Civil War Prediction: Literature Review on Territorial and Ethnic Structural Conditions

Abstract

Armed civil conflicts in foreign countries have significant consequences for states in the international system. The political, social and economic threats generated by them have in recent years become relevant in a global sense. In order to successfully deal with them, the international community desires to develop a reliable prediction and prevention model. The crucial part concerns the identification of the causal paths leading to conflict escalation but assembling these paths must be preceded by the evaluation of various possible causes as separate variables. It is also important to factor causal complexity into the model, therefore, to analyze not only single variables but also their interconnections. The article reviews two major areas of civil conflict causes – territorial and ethnic. It summarizes the main arguments and theories beyond the suggested proxy variables representing territorial and ethnic problems. By reviewing the existing research, this study aims to facilitate the selection of variables for prediction and prevention systems. The result is a literature review clarifying the relations among the causes of conflict that underlies their importance. All proposed territorial and ethnic causes have to be assessed in relation with complementary variables but also applied to a particular country which would benefit from the prediction and prevention model.

Keywords

• civil war
• conflict prediction
• conflict prevention
• ethnic conflict