007).

are talking about wars for control of acentral government, or wars of ethnicseparatism.

A civil war is a violent conflict within acountry, fought by organized groupsthat aim to take power at the centeror in a region, or to change govern-ment policies. How much violence isenough to qualify a conflict as a civilwar as opposed to terrorism or low-level political violence is partly a mat-ter of convention. The rate of killing inIraq – easily more than 30,000 inthree years – puts it in the companyof many recent conflicts that few hesi-tate to call “civil wars” (e.g., SriLanka, Algeria, Guatemala, Peru,Colombia).

Civil wars typically last much longerthan international wars. For civil warsbeginning since 1945, the averageduration has been greater than 10years, with fully half ending in morethan seven years (the median). Thenumbers are fairly similar whether we

When they finally do end, civil warssince 1945 have typically concludedwith a decisive military victory for oneside or the other. In contests for con-trol of the central state, either thegovernment crushes the rebels (atleast 40% of 54 cases), or the rebelswin control of the center (at least 35%of 54 cases). Thus, fully three quar-ters of civil wars fought for control ofthe state end with a decisive militaryvictory.

Power-sharing agreements that divideup control of the central governmentamong the combatants are far lesscommon than decisive victories. Icode at most 9 of 54 cases, or 17%,this way. Examples include ElSalvador in 1992, South Africa in1994, and Tajikistan in 1998.

In the rare cases where they haveoccurred, successful power-sharingagreements have usually beenreached after an intense or long-run-ning civil war reaches a stalemate.One of the main obstacles to power-sharing agreements seems to bepolitical and military divisions withinthe main parties to the larger conflict.

“The rate of killing in Iraq –

easily more than 30,000 in

three years – puts it in the

company of many recent

conflicts that few hesitate to

call ‘civil wars’ (e.g., Sri

Lanka, Algeria, Guatemala,

Peru, Colombia).”

9APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2Symposium

ment and a violent insurgency andattendant militia conflicts. While theUS military could easily destroySaddam Hussein’s formal army, mili-tias and insurgents are “closer to theground” and cannot by completelydestroyed or reconfigured withoutmany years of heavy occupation andcounterinsurgency, if even then. Thismeans that however long we stay,power-sharing is likely to fall apartinto violence once we leave.

Bosnian Serb leadership, the wholepoint was to rid eastern Bosnia andBanja Luka in the west of Muslims. Tomy knowledge, no significant playerson either the Sunni or Shiite side talkabout wanting to break up Iraq bycreating a homogenous Sunni orShiite polity. Instead there remains astrong sense that “we are all Iraqis,”even if they may strongly disagreeabout what this implies for politics.

To date, “ethnic” cleansing in Iraqicities has been much less systematic,less centrally directed, and more indi-vidual than it was in Bosnia in 1992.The breakdown of policing plus insur-gent attacks have led to the supply oflocal “protection” in the form of sec-tarian militias and gangs. Whetherseeking generic revenge, suspectedkillers from the other side, or profitfrom extortion and theft, gangs makelife extremely dangerous for membersof the minority faith in their neighbor-hood. So Shiites exit Sunni-majorityneighborhoods while Sunnis exitShiite-majority neighborhoods. This isa “dirty war” in which gangs tortureand kill suspected attackers or inform-ants for the other side, along withpeople who just get in the way orhave something they want.

Rapid reduction in US troop levels isnot likely to cause a massive spasmof communal violence in which allShiites start trying to kill all Sunnisand vice versa. But it may spurMoqtada al-Sadr to order his Mahdiarmy to undertake systematic cam-paigns of murder and, in effect, ethniccleansing in neighborhoods inBaghdad and other cities where theyare strong. Obviously a murky sub-ject, some recent reports suggest thatsuch plans exist.

Gradual redeployment and reposition-ing of US troops within the region isneeded to allow populations to sortthemselves out and form defensiblelines that would lessen the odds of

sudden, systematic campaigns ofsectarian terror in mixed neighbor-hoods. This is one of the strongestarguments against rapid US militarywithdrawal. Gradual redeployment –or, for that matter, “staying thecourse” – improves the chances of aless violent transition to a “Lebanonequilibrium” of low-level, intermittentviolence across relatively homoge-neous neighborhoods controlled bydifferent militias.

“One of the main obstacles

to power-sharing agreements

seems to be political and mil-

itary divisions within the main

parties to the larger conflict.”

“[...] US withdrawal, whether

fast or slow, is indeed likely

to cause higher levels of vio-

lence and political disintegra-

tion in Iraq. But rapid with-

drawal would be particularly

likely to lead to mass killing

of civilians.”

Likely Consequences of USWithdrawal: Iraq versus Bosnia

What will that violence look like, onwhat scale and with what conse-quences? A central argument againstrapid withdrawal of US troops is thatthis would lead to a quick descentinto all-out civil war. The example ofBosnia in 1992 is sometimes invoked,when systematic campaigns of ethniccleansing caused the deaths of tensof thousands in the space of months.Though there are some important dif-ferences, the analogy is a pretty goodone. As argued above, US withdraw-al, whether fast or slow, is indeedlikely to cause higher levels of vio-lence and political disintegration inIraq. But rapid withdrawal would beparticularly likely to lead to masskilling of civilians.

In Bosnia, massive and bloody ethniccleansing was the result of systematicmilitary campaigns directed by irre-dentist neighboring states and theirlocal clients. For Milosevic and the

Likely Consequences of USWithdrawal: Lebanon 1975-91

What happened in Lebanon in 1975-76 is a likely scenario for Iraq today.As violence between Christian militiasand PLO factions started to take off in1975, the army leadership in Lebanoninitially stayed out, realizing that ifthey tried to intervene the nationalarmy would splinter. The violenceescalated and eventually the armyintervened, at which point it did breakapart. Lebanon then entered a longperiod during which an array ofChristian, Sunni, Shiite, and PLO mili-tias fought each other off and on,probably as much within sectariandivides as across them. Syrian andIsraeli military intervention sometimesreduced and sometimes escalatedthe violence. Alliances shifted, often

APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 210Symposium

could, then ending it will almost surelyrequire considerable involvement byregional states to make whateverpower-sharing arrangements they ulti-mately agree on credible.

“Ramping Up” or “Staying theCourse” Are Delay Tactics, Not a“Strategy for Victory”

In broad terms, the US has threeoptions in Iraq: (1) ramp up, increas-ing our military presence and activity;(2) “stay the course” (aka “adapt towin”); and (3) gradual redeploymentand repositioning our forces in theregion, so as to limit our costs whileremaining able to influence the con-flict as it evolves.

The analysis above suggests thatnone of these options is likely to pro-duce a peaceful, democratic Iraq thatcan stand on its own after US troopsleave. While we are there in force wecan act as the guarantor for the cur-rent or a renegotiated power-sharingagreement underlying the nationalgovernment. But, in a context ofmany factions and locally strong mili-tias, mutual fears and temptations willspiral into political disintegration andescalation of militia and insurgent-based conflict if and when we drawdown.

“Ramping up” by adding morebrigades could allow us temporarily tosuppress the insurgency in the Sunnitriangle with more success, and toprevent “Al Qaeda in Iraq” (AQI,which now consists overwhelmingly ofIraqi nationals) from controlling thelarger towns in this area. Ramping upcould also allow us to temporarilybring greater security to residents ofBaghdad, by putting many moretroops on the streets there.

But Congress and the Bush adminis-tration have to ask what the long-runpoint is. The militia structures mayrecede, but they are not going to go

away (absent some truly massive,many-decade effort to remake Iraqisociety root and branch, which wouldalmost surely fail). Given this, givenmyriad factions, and given the inabili-ty of Iraqi groups to credibly committo any particular power- and oil-shar-ing agreement, ramping up or stayingthe course amount to delay tactics,not plausible recipes for success.

in Byzantine ways. For example, theSyrians initially sided with theChristians against the PLO. To some extent this scenario isalready playing out in Iraq. US with-drawal – in my opinion whether thishappens in the next year or in fiveyears – will likely make Iraq (south ofthe Kurdish areas) look even morelike Lebanon during its long civil war.

As in Lebanon, effective politicalauthority will devolve to city, region,and often neighborhood levels, andafter a period of fighting to draw lines,an equilibrium with low-level, intermit-tent violence will set in, punctuated bylarger campaigns financed and aidedby foreign powers. As in Lebanon, wecan expect a good deal of interven-tion by neighboring states, and espe-cially Iran, but this intervention will notnecessarily bring them great strategicgains.

“[...] mutual fears and temp-

tations will spiral into political

disintegration and escalation

of militia and insurgent-

based conflict if and when

we draw down.”

“Gradual redeployment and

repositioning of US troops

within the region is needed

to allow populations to sort

themselves out and form

defensible lines that would

lessen the odds of sudden,

systematic campaigns of

sectarian terror in mixed

neighborhoods.”

The Lebanese civil war required inter-national intervention and involvementto bring to conclusion. If an Iraqi civilwar post-US withdrawal does notcause the formal breakup of thecountry into three new states, which it

Costs of Redeployment andRepositioning

Even if ramping up or staying thecourse are not “strategies for victory”as the administration has defined it,this does not imply that immediatewithdrawal is the best course ofaction. Indeed, in principle it could bethat the costs of withdrawal are sohigh at this point that the best optionis to continue the status quo as longas possible. I seriously doubt this isthe case. But I would agree that thereare potential risks and costs to USnational security from reducing ourtroop presence in Iraq, and that thequestion of “how to do it” to minimizethese risks and costs is extremelycomplicated.

Rapid withdrawal of US forces wouldmost likely cause rapid escalation ofthe sectarian and intra-sectarian dirtywar, making for a sharp rise in civiliandeaths well above the current rates. Amore gradual reduction and reposi-tioning of US forces within the region

11APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2

would be far better, as it would allowmixed populations to sort themselvesout in the larger cities, and to keepthe rate of escalation of militia conflictas low as feasible. Gradual redeploy-ment would also allow the US to pre-vent (through joint operations andother such mechanisms) the Iraqiarmy from rapidly becoming a full par-tisan in the dirty war.

Symposium

attack the US homeland – merits criti-cal scrutiny.

The threat of increased Iranian influ-ence seems to me the least persua-sive argument about the costs ofreducing the US military presence inIraq. In the first place, it should bestressed that if the US were to suc-ceed in helping to set up a peaceful,democratic Iraqi government that canstand on it own, there is no questionbut that Iran would have much moreinfluence with this government and inthe Middle East in general than it hadunder the Saddam Hussein regime.

Conclusion

“Staying the course” or “ramping up”in Iraq may put off political disintegra-tion and major escalation of the civilwar in progress, but are unlikely toproduce a democratic governmentthat can stand on its own and main-tain peace after US troops are gone.The most likely scenario followingreduction of US troop presence is theescalation of a Lebanon-like civil war.Unfortunately, the odds that this willoccur are probably not much better ifUS troops stay for five (or even more)years as opposed to one.

The evidence supporting this assess-ment is drawn from the experience ofother civil wars. Historically, civil warstend to last a long time and usuallyend with decisive military victories.Successful power-sharing agree-ments to end civil wars are rare.When they have occurred, they havetypically required that the combatantsnot be highly factionalized and thatthe balance of military power andprospects for victory be well estab-lished by years of fighting.

“[...] there are potential risks

and costs to US national

security from reducing our

troop presence in Iraq, and

that the question of ‘how to

do it’ to minimize these risks

and costs is extremely com-

plicated.”

“A more gradual reduction

and repositioning of US

forces within the region [...]

would allow mixed popula-

tions to sort themselves out

in the larger cities [and] keep

the rate of escalation of mili-

tia conflict as low as feasi-

ble.”

Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is now theprinciple insurgent enemy of USforces in the Sunni-dominatedprovinces to the west of Baghdad,although it remains unclear how tointerpret the nature and likely trajecto-ry of this organization. Reduction ofUS troop presence in Al Anbar andthe other Sunni-majority provinceswould almost certainly lead to AQIand other Sunni insurgent forces tak-ing fuller political and military controlin these areas. The question for USpolicy is what sort of threat this wouldpose US interests, and what could bedone about it. Though we are obvi-ously in the realm of speculationhere, I think the common assumptionthat Al Anbar would become likesouthern Afghanistan under theTaliban – a home for Al Qaeda train-ing camps producing terrorists to

Compared to this scenario (which isthe implausible object of current USpolicy), the scenario of a Lebanon-likecivil war in Iraq that follows US rede-ployment probably implies lessIranian influence in the Middle Eastas a whole, and more costly Iranianinfluence in Iraq for Iran itself. Iranwould be drawn in, much more thanat present, to funding and armingShiite factions against each other andagainst Sunni insurgents. VariousIranian leaders have said that theymuch prefer that the US continue to“stay the course” in Iraq, and thatthey are quite worried about theprospect of an escalated civil war ontheir doorstep.

APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 212

In what follows, I briefly describe thebargaining problems that are likely tomake political settlements in weakstates particularly difficult to reachand implement. I then apply the theo-ry to the civil war in Iraq to see if ithelps illuminate this important case.Could the war in Iraq be driven, inpart, by private information Shi’a fac-tions have about their capabilities,and the incentives they have to exag-gerate this strength? Could it also bethe result of long-term concerns aboutShi’a dominance and the inability ofthis dominant group to credibly com-mit to any power-sharing arrange-ment? What we will see is that infor-mation and commitment problemshelp explain why war broke out whenit did in Iraq, why it hasn’t beenresolved in a negotiated political set-tlement, and why it is unlikely to beresolved in any sort of power-sharingarrangement in the future.

Symposium

scholarly literature for why this is so.First, governments that experience arapid change in political authority aremore likely to be disorganized andweak, creating the opportunity for dis-affected groups to challenge thestate. Second, governments that arenew or institutionally unstable havegreater difficulty policing peripheralterritory and repressing dissent, thusmaking mobilization easier (Tilly1998, 443; Fearon and Laitin 2003).The weaker the government, the easi-er it will be for groups to organize,and the more likely they are to launcha successful rebellion. In both cases,it is the opportunity to rebel thatdrives and explains behavior.

On the surface, both of these expla-nations seem reasonable and persua-sive. For a challenge to be made,insurgent groups must be able toavoid government repression, andthey must reasonably expect that arebellion will succeed. Times ofupheaval, therefore, create an open-ing for groups to obtain desired politi-cal, economic or social goals. Butbeing able to organize against thestate doesn’t explain why the govern-ment chooses to fight these nascentmovements. If a group is able tothreaten violence because the gov-ernment is weak or unstable, whydoesn’t the government offer a dealthat eliminates the possibility of war?

Existing explanations, therefore, can-not fully explain the puzzle of civilwars in new and unstable states suchas Iraq. Why haven’t the Arab Shi’aleaders been willing to make the con-cessions necessary to prevent andstop the insurgency in Iraq? This isespecially puzzling since violenceincreased significantly after the elec-tions in December 2005, making analready unstable regime even morevulnerable to collapse. One couldargue that al-Maliki and his govern-ment are fighting because of U.S.pressure and support, and that in the

Iraq: Why Weak

States Breed

Violence

Barbara WalterUniversity of California

San Diegobfwalter@ucsd.edu

Almost all the scholarly literature onIraq has focused on how the civil waris likely to end, not on why it began.This heavy focus on termination is notsurprising. When a country is at war,people want to know how the conflictcan be resolved, not why violenceemerged in the first place. Moreover,the reason civil war erupted in Iraqseems obvious. The insurgencybegan after the United Statesdeposed Saddam Hussein and shuthis supporters out of power. De-Baathification and the formal dissolu-tion of the military created a heavilyarmed segment of society that had lit-tle or no stake in the new governmentand every reason to overthrow it.

I argue that the war in Iraq began, inpart, because of two difficult-to-resolve bargaining problems that tendto afflict new and weak states. Instates where the ruling coalition isfragile and where a state’s militarycapacity is weak, enormous uncer-tainty exists. This uncertainty has twonegative effects on the potential forpolitical compromise. First, it createsstrong incentives for political leadersto resist compromise in order to sig-nal toughness, thus deterring othergroups from challenging the state.Second, it creates strong incentivesfor opposition groups to reject anyagreement, because incumbent elitescannot credibly guarantee that theywill implement its terms.

“[...] the war in Iraq began, in

part, because of two difficult-

to-resolve bargaining prob-

lems that tend to afflict new

and weak states.”

Why Weak States Breed Violence

An interesting pattern emerges if onelooks at all civil wars since 1945.Governments that are new or thathave experienced significant institu-tional change are significantly moreprone to experience civil war.Between 1945 and 1999, civil warswere five times more likely to breakout in the first two years of a state’sindependence, and 67% more likelyto occur if there was instability in anyof the previous three years (Fearonand Laitin 2003).1 At least two expla-nations have been offered in the

APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2 13

absence of such support they wouldcompromise. But almost no onebelieves that a settlement will bereached once the U.S. withdraws.

Government weakness or instability,therefore, should not cause civil warsto break out, so much as they shouldcause weak governments to compen-sate those who have the capacity torebel. A more satisfying explanation,therefore, needs to explain whyBaghdad’s leaders seem to preferwar to some type of compromise set-tlement.

Symposium

leads one of the largest voting blocsin Parliament) and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (who heads Iraq’s largest Shi’aparty), each of whom controls his ownmilitia.

On the insurgent side, fighting allowsrebels to increase their group’s bar-gaining power while the governmentis weak and unable to commit credi-bly to a deal. There is little PrimeMinister al-Maliki could offer Al-QaedaIraq, for example, that could beenforced over time. Thus, one mustconsider that the main obstacle topeace is not limited state capacity perse, but private information and com-mitment problems that stand in theway of a settlement.

Information Problems SurroundingWeak States

The first problem facing weak statesis an informational one. Whenever astate goes through a period of insta-bility – e.g., as a result of a militarycoup, rapid leadership change, orradical economic and political reforms– uncertainty exists about how longthe incumbent regime is likely to lastand whether it will remain cohesive inthe face of attack. It is unclear, forexample, whether the current govern-ment of al-Maliki will be able to holdonto power if it were to crack downaggressively on competing Shi’a mili-tias. It is also unclear just how weakor strong his government is in termsof military and police capacity.Incumbent leaders, therefore, knowhow strong the government is, butopposition groups do not, and this isthe information problem that encour-ages war.

It is no surprise, therefore, that sec-tarian violence greatly increased atthe same time the new governmentwas established in early 2006.Violence would reveal whether al-Maliki’s government had the uncondi-tional support of Moqtada al-Sadr,

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and the U.S., orwas weak and vulnerable to internalcollapse. Determining just how muchcontrol al-Maliki had over his govern-ment and military became critical indeciding if and when to challenge hisgovernment.2

“Existing explanations [...]

cannot fully explain the puz-

zle of civil wars in new and

unstable states such as Iraq.

[...] A more satisfying expla-

nation, therefore, needs to

explain why Baghdad’s lead-

ers seem to prefer war to

some type of compromise

settlement.”

Argument

Why do leaders and their challengersfail to reach agreements that couldhalt spiraling violence? I argue thatwar serves two purposes. On thegovernment side, fighting allowsincumbent elites to signal strength,thus deterring other competing elitesfrom challenging their power. In thecase of Iraq, Prime Minister al-Maliki’s government is vulnerable notonly to challenges from Sunni insur-gents, but from internal rivals andespecially Moqtada al-Sadr (who

“Whenever a state goes

through a period of instability

[...] uncertainty exists about

how long the incumbent

regime is likely to last and

whether it will remain cohe-

sive in the face of attack.”

Ideally, leaders of new and unstablegovernments should prefer to avoidcivil war in order to focus on consoli-dating their own internal power.Leaders such as al-Maliki, however,face a strategic dilemma. On the onehand, it is in their interest to compro-mise with powerful opponents if thisallows them to avoid the costs andrisks of war. On the other hand, mak-ing these concessions suggests thatthe government is weak, encouragingother groups to launch their ownattacks. Refusing to settle (andengaging in war), therefore, becomesan important long-term strategy fornew regimes to pursue, even if thisactually weakens them in the short-term.

Commitment Problems SurroundingWeak States

New and unstable states are alsolikely to face two types of commit-ment problems that make war morelikely. The first has to do with incum-bent elites and their tenuous hold onpower. The second has to do with

APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 214 Symposium

demographics and the effect this hason treaty enforcement over time.

One of the challenges oppositiongroups face negotiating with leadersof new and unstable states is thatthese leaders cannot credibly committo enforce a settlement over time.That is because incumbent elitessuch as al-Maliki cannot guaranteethat they will be able to hold ontopower long enough to execute theterms of an agreement. As long asthe Prime Minister’s control over hisown ethnic group appears shaky, anyoffer to share power is likely to bemeaningless.

Still, the fact that long-term commit-ments are difficult to make in fragilestates does not explain why opposi-tion groups resort to war as a result.For war to be chosen, it must servesome positive purpose for the groupsutilizing it. I believe the Sunni insur-gency is designed, in part, to increasetheir relative strength in anticipation ofnegotiating a better deal with a differ-ent, more stable government in thefuture. Thus, Al Qaeda Iraq isattempting to gain as much influenceas possible before Shi’a groups areable consolidate power into astronger government. The moremembers a group can recruit and themore land it can capture during theal-Maliki government, the better itsbargaining position in the future.3

A second commitment problem is like-ly to arise in countries where a singledominant ethnic group represents amajority or plurality of the population.When a single, large ethnic groupattempts to negotiate a power-sharingagreement with smaller ethnic groupsit faces a dilemma. How does it credi-bly commit to share power with small-er factions when it is likely to domi-nate the electoral process over time?Everyone in Iraq, for example, knowsthat Shi’as represent about 65% ofthe population, with the remaining

populace split predominantly betweenSunnis and Kurds. The main fear ofthe Sunnis is that they will not be ableto prevent their opponent from even-tually establishing an Iranian-styletheocracy, even if the Shi’as agree topower sharing in the short term. TheSunni refusal to participate in the2005 election was driven, in part, bythis concern.

This, then, leads to a final line of rea-soning. War may be more likely tooccur in new and unstable states notbecause competing groups have nodesire to share power or becausethey cannot work together, butbecause certain opposition groupsunderstand that there is little they cando to prevent the dominant groupfrom exploiting its demographicallyprivileged position over time. In thiscase, it is in the interest of this small-er party (or parties) to increase poweras soon as possible rather than nego-tiate a settlement it cannot enforce.

be drawn up, or because a federalsolution would not be acceptable tothe main parties, or because anacceptable division of revenue cannotbe reached. It will fail because negoti-ating a settlement is unacceptablydangerous for all the key playersinvolved. Al-Maliki will not acceptsuch a compromise because his fac-tion must signal toughness to otherSunni and Shi’a factions seeking con-trol of the government. Sunni andKurd leaders will not accept itbecause in the absence of U.S. guar-antees for their safety, any agreementwill leave them vulnerable to exploita-tion in the future. The only player whowould like to see such a settlementemerge is the United States, and itwill leave Iraq long before these com-mitment problems disappear.

Notes

1 Fearon and Laitin code “instability”as a three or greater change in thePolity IV regime index in any threeyears prior to the country-year inquestion.

2 Post-election violence has revealedthat al-Maliki’s government is actuallyquite weak, thus encouraging the for-mation of additional militarized fac-tions, as well as greater violence.

3 This is not to say that al Qaeda’sgame is limited to Iraq, only thatthese may be the objectives they arepursuing in the Iraqi military theatre.

References for this article are on-lineat http://www.nd.edu/~apsacp.

“War may be more likely to

occur in new and unstable

states [...] because certain

opposition groups under-

stand that there is little they

can do to prevent the domi-

nant group from exploiting its

demographically privileged

position over time.”

What does this tell us about how thewar in Iraq is likely to end? First, ittells us that any attempt to negotiatea settlement to this war will almostcertainly fail. It will fail not because aperfectly crafted constitution cannot

APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2 15Symposium

Toward More

Policy-Relevant

Research on

Violence in Civil

War

Jeremy WeinsteinStanford Universityjweinst@stanford.edu

Bethany LacinaStanford University

blacina@stanford.edu

The events of 9/11 precipitated a flur-ry of calls for political science toengage the pressing issues con-fronting the United States and theinternational community and to pro-duce insights useful for policymakers(Diamond 2002). Partly in response,the American Political ScienceAssociation launched a set of high-profile task forces in an effort totranslate the work of social scientistsinto accessible language and to putour best research “at the service ofcritical issues that have major publicpolicy implications.” James Fearon, inhis Congressional testimony whichleads off this symposium, offers acompelling example of how recentwork on the duration and terminationof civil wars might inform ongoingdebates about the war in Iraq.

But inferring (useful) policy prescrip-tions from research in political sci-ence is not easy. Although scholarsoften use introductory and concluding

chapters to emphasize the impor-tance of their research and its impli-cations for policymakers, such reflec-tions often reveal only limited atten-tion to whether such implications arejustified by the evidence or merit rec-ommending to policymakers in light ofthe tradeoffs they entail or the alter-natives that might be pursued.

One might think that, among areas ofresearch in political science, the liter-ature on civil war would be the placeto look for policy-relevant findings.Indeed, work on the causes of conflict(Collier and Hoeffler 2004; Fearonand Laitin 2003) often finds its wayinto the popular press and policydebate (Collier et al. 2003; Mack2005). In this essay, we focus on anemerging part of this research agen-da – why some civil wars are muchmore costly in terms of human lifethan others – which has not yetcaught the attention of policymakers.How far has social science research

on this critical topic moved towardgenerating insights that might be ofvalue in the hands of activists, gov-ernment officials, and leaders of inter-national organizations?

What We Know About the Severityof Civil War

Civil wars vary dramatically in theirseverity. Lacina (2006) estimates thenumber of persons killed in civil warstaking place between 1946 and 2005and finds a range that extends ashigh as two million combat deaths inthe Vietnam War, but clusters closerto the threshold (usually 1,000 battledeaths) used to define a civil war. Notsurprisingly, the total number ofdeaths is an increasing function of theduration of the conflict, but there ishuge variance among wars of similarlength to be explained (Figure 1).

There are at least five complex regu-larities that have emerged in the

Figure 1. Duration and its Impact on Civil War Severity

APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 216Symposium

rebels’ material constraints, which arein turn determined by the availabilityof resources from patrons or lucrativeblack markets. High levels of indisci-pline and subsequent indiscriminateviolence are associated with rebelgroups that can recruit in the mannerof a mercenary army (Weinstein2007). By contrast, factions with morelimited means must thoroughly indoc-trinate recruits and rely on civilians fora variety of resources. As a result,such groups tend to invest more inmaintaining group discipline (Wood2003).

Fourth, violence during irregular war-fare is tied to the struggle of armedgroups to control information flowingfrom civilians to rival groups (Kalyvas2006). The resultant selective vio-lence against civilians is most intensein those areas where there is neitherdirect confrontation between the sidesnor completely consolidated control ofone faction. Factions will also becomeincreasingly indiscriminate if they can-not obtain the intelligence necessaryto selectively target civilian inform-ants. Some types of terrain – such aslow hills – may be particularly likely tobe oft-contested borderlands; caseevidence also suggests that, becauseindiscriminate violence is a product ofthe inability to extract information, afaction’s ideology, organization, andits historical ties to the populationmight be important causes of suchkillings.

Fifth and finally, biased military inter-ventions are correlated with morecombat deaths (Lacina 2006).However, in contrast to studies ofconflict duration (Elbadawi andSambanis 2002; Regan and Aydin2006), there has yet to be a study ofexternal intervention that takes intoaccount the possibility that outsidepowers could be responding to espe-cially severe wars rather than (or inaddition to) causing them. An indirectindication that biased interventions

may have pernicious effects is thatcombat deaths were lower in conflictsthat began after the end of the ColdWar (Mack 2005).

What We Know vs. WhatPolicymakers Need

Reviewing this literature, it would bereasonable to conclude that we arelearning a great deal. But does thisresearch agenda – one motivated inpart by a normative concern with thetremendous cost in human life thatconflict generates – offer any guid-ance to decision-makers concernedwith the loss of life due to political vio-lence?

empirical work on the severity of civilconflict. First, in many civil wars thenumber of people killed by combat isorders of magnitude smaller than thetotal number of deaths that can bedirectly attributed to the war (Lacinaand Gleditsch 2005; Murray et al.2002). Epidemiologists have begun todocument the true death toll due tocivil war in a variety of environments(Burnham et al. 2006; Guha-Sapir etal. 2005; Kassa et al. 2005; Robertset al. 2004; Roberts et al. 2003;Uganda Ministry of Health and WorldHealth Organization 2005). Such indi-rect deaths are caused in somecases by acute humanitarian crises – such as massive population dis-placement or famine – but can alsobe the product of deterioration of pub-lic health over the course of a longconflict. Determinants of non-violentdeaths due to war include pre-existingincome and health levels; the degreeof internal displacement; disruption toinfrastructure and public servicescaused by war; and the extent ofaccess of humanitarian aid workers tothe population.

Second, in studies of a variety of dif-ferent types of violence in civil war,democracies experience predictablydifferent severities of internal conflict.Internal war tends to result in fewerbattle deaths in democracies, control-ling for income (Carey 2007; Lacina2006). Democratic governments arealso less likely to fight a rural insur-gency by practicing collective punish-ment of civilians (but see: Downes2006; Valentino et al. 2004; Valentinoet al. 2005) or to perpetrate genocideor politicide (Harff 2003; Kiernan2003; Rummel 1997; Wayman andTago 2005).

Third, the internal coherence and dis-cipline of rebel forces helps to deter-mine the amount of indiscriminate vio-lence perpetrated (Humphreys andWeinstein 2006). Group coherenceand discipline are a function of the

“Scholars are identifying

important empirical regulari-

ties that exist in the conduct

of civil war. These insights

can prove valuable in policy-

making environments, help-

ing decision-makers to see

specific cases [...] in light of

more systematic patterns.”

With only modest aspirations, we cananswer confidently in the affirmative.Scholars are identifying importantempirical regularities that exist in theconduct of civil war. These insightscan prove valuable in policymakingenvironments, helping decision-mak-ers to see specific cases (which tendto dominate thinking in the short-term)in light of more systematic patterns.

But if our ambition is greater – to useresearch to empower policymakerswith new tools or approaches to mini-

APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2 17

mize the human toll of violence – therecord is less impressive. This proba-bly will not come as a surprise tomany. Generating useful policy pre-scriptions is difficult and is rarely thecentral concern of academicresearchers. Moreover, an enormousgap exists between the independentvariables scholars identify as impor-tant and the tools policymakers haveat their disposal. This gap is notinsurmountable, as we will emphasizein the next section, but it cannot beovercome without a significantreshaping of the research agenda onviolence.

action. Outside actors can choke thesources of finance that facilitate rebelmobilization: contributions from dias-poras, trade in illicit resources, andfinancing provided by neighboringgovernments. Regulatory regimesand sanctions appear promising as aresponse to the problem of abusiverebel factions, but we know littleabout their odds of success or aboutthe unintended side-effects they maygenerate.

We thus find ourselves confident inthe empirical regularities the literatureidentifies, but less confident in recom-mending the policy proposals theyimply.

Making Research Relevant forPolicy: an Empirical and NormativeAgenda

Given this gap between what weknow and what policymakers need,should we discard the ambition ofconducting research that seeks to berelevant to the policy challenges gov-ernments confront today? We wouldnot have chosen to invest years in thestudy of violence if we thought theanswer was an unequivocal yes. Butwe do recognize that makingresearch relevant for policy willrequire a more focused effort to studythe impact of policies per se and thenormative problems that policy choic-es raise.

Many core findings in the study ofcivil war severity emerge from proj-ects designed to explain variation independent variables such as totalmortality or civilian abuse. Much lesswork begins with the treatment itself –an independent variable – in an effortto identify the intended (and unintend-ed) consequences of a particularintervention. This is not surprising.Methods courses in comparative poli-tics increasingly push students towardthe identification of meaningful varia-tion to explain. And the empirical

Symposium

tarian assistance, but such policy pro-posals may entail tradeoffs, ashumanitarian assistance, whichundoubtedly saves lives, has beenblamed for contributing to the persist-ence of some conflicts.

The difficulty of drawing clear infer-ences about appropriate policy inter-ventions is also apparent in the litera-ture on genocide and mass killing.Democratic governments seem toexhibit restraint in their treatment ofnon-combatants during war. But“more democracy” is far from a realis-tic short-term policy recommendation.Nor is it clear that long-term democra-cy promotion programs are effectiveand free of pernicious side-effects.

A search for reasonable policy recom-mendations, then, might lead one tohypothesize that democracy is impor-tant because it generates restraint,forcing politicians to consider the like-ly costs in electoral support of brutalcounterinsurgency. Authoritarianregimes cannot be easily madeaccountable to their own constituents,but efforts have been made toincrease the accountability of govern-ments to outsiders: by empoweringthe International Criminal Court toissue indictments, by imposing eco-nomic sanctions, and by impugningthe reputation of human rights viola-tors through “naming and shaming.”But again, we know little about thelikely impacts of these “treatments.”They are, at best, a step removedfrom the independent variable inwhich we have confidence.

Current research that draws attentionto the internal discipline of rebelforces confronts a similar challenge.Yet, while some of the factors thatfacilitate the emergence of abusiverebel factions are difficult to change –such as weak central governments,the world price of small arms, or anabundance of natural resources –others are more amenable to policy

“Generating useful policy

prescriptions is difficult and

is rarely the central concern

of academic researchers.

Moreover, an enormous gap

exists between the inde-

pendent variables scholars

identify as important and the

tools policymakers have at

their disposal.”

Consider some of the key findings wesummarized earlier. The weight of theevidence suggests that most civiliandeaths in wartime are a consequencenot of violence, but of excess mortali-ty attributable to natural causes. Thecritical factor that mediates the impactof political conflict on civilian deaths isthe pre-existing infrastructure andwealth of a country, somethingbeyond the control of policymakers inthe short (and, perhaps, even long)term. Activists have seized on thesefindings to make the case for humani-

18 APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2

intended consequences of these ini-tiatives and identify ways in which aparticular intervention might havepositive or negative (unintended) con-sequences for other outcomes thatmatter.

Yet even equipped with better knowl-edge about the efficacy of humanitari-an aid, indictments, sanctions, andpublic pressure, we will still find our-selves unprepared to offer policy pre-scriptions unless we engage politicaltheorists to help us interpret our find-ings within a framework of values. Fora policy audience, it is not enough toreport the causal effect of a treatment(e.g. each additional dollar of humani-tarian aid saves ten lives).Policymakers want to know whetherproviding humanitarian assistanceentails risks as well. Will humanitarianaid sustain the war? Will refugeecamps provide rebels with safehavens? And if these effects occur,are they acceptable given the benefitsof providing humanitarian aid?Empirical work can identify and meas-ure such tradeoffs, exploring the likelyimpacts of alternative courses overdifferent time frames, but it cannothelp us answer a basic, but criticalquestion: how do we weigh the liveswe might save against the lives thatcould be lost, in the short- or thelong-term, due to our efforts?

This question is embedded in almostevery policy prescription we have dis-cussed so far. Are sanctions, marketregulations, and asset freezes unjustif they hurt civilians in a manner dis-proportionate to the pinch put onleaders? Does the deterrence offuture crimes outweigh the potentialdifficulties associated with ending aconflict once a key player is underindictment? If biased interventionslead to long-term peace, should weaccept increased fighting in the short-term? James Fearon’s Congressionaltestimony implicitly argues that theincreased likelihood of a settlement

Symposium

that would result if the U.S. departedIraq is worth the cost in human livesof the short-term instability that mightalso ensue. Presumably, he makesthis judgment on the basis that thecost in human lives of long-terminstability outweighs the cost of anincrease in violence in the short-term.Which time horizon should we use tomake this calculation? How muchshould we discount lives in thefuture?

Generating policy prescriptionsrequires more than asking the rightquestions and employing high-techmethods for discerning causal effects.It requires a partnership with politicaltheorists in understanding and grap-pling with tradeoffs among conflictingvalues as we make recommendationsto policymakers. Tradeoffs such aswhether to promote justice if it comesat the cost of peace; whether to aidcivilians if doing so indirectly strength-ens an oppressive government; andhow to weigh the welfare of futuregenerations against the lives we canprotect today. Political theorists notonly have more familiarity with thenormative questions at stake, theirresearch has the potential to point ustoward additional empirical inquiriesthat could inform evaluation of thetradeoffs implied by policy prescrip-tions.

There is already evidence of whatsuch collaboration can achieve. Asthe 1990s brought into view horrificinstances of ethnic cleansing andgenocide, normative theorists quicklyturned their attention to the ethicaldilemmas inherent in humanitarianintervention (Chatterjee and Scheid2003). Such interventions have beenadvocated as consistent with just wartheory and with a commitment to theuniversality of human rights, but thesejustifications face accusations ofpaternalism and difficult questionsabout their de-emphasis of self-deter-mination and the fact that only a small

challenges of identifying the causaleffect of a treatment are well known.The interventions discussed above –indictments, sanctions, naming andshaming, regulatory efforts, and so on– are rare events; they are non-ran-domly assigned; and they take myriadforms, making it difficult to observethe same treatment more than once.Randomized experiments, a popularmethod for studying the effectivenessof aid interventions, are of limited utili-ty as many of these treatments areapplied at the level of the nation-stateor the international system as awhole.

Increasingly, though, researchers arefocusing on interventions as an objectof study and developing creativestrategies for measuring their impact.Studies of the impact of third-partysecurity guarantees (Walter 1997),cease-fires (Fortna 2004b), and UNpeacekeeping missions (Doyle andSambanis 2006; Doyle and Sambanis2000; Fortna 2004a) are contributinguseful lessons about how outsideactors can facilitate post-conflict tran-sition. Research on combatant demo-bilization (Blattman 2006; Humphreysand Weinstein 2007) is raising impor-tant questions about the utility ofstrategies that are in every policymak-er’s post-conflict toolkit. The treat-ments of interest in these studieswere not randomly assigned, butpowerful social science methods (e.g.selection models, propensity match-ing techniques, instrumental vari-ables) are increasingly helping us toapproximate an experimental designmore closely.

If the literature on civil war severity isto provide more practical insights topolicymakers, scholars will need tocomplement big-picture work withmore focused studies of the impact oftreatments that governments andactivist groups actually employ tominimize the human toll of civil con-flict. This is important to measure the

19APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2 Book Review

group of humanitarian tragedies maybe singled out for intervention (Walzer2006). At the same time, philosophersrecognized that much theorizing tookplace “in a state of vincible ignorance”(Holzgrefe and Keohane 2003, 50) asethical theories of war often rest onundocumented empirical claims.Political theorists understand that nor-mative arguments are insufficient ontheir own to determine the conditionsunder which interventions are just. Atthe same time, resolving factual ques-tions isn’t sufficient either as, “ulti-mately what is involved is a choice ofvalues and goals” (Hoffman 2003)

Isaiah Berlin (1992) highlighted (andstruggled with) the fact that at times itsimply isn’t possible to maximize allof our values simultaneously, noreven to fit them together in a coher-ent whole. While recognizing that nosimple solution to the problem of con-flicting values exists, Berlin suggestedthat our first priority should be “toavoid the extremes of suffering” nomatter the long-term costs. ButBerlin’s position is only the openingsalvo in what should be a livelydebate. Scholars of comparative poli-tics: be prepared. Evidence, if unac-companied by the input of our col-leagues in political theory, will not besufficient to answer the question ofhow policymakers can best reducethe suffering associated with civil war.

References for this article are on-lineat http://www.nd.edu/~apsacp.

cepts: these no doubt will make animmediate impact on future scholar-ship. But other lessons requireassessing the validity of Goertz’sapproach to the fundamentals of con-cepts and concept formation. Twomain subjects comprise those funda-mentals: how to think about conceptsand how to construct concept struc-tures.

Goertz draws on chemistry in hisreflections on concepts and herepeatedly invokes the example ofcopper and its definition. Copper isdefined in terms of its atomic struc-ture, not its redness, because theunderlying structure captures itsessential characteristics and conveysits causal attributes that inform theo-retical propositions. With this lessonin mind, Goertz crafts an approach toconcepts that is explicitly causal,ontological, and realist. It is causalbecause it demands that conceptsidentify the causally-relevant proper-ties that make them theoreticallyinteresting. It is ontological because itfocuses on the fundamental con-stituent elements of a phenomenon.And it is realist because is segregatessuperficial qualities from essentialattributes that demarcate boundariesbetween natural kinds. Conceptanalysis thus involves far more than asemantic definition; it involves “ascer-taining the constitutive characteristicsof a phenomenon that have centralcausal powers” (5).

If we think of the references to chem-istry as a heuristic device that encour-ages scholars to think theoreticallyabout concepts, then I heartilyendorse this discussion. But we needto quickly recognize the limits of anyanalogy to chemistry. As John Searlemaintains, objects like mountains andcopper are observer-independent, butinstitutions like money and democra-cy are observer-dependent: they can-not exist without the inter-subjectiveunderstandings of intentional agents.

David WaldnerUniversity of Virginiadaw4h@virginia.edu

Social ScienceConcepts: AUser’s Guide.

Gary Goertz’s ambitious andadmirable book attempts to redressthe imbalance between the centralanalytic role played by concepts andtheir peripheral status in methodologi-cal discussions. By insisting that con-cept formation focus on the causalattributes of entities, he is equally crit-ical of scholars, mostly quantitativists,who treat concepts only as measure-ment instruments, as well as thosescholars, mostly qualitativists, whoapproach concept-formation as anexclusively semantic exercise. Goertzblends abstract reflection and con-crete application in a concise andhighly accessible volume that shouldbe read by all users of social scienceconcepts – that is, all of us.

The book has three themes. First, itreconceptualizes concepts and con-cept formation; second it diagnosesand treats the often-uneasy relation-ship between concept formation andmeasurement instruments; third, itaddresses the relationship betweenconcept formation and case selection.Goertz derives many important les-sons from this material. One lesson isthat scholars often employ measureswhose mathematical structures areinconsistent with the theoretical struc-ture of their concepts. Another lessonpresents principles for selecting “neg-ative” cases of relatively infrequentphenomena. Some of these lessonscan be appreciated without consider-ing Goertz’s basic approach to con-

APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 220

ficient to constitute the basic term.The basic term is present if and onlyif n of n components are present.Family resemblance structures, alter-natively, contain no necessary com-ponent and some subset of the set ofpossible components – m of n com-ponents – will be sufficient to consti-tute the basic term. These two struc-tures lie on a continuum defined bythe level of substitutability. On oneend are necessary conditions forwhich no substitution exists; on theother end are sufficient conditionswhose absence can be compensatedfor by other elements.

Book Review

“concept stretching.” In family resem-blance structures, on the other hand,increases in intension simply includemore substitutable elements andhence increase extension. Substantiv-ly rich concepts therefore apply tomore cases, not fewer cases.

“I suspect that future work

will be full of ‘Goertzian con-

cept diagrams’ which will

encourage scholars to for-

mulate better concepts and

communicate their content

more effectively.”

Democracy is not a “thing” in the waythat copper is a thing, and theircausal properties are not equally pre-dictable as a result. While there isplentiful evidence in favor of the intra-democratic peace hypothesis, it isunlikely that changing a regime fromdemocratic to authoritarian changesits causal behavior with sufficientexceptionless regularity that we cananalogize this shift to changing thenumber of electrons in an atom ofcopper to create “another elementwith different causal powers and lia-bilities” (55).

Consider next the discussion of con-cept structures. Traditional semanticapproaches contain three compo-nents: terms (or signifiers), such asdemocracy or nation-state; the term’sintension (or signified or connotation),such as competitive elections andother attributes that would qualify apolitical regime as a democracy; andits referents (or extension or denota-tion), the set of countries whose gov-ernance attributes qualify them asdemocracies. Goertz maintains a tri-partite scheme but makes two signifi-cant modifications to the traditionalapproach. First, he proposes a rulefor enumerating the intension (whathe calls the secondary level): theterm’s intension should contain onlycausally-relevant definitions referringto the term’s ontology. This ruleexemplifies Goertz’ preference for amore theoretical approach to conceptformation. Second, he substitutes anindicator level for the extension.Operationalization, in other words, isan integral part of concept formation,not a discrete and secondary task.Goertz then identifies two main typesof concept structure, by which hemeans the logical principle that linksthe three levels together and thusrenders the concept coherent. Classicstructures posit a set of necessaryand sufficient conditions: the multipleelements of the secondary level areindividually necessary and jointly suf-

“[Goertz’s] discussion of con-

cept structure yields genuine

value.”

The discussion of concept structureyields genuine value. First and fore-most is Goertz’s insistence that schol-ars make explicit the structure of theirconcepts. He evinces impatience forformless concept structures that forcereaders to discover the structurethrough “textual exegesis, or at worstguesswork” (36). Chapter two is full ofinteresting guidelines for defining aconcept’s structure, including instruc-tions on how to graphically illustrateconcept structures. I suspect thatfuture work will be full of “Goertzianconcept diagrams” which will encour-age scholars to formulate better con-cepts and communicate their contentmore effectively. A second payoffcomes from his clear demonstrationthat the relationship between inten-sion and extension is a function of thetype of concept structure. In classicconcept formation, an increase inintension implies a decrease in exten-sion, so that more precise definitionscontaining more attributes refer tofewer cases. Violations of this ruleresult in what Giovanni Sartori called

Still, as an unrepentant devotee of theset-theoretic approach to concept for-mation, I see some possible problemswith family-resemblance conceptstructures. Ludwig Wittgensteinadvanced the idea of family resem-blance, after all, to attack the idea ofessential defining elements, and sofamily resemblances exist in deepphilosophical tension with classic con-cept structures which are motivatedby appeals to necessary – or essen-tial – elements of concepts. Thatscholars have long been enamored ofessential defining elements alsoexplains why there is a parallel litera-ture on “essentially contested con-cepts.” To note, as Goertz does, thatlaypeople regularly categorize withfamily-resemblance structures doesnot, in my opinion, grant them regula-tory authority.

I remain unconvinced as well byGoertz’s main example of a familyresemblance concept structure –Alexander Hicks’ definition of a wel-fare state. Hicks argues that no singleservice defines the welfare state.

Welfare states exist if they supply mof n from among a range of possibleservices, such as unemploymentinsurance and healthcare. Goertzrefers to this set of substitutable ele-ments as the secondary-level dimen-sion (on pages 38 and 60) but also asthe operational definition (page 38).This conflation of two levels of theconcept structure is disturbing: weshould be better able to distinguishcausal properties from instrumentalmeasures. But it is also quite possibleto subsume Hick’s definition into thenecessary and sufficient framework.The term welfare state refers to thosestates that (1) enact public policiesthat (2) decommodfy the core ele-ments of (3) the prevailing socialunderstanding of what constitutes ajust and dignified standard of living.Each of these three elements mustbe present to permit us to speak of awelfare state, and we operationallydefine welfare states via a range of(substitutable) policies, measured bydata such as expenditures.

Goertz makes two other interestingclaims about the relationship betweenthe three levels of his concept struc-ture. First, he argue that indicator-level variables cause secondary levelvariables. In this way, Goertz takesthe unusual step of building causalhypotheses directly into concepts. Hegives as an example Theda Skocpol’stheory of social revolutions (seeFigure 2.7 on page 64), claiming thatthe indicator-level elements dominant-class leverage, agrarian backward-ness, and international pressurecause state breakdown (which is inturn one of the secondary-level ele-ments of the basic term, social revo-lution). I disagree with this conceptualanalysis. If you asked me to enumer-ate the indicators of state breakdown,I would propose a list that includedthe dissolution of military hierarchies,the crippling loss of authority asagents appropriated the resources ofprincipals, and the subsequent pre-

21APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2

cipitous decline in the state provisionof goods and services. Dominant-class leverage and international pres-sure, on the other hand, are betterunderstood as distinct conceptsembedded in distinct variables in anextended causal chain. It might befruitful to debate Goertz’s basic claim,but first we need some criteria to bet-ter distinguish the boundaries withinconcept structures from the bound-aries between distinct concepts. Goertz’s second claim about the rela-tionship between levels of a conceptstructure is that the secondary-levelconstitutes the basic level. I amunsure about either the validity or thevalue of this claim. The basic level,after all, is just a term, one that playsvery little substantive role in hisaccount. It might be better to think ofthe secondary level as regulating lin-guistic usage: observers of the prop-erties of the secondary level arelicensed to speak using particularvocabularies. Or, better yet, given theendless debates that normative-ladedbasic terms provoke, perhaps weshould just prohibit basic terms andconfine debate to the all-importantsecondary level.

These comments barely scratch thesurface of this rich book. Politicalphilosophers, quantitative scholars,and devotees of qualitative methodscan all read it, benefit from it, andargue with it. The discipline will bebetter off for those discussions. I canthink of no higher praise for this veryimpressive book.

Book Review

Gary GoertzUniversity of Arizonaggoertz@u.arizona.edu

Author’sResponse

David Waldner has done an excellentjob of summarizing the core elementsof my approach to concepts and Ihave little to add to his summary.

He raises the issue of the reliance ofsocial science concepts on inter-sub-jective understandings and states that“they cannot exist without the inter-subjective understandings of inten-tional agents.” At some philosophicallevel I would not disagree with this,but my book was intended to be apractical guide. With very few excep-tions social scientists who are inter-ested in using concepts in causalexplanations (my target audience)treat social things as things. This isthe realist part of my approach. I caneasily imagine settings where theunderstandings of intentional agentsmight be crucial, for example, whenthe concept of democracy is new anda lot depends on what its creatorsthink it is.

Waldner classifies himself as an“unrepentant devotee” of the set-theo-retic approach to concept formation. Iwould be happy to include myself inthat set as well since in many waysthe book is motivated and informedby fuzzy sets (Ragin 2000). JimMahoney and I have explored atsome length the differences between“qualitative” and “quantitative”research (Mahoney and Goertz2006). One sign of the depth of thedivide is that much qualitative workrelies explicitly or implicitly on set the-oretic notions. Math boot camps are a

APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 222 Datasets

Nicholas SambanisYale Universitynicholas.sambanis@yale.edu

“The book’s goal is to pro-

vide tools for constructing

concepts but I do not gener-

ally have strong preferences

a priori between concept

structures.”

booming phenomena, but I know ofnone that teaches logic and set theo-ry. The family resemblance structurefalls within fuzzy set theory. What I tryto do is make some links from thisunfamiliar logic to the kinds of mathe-matics familiar to everyone, e.g.,maximum, minimum, sum, etc.

I like the way Waldner reformulatesthe concept of the welfare state (mystandard example of the familyresemblance concept) in terms ofnecessary and sufficient conditions.The book’s goal is to provide tools forconstructing concepts but I do notgenerally have strong preferences apriori between concept structures.Actually, even more important as amotivation for using the welfare stateexample is that typically, in quantita-tive analyses at least, the dependentvariable is measured in terms of totalexpenditures on various social servic-es. Money is a perfect example of asubstitutable, fungible measure.

side of the equation. Skocpol’s con-cept of social revolution is somewhatproblematic for exactly this reasonwhen she requires class conflicts tohave a role: “And these changes[social revolutions] occur throughintense sociopolitical conflicts inwhich class struggles play a key role”(Skocpol 1979, 5). This could beinterpreted as saying that class strug-gles are part of the cause of socialrevolutions. This concept of socialrevolutions could work however if it isinterpreted more like a scope condi-tion.

Skocpol’s States and SocialRevolution is an example thatappears in a number of chapters.Waldner is correct that the conceptframework of secondary-level andindicator-level is a bit misleading inthis example. The term “indicators”here is misleading since, as he notes,it is really another level of a causalchain.

Finally, Waldner correctly notes that ingeneral the basic level does not playthat big a role, though quite a few ofthe guidelines in chapter 2 focus on it.One must remember that the book ismostly about constructing concepts.However, these concepts – the basiclevel – play a central role in theoriesand research design. As independent,dependent, case selection or scopevariables we use concepts at thebasic level. While Waldner suggestswe might be better off confiningdebate to secondary-level factors, Ithink he knows that this is unlikely tohappen.

While Waldner is correct that thebook stresses the importance ofcausal issues in concept develop-ment, not all concepts work that way.In particular, dependent variables –and often concepts used in caseselection – do not usually involvecausal factors. To include them wouldin general – some exceptions canarise – not be wise because wewould have causal factors within thedependent variable along with causalfactors on the independent variable

Many studies of civil war use statis-tics to explain when, where, and whycivil wars occur, how long they last, orhow they end. These studies rely onquantitative measures of civil war. Butit makes a difference how civil war ismeasured.1

Civil wars are usually defined asarmed conflicts between the govern-ment of a sovereign state and domes-tic political groups mounting effectiveresistance in relatively continuousfighting that causes a high number ofdeaths. This broad definition cannoteasily distinguish civil war from otherforms of political violence, so weresort to ad hoc coding criteria, suchas the death threshold: some code acivil war when 1,000 people are killedoverall;2 others require 1,000 battledeaths per year.3

These arbitrary coding rules allowquantification, but may create con-ceptual confusion about what civil waris and what causes it.

Three sources of coding uncertaintyshould be singled out: start- and end-dates of civil wars; distinguishing civilwar from other forms of political vio-lence; and estimating the magnitudeof violence.

Consider the magnitude problem first.It is always hard to dig up deathsdata from historical sources. But theproblem is even harder because gov-ernments lie about how many of theircitizens they kill; and reporters oftenavoid the worst places during the

What is Civil Warand How ShouldWe Measure It?

worst violence.4 Thus, for example,Ball (2005) finds severe under-report-ing of violence in Guatemala and thathas consequences for analyses ofstate terror.5 Even with good report-ing, it can be difficult to get reliableestimates of deaths. A well-knownmortality study in the ongoing civilwar in Iraq estimated 601,027 violentdeaths (confidence interval 426,369-793,663) in the post-invasion period.6In an unpublished paper, a team ofresearchers from Oxford argue thatthe statistical methods used in thatstudy over-estimate deaths.7

of the war (and who has such data)?Does a long insurgency that causes ahundred deaths per year and sudden-ly spikes into thousands of deathsbecome a civil war at the spike, orwas it always a civil war?

Coding an end to civil wars presentssimilar difficulties. If a “civil war” turnsinto low-level insurgency (as in theconflict between Indonesia and theFree Papua Movement) when does“civil war” start and “insurgency”begin? Is this a distinction that wereally care about? What if violencecontinues after the civil war betweenpolitical parties or militias, but not thegovernment? In South Africa, forexample, the violence of the 1980sand early 1990s, which somedatasets code as a civil war, was fol-lowed by inter-communal violencemainly between supporters of theANC and the Inkatha Freedom Partyin KwaZulu-Natal that killed morethan 2,000 people from 1997-2000.9When did South Africa’s civil warend?

Some say “civil war” ends when fewerthan 1,000 deaths occur in oneyear.10 In Burundi since 1990, forexample, Collier, Hoeffler, andRohner (2007) code civil wars from1991-92, 1993-98, and 2000-2002,with temporary “ends” due to this cod-ing rule. What about other criteria,such as coding an end if the rebelstake over? If rebels win, but violencepicks up again within a few months,most datasets would code one war,not two. But this turns a blind eye tofailed victories. Without coding an endon every occasion when there is awar-related regime change, the datawill lead us to find a strong associa-tion between victory and peace (sinceonly victories that last are coded).

What if a cease-fire or peace treaty issigned? Do all the parties have tosign? Are cease-fires endpoints thatare as good as treaties that outline a

23APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2 Datasets

“[...] arbitrary coding rules

allow quantification, but may

create conceptual confusion

about what civil war is and

what causes it.”

political solution? Cease-fires aremuch more likely to be under-report-ed since they are more informal andmuch more frequent. In Burundi, sev-eral small groups signed cease-fireagreements with the government atseveral points from 2000 to 2002, butfighting between the government andthe FNL lasted until a September2006 cease-fire with deaths in the lastthree years surpassing 500 (UppsalaConflict Database).11 According to the1,000 deaths/year criterion, or a cod-ing rule that does not require allgroups to sign cease-fires, that warwould be coded as ending in 2002.Other criteria might support codingthe war as ongoing until the end of2006.

The uncertainty surrounding start andend dates is exacerbated whenresearchers measure war duration indays rather than years.12 Coding warduration or peace duration in dayshelps minimize the problem of havingtoo many “ties” (i.e. cases with thesame event duration) since it is morelikely to have twenty cases withpeace duration of one year ratherthan one day. But when is a cease-fire broken and the civil war back on?At the first shot, or when a certainnumber of deaths occur in a singleday (most likely the 1,000 deathsthreshold cannot apply to days aseasily as it does to years).

So, one important question is whetherwe should code one “big” period ofcivil war or several “episodes.” Thereis disagreement on this question.Some scholars code countries asbeing at war for decades, although itis hard to find evidence that violencelevels or effective resistance criteriaare satisfied for the whole period.13

Others separate periods of war,marked by peace settlements or mili-tary victories.14 But the country maynot be at peace in the interveningperiods. If what we care about most isthe causal effect of certain variables

This “magnitude” problem (call it“reporting bias”) is sometimes sys-tematically related to characteristicsof the country. Drakos and Gofasshow that bias in deaths reporting interrorism datasets is related to regimetype and they provide an estimate ofthe impact of reporting bias on infer-ences about the causes of terrorism.8

Reporting bias is likely to affect stud-ies of violence levels more than stud-ies of war onset/termination, whereresearchers typically want to know ifdeaths crossed the “civil war” thresh-old. A common problem in such stud-ies is how to date the war.

It is often hard to tell when “civil war”starts or ends, especially when othertypes of political violence accompanycivil war. Is a coup that kills some sol-diers followed by state-sponsoredpogroms a civil war? Or must killingbe reciprocal throughout the duration

APSA-CP Vol 14, No. 1APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 224 Datasets

(like democracy or income) on civilwar onset, duration, or termination,then such coding rule differences willhave substantive implications. Sincecoding rules are likely to continue todiffer across datasets, we should atleast have an appreciation of whatauthors of each dataset mean by“civil war” onset or termination so wecan put their empirical results in per-spective.15

Advances in the study of civil war arelikely to come from taking theseissues seriously and from taking thedata in different directions. More andmore, scholars are looking away fromcountry-years, and toward administra-tive subdivisions of countries;16 differ-ent civil war typologies;17 geo-codedlocations of violent events;18 andmicro-level surveys that explore whypeople join rebellions.19 These newdatasets promise to allow greaterspecificity about the measures of civilwar.

For now, an important point to keep inmind is that most civil war datasetsare works-in-progress rather thandefinitive measures of “civil war.” Thisis not just because good data arehard to come by, but also because,even if there is agreement on some“core” cases of civil war, there is dis-agreement on some other cases atthe margins that can inform (or trans-form) how we understand civil war. Itis worth considering if what we nowcall “civil war” is a coherent categoryof violence that is causally distinctfrom other forms of political violenceand if it should be analyzed in isola-tion, or if our focus should shift awayfrom “civil war” and toward politicalviolence more generally.

Notes

1 Nicholas Sambanis, 2004, “What isCivil War? Conceptual and EmpiricalComplexities of an OperationalDefinition,” Journal of ConflictResolution 48 (6): 814–58.

2 James D. Fearon and David D.Laitin, 2003, “Ethnicity, Insurgency,and Civil War,” American PoliticalScience Review 97 (1): 75-90.

3 Nils Petter Gleditsch, PeterWallensteen, Mikael Eriksson,Margareta Sollenberg, and HåvardStrand, 2002, “Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New Dataset,” Journal ofPeace Research 39 (5): 615–37.

4 Reporting biases are common instudies of state repression. An insight-ful review is Christian Davenport,2007, “State Repression and PoliticalOrder,” Annual Review of PoliticalScience 10: 1-23.

5 Patrick Ball, 2005, “On theQuantification of Horror: Field Noteson Statistical Analysis of HumanRights Violations,” in Repression andMobilization, edited by ChristianDavenport, Hank Johnston, and CarolMueller (Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press); and ChristianDavenport and Patrick Ball, 2002,“Views to a Kill: Exploring theImplications of Source Selection inthe Case of Guatemalan State Terror,1977-1996,” Journal of ConflictResolution 46 (3): 427-450.

6 Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta,Shannon Doocy, Les Roberts, 2006,“Mortality After the 2003 Invasion ofIraq: A Cross-Sectional ClusterSample Survey,” Lancet 368: 1421-1428.

7 Neil F. Johnson, Michael Spagat,Sean Gourley, Jukka-Pekka Onnela,Gesine Reinert, 2006, “Bias inEpidemiological Studies of Conflict,”

Households in Conflict Network,Research Design Note 2.

8 Konstantinos Drakos and AndreasGofas, 2006, “The Devil You Knowbut Are Afraid to Face: UnderreportingBias and Its Distorting Effects on theStudy of Terrorism,” Journal ofConflict Resolution 50 (5) : 714-735.

9 The violence in the 1980s and early1990s is coded as a civil war in somedatasets, but not others. It is coded inFearon and Laitin (2003) andSambanis (2004), but not in J. DavidSinger and Melvin Small, 1994,“Correlates of War Project:International and Civil War Data,1816-1992” [Computer file (April)](Study #9905), Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Politicaland Social Research [distributor]; orMeredith Reid Sarkees, 2000, “TheCorrelates of War Data on War: AnUpdate to 1997,” ConflictManagement and Peace Science 18(1): 123-144.

10 Gleditsch et al (2002); Paul, Collier,Anke Hoeffler, and Dominic Rohner,2007, “Beyond Greed and Grievance:Feasibility and Civil War,” WorkingPaper, University of Oxford andUniversity of Cambridge (February).

11 Uppsala Conflict Data Project(UCDP).http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/UCDP/.

12 See, for example, Page Fortna,2004, “Does Peacekeeping KeepPeace? International Intervention andthe Duration of Peace After Civil War”International Studies Quarterly 48 (2):269-292.

13 Thus, for example, Fearon andLaitin (2003) code one continuouscivil war in Myanmar (Burma) from1948 until the end of their analysistime in 1999; and in the UnitedKingdom (Northern Ireland) from1969 to 1999.

APSA-CP Vol 14, No. 1 25APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2Datasets

The Research Network on GenderPolitics and the State (RNGS)announces the release of its dataset.The result of a ten-year study, theRNGS dataset contains quantitativeand qualitative data about 130 policydebates/observations in 13 countriescoded on 28 concepts and over 110variables. It provides extensive infor-mation on women’s movements, femi-nism and gender politics, women’spolicy offices, policy making process-es and policy debates that occurredbetween the late 1960s and the early2000s in 13 post-industrial democra-cies (Austria, Belgium, Canada,Finland, France, Germany, GreatBritain, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands,Spain, Sweden and the US).

The RNGS team of internationalscholars designed and carried out thislarge-scale comparative researchproject to examine whether, how, andwhy women’s policy offices, throughtheir relations with women’s move-ments, make post-industrial democra-cies more democratic and the statemore feminist. The network’s studyencompasses the momentous yearsof women’s movements from theemergence of autonomous protests inEurope and North America for the lib-eration of women in the 1960s and1970s through the successful integra-tion of movement activists into con-ventional politics in the 1990s and2000s. The unit of analysis in thestudy and the dataset is a policydebate that takes place in apolitical/government arena and endswith an official decision or non-deci-sion.

The dataset suite includes a PDFcodebook/users guide and two datafiles – one of the numerically baseddata set, in SPSS, and a second file

14 Sambanis (2004), for example,codes three “episodes” of civil war inAngola since 1975, not including thewar in the Cabinda enclave, which hecodes as separate from the warbetween UNITA and the government.

15 Supporting documentation indatasets would help readers figureout for themselves which datasets aremore reliable and more in line withtheir own concept of civil war. Twodatasets offer such information: theGleditsch et al (2002) dataset (regu-larly updated) and Sambanis (2004),which includes civil wars from 1945 to1999.

16 Nicholas Sambanis and BrankoMilanovic, 2007, “Explaining theDemand for Sovereignty,” unpub-lished manuscript, Yale University andWorld Bank.

17 Nicholas Sambanis, 2006, “What isan ‘Ethnic’ War? Organization andInterests in Insurgency,” unpublishedmanuscript, Yale University.

18 Clionadh Raleigh and HåvardHegre, 2006, “Introducing ACLED: AnArmed Conflict Location and EventDataset,” unpublished paper, PRIO.Lars-Erik Cederman, Jan Ketil Rød,and Nils Weidmann, 2006, “Geo-ref-erencing of Ethnic Groups: Creating aNew Dataset,” unpublished manu-script, International ConflictResearch, ETH Zurich; and HalvardBuhaug, Lars-Erik Cederman, JanKetil Rød, 2007, Modeling EthnicConflict in Center-Periphery Dyads,unpublished manuscript, InternationalConflict Research, ETH Zurich.

19 Ana Arjona and Stathis Kalyvas,2006, “Survey of DemobilizedCombatants in Colombia,” unpub-lished paper, Yale University.

RNGS Dataset onState Feminism

with text appendices of supplementaldescriptive information for 22 vari-ables in PDF. After October 1, 2007the RNGS dataset will become partof the ICPSR data archive and alsoavailable to download from theRNGS website –http:/libarts.wsu.edu/polisci/rngs. Thewebsite also has documents that pro-vide detail on all aspects of the proj-ect.

For more information contact, Amy G.Mazur (Washington State University)mazur@wsu.edu.

Editors’ NotesThe editors welcome suggestions ofother relatively new and potentiallyuseful datasets that should beannounced or reviewed in APSA-CP.Anyone interested in reviewing adataset for the newsletter should con-tact Michael Coppedge atcoppedge.1@nd.edu.

We invite our readers to request hardcopies of back issues (beginning withthe winter 2003 newsletter issue) atthe cost of $1.50 per issue. Theyshould send their request(s) by emailto kschuenk@nd.edu.

APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 226 News & Notes

Comparative PoliticsSection PrizeWinners, 2007 APSAMeetingGregory Luebbert Award for theBest Book in Comparative Politics

Jonathan Rodden, MITHamilton’s Paradox: The Promiseand Perils of Fiscal Federalism,Cambridge University Press, 2006

Gregory Luebbert Award for theBest Article in ComparativePolitics

Macartan Humphreys, ColumbiaUniversity and Jeremy Weinstein,Stanford University“Handling and Manhandling Civiliansin Civil War,”APSR 99, 1: 61-74.

and

Torven Iversen, Harvard Universityand David Soskice, Duke University

“Electoral Institutions and the Politicsof Coalitions: Why SomeDemocracies Distribute More thanOthers.”APSR 100, 2: 154-81.

Dataset Award

Ronald A. Francisco, University ofKansas

For his events dataset on Europeanprotest and coercion

Sage Publication Award for theBest Paper in Comparative Politicsat the 2006 APSA meeting

Lily L. Tsai, MIT

“Informal Institutions, Accountability,

Britain after Blair:The Legacy and theFutureA Conference Sponsored by theBritish Politics Group of APSAWednesday, August 29, 2007, The Gleacher Center, University ofChicago Business School, Chicago,IL

Much like Margaret Thatcher beforehim, Tony Blair has dominated theBritish political scene for nearly adecade. What has been the legacy ofthe Blair government, both in termsof politics and public policy? Whatare the likely directions for the future,either under the leadership ofGordon Brown or beyond? TheBritish Politics Group is organizing aspecial one-day conference toexplore these issues<http://www.uc.edu/bpg/panels.htm>in addition to our regular APSA pan-els. Panel topics included in the pro-gram include:

* Blair’s Constitutional Revolution* Anglo-American Relations and the

Bush-Blair Axis* The EU in British Politics and

Policy-Making* Democracy post-Blair: Parties or

Groups?* The Ideological Legacy of Tony

Blair* The Vision and Reality of

Devolution* Party Leaders after Blair* The State of the Parties After Blair* New Labour and Public Policy* UK Foreign Policy and the Iraq

War

The conference is being held on theWednesday prior to APSA and con-vened at the Gleacher Center of the

University of Chicago BusinessSchool. Located on the ChicagoRiver, the Gleacher Center is a veryshort walk from both of the mainAPSA conference hotels. Registrationfor the conference is $30 andincludes a one-year membership inthe BPG.

Registration forms and further infor-mation can be found on the confer-ence website (http://www.rose-hul-man.edu/~casey1/BAB.htm). A prelim-inary program will be posted in earlyJune. If you have any questions orneed any further information, pleasecontact Terrence Casey ExecutiveDirector, BPG.(casey1@rose-hulman.edu)

ErratumIn the Winter 2007 Issue of thisnewsletter, the Luebbert Article awardcommittee should have been listedas:

Robert Rohrschneider, IndianaUniversity, chair(rrorsch@indiana.edu), Mitchell Seligson, VanderbiltUniversity, chair (m.seligson@vander-bilt.edu),Devra Moehler, Cornell University(dcm37@cornell.edu).

and Public Goods Provision in RuralChina.”

27APSA-CP Vol 18, No. 2News & Notes

Call for Papers:Workshop "TheNumbers We Use,the World We See Evaluating Cross-National Datasets inComparativePolitics"This workshop will be part of the 2008Joint Sessions of Workshops of theEuropean Consortium for PoliticalResearch (ECPR), the mainEuropean organization of (compara-tive) political scientists, which will behosted in Rennes, France. Unlikepanel conferences such as APSA andIPSA, participants at this conferenceattend only one workshop but for thefull period of 11-16 April 2006. Thisunique setting provides for the moststimulating academic environment inwhich everyone discusses eachother’s work.

The prime aim of this workshop is toevaluate critically, as well as con-structively, some of the major cross-national datasets that are used in thefield of comparative political science.Authors shall assess the strengthsand weaknesses of these datasets –their conceptual foundations, meas-urement decisions, documentarybases, technical procedures, andpublication practices. In addition, theyshall discuss the empirical and theo-retical implications these strengthsand limitations carry for the study ofpolitics. How do the numbers we useaffect the world we see? Some ofthese datasets have been genuinelyconstitutive of their field of research.Their critical assessment shall pro-vide vital insights to both youngerscholars, who are still looking forwhich datasets to use in their work,

and more seasoned colleagues, whomight not have full oversight of thequalities and implications of thedatasets available in the field.

The workshop is aimed at discussinga wide range of datasets that areused frequently in the field, includingthose used for primary and secondaryanalysis. Among the datasets we areinterested in are cross-national sur-veys of mass attitudes (like theEurobarometer, European SocialSurvey or the World Values Studies),collaborative research projects (likethe ECPR Manifesto Project or theFreedom House dataset), so-calledexpert studies (such as those organ-ized by Michael Laver and his collab-orators or the Euroskepticism datasetfrom UNC), cross-national collectionsof “objective” data (like the OECD orUN datasets), and combined metadatasets (such as that ofTransparency International).

We are looking for neither strong pro-tagonists not vehement critics ofthese datasets. The project can onlybe successful if the contributors arecritical but constructive in their atti-tude towards the dataset they assess.The key aim is not to reject the use ofcross-national datasets, but to sys-tematically examine their strengthsand weaknesses as well as, mostimportantly, the substantive implica-tions these strengths and weakness-es carry for comparative empiricalresearch. Datasets are not an end inthemselves. By improving them weaspire to improve the comparativeresearch based on them. Proposalsfor papers should be submitted toboth conveners: Cas Mudde(cas.mudde@ua.ac.be) and AndreasSchedler(andreas.schedler@cide.edu). Formore information on the 2008 JointSessions of Workshops, or on thisworkshop, seehttp://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/events/jointsessions/rennes/index.aspx.

Ben Ross Schneider, NorthwesternUniversity (brs@northwestern.edu),chair; Steven Wilkinson, University ofChicago (swilkinson@uchicago.edu),chair

The Comparative Politics section,using this year’s APSA theme ofCategories and the Politics of GlobalInequalities as our inspiration, espe-cially invites panel and paper propos-als that reexamine the analytic cate-gories we use in comparative politics.Proposals, for instance, might wish toexamine how categories such asclass, ethnicity, race, developingworld, institution, globalization, or cor-ruption were formed, whether thesecategories are valid, and also how theuse of these categories shapes ourinterpretations of outcomes (and cate-gories) such as conflict, economicdevelopment, democratic consolida-tion, party competition, or economic,ethnic, and gender inequalities. Inaddition, inequality has long been acentral concern in comparative poli-tics, both across countries and within.We welcome proposals that interro-gate conventional wisdom on inequal-ity, as well as the impact of globaleconomic integration and democrati-zation on it. Because APSA meetingsprovide rare opportunities for debateamong scholars working on differentregions, we welcome cross-regionalpanels on topics such as immigration,rentier and failed states, party andelectoral systems, and varieties ofcapitalism, as well as the categoriesand inequalities mentioned above.Inaddition to these thematic panels, wealso as usual encourage panels fromthe full range of diversity of areas,topics, and theoretical and method-ological perspectives that togetherconstitute comparative politics.

2008-2009 APSACall for Papers andPanels

In this Newsletter:Volume 18, Issue 2 Summer 2007

APSA-CP NewsletterUniversity of Notre Dame217 O’Shaughnessy HallNotre Dame, IN 46556USA

Non Profit OrganizationU.S. Postage

PaidNotre Dame Indiana

Permit No.10

Letter from the Editors 1

Guest Letter 2 Bolivarian Democracy,

Charles Tilly 2

Symposium: Policy Implications of Research on Civil Wars 7Congressional Testimony (Excerpts),

James Fearon 8Iraq: Why Weak States Breed Violence,

Barbara Walter 12Toward More Policy Relevant Research on Violence in Civil War,

Bethany Lacina and Jeremy Weinstein 15

Book Review: Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts:A User’s Guide 19

David Waldner 19Gary Goertz (Author’s Response) 21

Datasets 22What Is Civil War and How Should We Measure It?

Nicholas Sambanis 22Other datasets 25

News & Notes 26Announcements 26

Copyright 2007 American Political Science Association. Published with financial assistancefrom the members of the Organized Section in Comparative Politics of the AmericanPolitical Association and the College of Arts and Letters, the Helen Kellogg Institute forInternational Studies, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of the University ofNotre Dame du Lac.

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