International politics by other means: External sources of civil war
| Author | Mark Toukan |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343319841661 |
| Date | 01 November 2019 |
| Published date | 01 November 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
International politics by other means:
External sources of civil war
Mark Toukan
RAND Corporation
Abstract
The literature on civil wars has recently turned towards their international context but lacks an account for how
conflict beyond a state’s borders contributes to civil war onset. I argue that interstate rivalries can increase the risk of
civil war in other states when rivals come to associate the foreign-policy orientation of other states with their own
security. I present three pathways through which rivals increase the risk of civil war in other states. First, competition
between rivals creates a ratchet effect by which the prospect of one’s involvement in a conflict makes it more likely
that the other becomes involved. This dynamic makes support easier to secure and lowers the expected costs of war
for governments and opposition groups. Second, rivals encourage domestic polarization as parties attempt to capture
their influence, making domestic conflicts more intractable. Third, uncertainty over the potential for intervention by
rivals increases the risk of miscalculation. I test the implications of the theory with novel spatial measures of interstate
conflict and rivalry. Using logistic regressions and random forests, I find that being in the neighborhood of interstate
rivals can increase a state’s risk of civil war.
Keywords
civil war onset, interstate rivalry, polarization, intervention
How do international politics influence the outbreak of
civil wars? This is a connection that seems intuitive to
many – that we ‘might make progress by [ ...] thinking
about civil wars as international politics by other means’–
though theories developed to address this question have
largely adopted a flat, non-strategic conception of inter-
national politics (Fearon & Laitin, 2008: 20, emphasis in
original). The literature on the causes of civil war lacks a
systematic account of how the same politics that play out
over the course of civil wars contribute to their onset
(Poast, 2015). If governments and opposition groups are
even minimally strategic, then the preferences and stra-
tegic relationships between third parties should factor
into their decisions to escalate or compromise in their
internal conflicts. Assuming that these actors are strate-
gic, we would then like to know whether those states
whose geopolitical context places them in a higher risk
category for intervention are also at greater risk of civil
war in the first place (Gleditsch, 2007: 296). In other
words, how does conflict between third parties shape the
incentives and strategies of governments and opposition
groups, and how does variation in a state’s geopolitical
environment shape its risk of civil war?
This article develops and tests a theory of how strate-
gic competition between interstate rivals contributes to
the onset of civil war in other states. While we lack an
account of how interstate conflict contributes to the
onset of civil wars, recent work suggests that the inter-
national system should matter for understanding civil
war onset. The superpower rivalry in the Cold War mat-
tered for how civil wars were fought (Kalyvas & Balcells,
2010). If there is such a strong relationship between
conflict in the international system and how wars are
fought, it is no great leap to suspect that interstate com-
petition influences when and where civil wars occur.
That is, conflict between states can contribute to conflict
within states.
I argue that rivals increase the risk of civil war in other
states by serving as a source of foreign support. Rivals are
Corresponding author:
mtoukan@rand.org
Journal of Peace Research
2019, Vol. 56(6) 812–826
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343319841661
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