The Drivers of Armed Conflict

Excerpted from "external pageArmed Conflict:Trends and Drivers,call_made" Chapter 3

In the context of reviewing contemporary armed conflict, the more interesting question about Egypt and Libya may not be, what led to revolt?, but, why did revolt lead to war in Libya but not in Egypt? Questions about the conditions that lead to rebellion, state collapse, and regime overthrow are obviously important, but as important are questions about the conditions that tip political conflict and violent clashes over into war.

As a broad generalization, the kind Gareth Evans warns against, one can credibly say that armed conflict is more likely to occur when communities are imbued with deeply held reasons for rejecting the status quo, when they have access to physical and political/social resources for violence, and when they are convinced or can credibly claim that such violence is their only hope for change. Ohlson puts it this way: “The onset of intra-state armed conflict requires a combination of three things: Reasons in the form of motivating grievances, Resources in the form of capabilities and opportunity, and Resolve in the form of a perception that nothing short of violence will allow you to achieve your goals.”[1] Bellamy adds issues of identity[2] – when political grievances are linked to particular communities and regions both the intensity of the grievances and the calculations of capacity are increased.

With those broad categories in mind, the following four basic conditions offer a framework for exploring the drivers of armed conflict:

1. The presence of heightened political, economic, and social grievances (grievance);

2. Intergroup competition and conflict (identity);

3. Preparedness and capacity (of at least one party) to use violence and violate human rights (capacity); and

4. The perceived absence of effective pathways for nonviolent conflict resolution (the lack of alternatives).

The focus is not on the broad range of sources of political conflict; instead, it is the particular conditions that are more likely to lead from political conflict to sustained violent confrontation. The point is to assess, not the roots of conflict, but the conditions that increase the risks of armed conflict.

Grievances: Economic, political, and social conditions and armed conflict

Economic

“The most robustly significant predictor of [armed] conflict risk and its duration is some indicator of economic prosperity. At a higher income people have more to lose from the destructiveness of conflict; and higher per-capita income implies a better functioning social contract, institutions and state capacity.”[3]

This correlation between underdevelopment and armed conflict is confirmed in a 2008 paper by Thania Paffenholz[4] which notes that “since 1990, more than 50% of all conflict-prone countries have been low income states…. Two thirds of all armed conflicts take place in African countries with the highest poverty rates. Econometric research found a correlation between the poverty rate and likelihood of armed violence….[T]he lower the GDP per capita in a country, the higher the likelihood of armed conflict.” Of course, it is important to point out that this is not a claim that there is a direct causal connection between poverty and armed conflict. To repeat, the causes of conflict are complex and context specific, nevertheless, says Paffenholz, there is a clear correlation between a low and declining per capita income and a country’s vulnerability to conflict. It is also true, on the other hand, that there are low income countries that experience precipitous economic decline, like Zambia in the 1980s and 1990s, without suffering the kind of turmoil that has visited economically more successful countries like Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire. Referring to both Zambia and Nigeria, Pafenholz says these are cases in which “the social compact” has proven to be resilient. Both have formal and informal mechanisms that are able to address grievances in ways that allowed them to be aired and resolved or managed without recourse to violence.

A brief review of literature on economics and armed conflict, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, indicates the complexity and imprecision behind the question, “does poverty cause conflict?” While many of the “world’s poorest countries are riven by armed conflict,” and while poverty, conflict and under-development set up a cycle of dysfunction in which each element of the cycle is exacerbated by the other, it is also the case that “conflict obviously does not just afflict the poorest countries” – as Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia demonstrate. “Many poor countries are not at war; shared poverty may not be a destabilizing influence. Indeed, economic growth can destabilize, as the wars in countries afflicted by an abundance of particular natural resources appear to show.”[5]

Another review of the literature makes the general point that “the escalation of conflict during economic downturns is more likely in countries recovering from conflict, or fragile states.” That makes Africa especially vulnerable on two counts: economic deprivation and recent armed conflict are present in a relatively high number of states, making the continent especially vulnerable to economic shocks. As a general rule, “weak economies often translate into weak and fragile states and the presence of violent conflict, which in turn prevents economic growth.” One study argues that “the risk of war in any given country is determined by the initial level of income, the rate of economic growth and the level of dependency on primary commodity exports.” Changes in rates of economic growth thus lead to changes in threats of conflict. As unemployment rises in fragile states this can “exacerbate conflict due to comparatively better income opportunities for young men in rebel groups as opposed to labour markets.”[6]

The concentration of armed conflict in lower income countries is also reflected in the conflict tabulation by Project Ploughshares over the past quarter century. The 2009 Human Development Index ranks 182 countries in four categories of Human Development – Very High, High, Medium, Low. Of the 98 countries in the Medium and Low categories of human development in 2009, 55 per cent experienced war on their territories in the previous 24 years. In the same period, only 24 per cent of countries in the High human development category saw war within their borders, while just two (5 per cent) countries in the Very High human development ranking had war on their territory (the UK re Northern Ireland and Israel). The wars of the recent past were overwhelmingly fought on the territories of states at the low end of the human development scale.

A country’s income level is thus a strong indicator of its risk of being involved in sustained armed conflict. Low income countries lack the capacity to create conditions conducive to serving the social, political, and economic welfare of their people. And when economic inequality is linked to differences between identity groups, the correlation to armed conflict is even stronger. In other words, group based inequalities are especially destabilizing.[7] These failures in human security are of course heavily shaped by external factors, notably international economic and security conditions and the interests of the major powers (in short, globalization),[8] and these factors frequently combine with internal political/religious/ethnic circumstances that create conditions especially conducive to conflict and armed conflict.

Natural Resources

Both scarcity and abundance in natural resources can increase the risks of armed conflict. Resource scarcity in some instances foments violent competition (for example, in Somalia and Darfur where the boundaries between arid and semi-arid or cultivatable land are shifting). Resource abundance can also lead to violent competition in the exploitation of those resources for the wealth that they bring. The conflict diamonds story testifies to the contribution of natural resources extraction to the occurrence and durability of armed conflict. A study of the role of forestry also finds that in a number of conflict settings (Burma, Cambodia, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Liberia) logging has fueled corruption, financed weapons purchases, has drawn workers into conflicts, generated militias, and helped to launder funds from other criminal activity. Conflicts can escalate into violent disputes over land ownership and logging concessions.[9] Another study suggests that while “natural resources do not always play a primary role in starting armed violence,” they are instrumental in keeping it going. Thus “conflict erupts for a variety of inter-related reasons, but they can be perpetuated by greed when a state is weak and unable to protect its porous borders from state and non-state armed combatants.” Scholars tend to agree “that weak, weakened and/or unaccountable states with natural resources such as minerals, diamonds and oil are more prone to conflict.” In some instances “conflict is used as a strategic tool so the resources can be unlawfully extracted with impunity.”[10] A number of studies document the exacerbation and extension of armed conflict through drug markets.[11]

On the grievance vs greed debate, it can be said that grievances are often at the root of the development or beginning of conflicts, while greed may become more involved in ensuring that conflicts persist. Even in conflicts begun to redress injustice, economic opportunity or greed can take over as combatants have opportunities to loot, sell valuable minerals, trade drugs and weapons, and so on.[12]

Political

A focus on the structural conditions that clearly foster or are conducive to the outbreak of prolonged armed conflict has a tendency to depoliticize it, to understate the place of human decision-making and the role of charismatic leadership in either rejecting or choosing and persisting in violence and war.[13] South Africa in the immediate post-apartheid years had all the structural conditions associated with the onset of armed conflict – extreme grievances, communal suspicion and a long history of politicized identity, and opportunity in the form of a mobilized and energized population. The crucial fact that the population became convinced that there was a non-violent alternative was not that they trusted the country’s public institutions to now deliver justice, rather it was because of one charismatic leader who embodied the alternative.

The rather extreme antithesis of the charisma of Nelson Mandela is that of Cambodia’s Pol Pot.[14] Jonas Savimbi in Angola led his rebel group for decades, despite few prospects for success, in persistent and destructive war. Six weeks after his death a ceasefire was signed. Strong personalities help to drive armed conflict in contemporary Afghanistan and Libya. An examination of the structural correlates to war is essential to improving war prevention strategies, but it should not verge toward structural determinism. Human beings shape their material and social surroundings, and they also shape “the conceptual framework and the ideas through which they understand the social order and what is possible within it.”[15]

The absence of charismatic leadership in Government can of course hasten the loss of credibility for any regime that manifests structural conditions of instability. Ohlsen refers to “vertical legitimacy” as public acceptance of governmental authority and the voluntary acceptance of the prevailing order, and “horizontal legitimacy” as mutual acceptance at the popular level – that is, a high degree of tolerance and acceptance across racial, cultural, ethnic, and economic lines. But the two are linked and a lack of vertical legitimacy contributes to horizontal suspicions inasmuch as distrust of public institutions can lead to the search for stability and security through loyalty to one’s own group. The vertical “legitimacy gap” is the difference between citizen expectations of the state (i.e. protection of political and cultural freedom, socio-economic well-being) in exchange for their taxes and loyalty, and what the state is actually willing or able to deliver. The horizontal “legitimacy gap” relates to the absence of tolerance and mutual respect between communities.[16]

The wider these gaps the greater the risk of intrastate violence. Government actions that contribute to both vertical and horizontal delegitimization include exclusionary and discriminatory governance arrangements, especially when the discrimination is against particular communities or classes. Thus political and economic inequality linked to regional or communal disparity is divisive and conducive to instability. When these conditions are joined by demographic factors, like high levels of young males in the population, changing environmental conditions, or other external stresses, the threat of conflict escalating to violence is intensified. On top of that, it is not uncommon for weak states to seek to bolster their authority and to hold onto power by politicizing identity and promoting group-based loyalties. Thus, as the Human Security Report notes, “high levels of political discrimination are a key cause of violent ethnic conflict.”[17]

Historical grievances, especially when linked to identity, can fester over generations and rise quickly to the fore in response to triggering events. In the clashes that engulfed Kenya in the aftermath of the 2007 election, some of the violence was prominently linked to unresolved land and property issues going back to the colonial period, issues that have been routinely exploited by Kenyan politicians to win support from particular ethnic communities.[18] In the Middle East, history is obviously central to ongoing conflict. Robert Fisk makes the point, in the current Libyan crisis, that Libyans also are not disconnected from history. “Their grandfathers – in some cases their fathers – fought against the Italians; thus a foundation of resistance, a real historical narrative, lies beneath their opposition to Gaddafi; hence Gaddafi’s own adoption of resistance – to the mythical threat of al-Qaida’s ‘foreign’ brutality – is supposed to maintain support for his regime.”[19]

Identity: Intergroup competition and armed conflict

Historical grievances that become focused by one community on another are thereby intensified. They foster the vilification of the “other,” making that part of a community’s culture and story, and thus a strong mobilizing instrument. Furthermore, grievances that are politicized along communal and geographic lines are especially conducive to long-term or extended armed confrontation because they carry all of the emotional, political, and financial resources that are available through such communities. Recruitment to the cause, whether for groups that hold power or those that seek it, is facilitated through group loyalty appeals, and the same goes for raising financial resources. Compromise is difficult and “winning” is not necessarily associated with immediate gains but is understood to be a long-term goal, generations long perhaps, that is worth fighting for, “if not for me then for my children.”

When grievances over poverty and inequality parallel or are identified with particular ethnicities or regions they come to be perceived as group-based inequalities, thus increasing the potential for conflict as particular communities link their aspirations and identity to collective action in response to concrete grievances. The politicization of such grievances through specific communities escalates the potential for violent confrontation, especially when those same communities are effectively marginalized in the national political process.

Religion and ethnicity are prominent factors in the majority of contemporary wars (e.g. Iraq, Israel, Russia, Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Algeria, Libya, Burundi, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda). But religious and ethnic conflicts are as much a product as a cause of conflict. When states fail to produce the security that their citizens need, many are led to appeal to other political and social units or entities, such as ethnic communities, through which to pursue individual and collective security. Ethnic or "identity" conflicts – that is, conflicts in which the rights and political/social viability of ethnic groups or national communities are central issues – are invariably reflections of a more fundamental social conflict, borne out of a community's experience of economic disparity, political discrimination, human rights violations, pressures generated by environmental degradation and other factors. Identity conflicts emerge with intensity when a community loses confidence in mainstream political institutions and processes and, in response to unmet basic needs for social and economic security, resolves to strengthen its collective influence and to struggle for political/legal recognition as a community. Failure to address grievances makes group solidarity an increasingly attractive political strategy, and when easy-to-use and easy-to-get small arms are thrown into the mix (the matter of resources or capacity), the result, not surprisingly, is often persistent armed conflict.

“Conflicts that develop around issues of identity, ethnicity, religion, or culture are often grounded in unmet human needs.” And human needs are broad, obviously including food and shelter, certainly safety and security are basic. But less tangible values like dignity, freedom and self-esteem are also relevant and consequential.[20] The extent to which identify revolves around particular ethnic, religious, or cultural communities, the antidote will inevitably include the creation and nurture of a civic identity – essentially citizenship that is shared with a mix of communities.

Intractable conflict

Maise argues persuasively that conflicts are more likely to become intractable when they involve multiple parties and issues such as historical, religious, cultural, and economic grievances. The more they involve issues or questions that have become central to a party’s identity, the less amenable they are to negotiation and thus the more intractable, and sometimes the more violent because of the sense that there are no alternatives.[21] “The polarization of unchallengeable certainties” is a phrase used by Drew Gilpin Faust, president of Harvard,[22] in another context, but it nicely describes the impossible stand-off when deeply held and opposing moral convictions come to lodge at the roots of political conflict, or when competing identities hold opposing positions that both sides consider to threaten their very existence. It is part of the phenomenon of intractable conflicts. What is common to all such conflicts “is that they involve interests or values that the disputants regard as critical to their survival” and critical to their identity. “These underlying causes include parties’ moral values, identities, and fundamental human needs.”[23] Furthermore, such conflicts are not amenable to win-win solutions. Indeed, “those involved in moral conflict may even regard perpetuation of the conflict as virtuous or necessary. They may derive part of their identity from being warriors or opponents of their enemy and have a stake in the continuation of the conflict because it provides them with a highly desirable role.”[24]

Diaspora groups

For “conflict-generated diaspora groups” the homeland “often takes on a high symbolic value and becomes a focal point for mobilisation.” Thus “diasporas often support militants and tend to frame conflicts in uncompromising and categorical ways that influence political strategies of parties (largely those opposing government) at home. These parties also rely on “diaspora supporters for resources and access to international media, international organisations, and powerful host governments.” And this in turn “gives diaspora groups influential roles in the adoption of strategies relating to conflict.”[25]

That influence means, of course, that diaspora communities can also be mobilized for peacebuilding purposes and to minimize risks of armed conflict.

Capacity: Preparedness and capacity for armed conflict

Even though political and economic conditions may be in place to threaten the onset of armed conflict in a particular context, generating the capacity to undertake armed conflict is not easy. It is significantly challenging to assemble the financial, combat, and political/psychological resources needed to mount a sustained effort to challenge existing authorities by means of violence.

Unfortunately, however, that challenge is mitigated by the abundance of weapons in most regions of prolonged conflict. Thus, many non-state groups, as well as states, have the means to build the capability for armed conflict – which doesn’t mean they have the capacity to prevail. These ubiquitous small arms and light weapons (from assault rifles to locally fashioned explosive devices) employ relatively simple technologies that are not only widely available but are readily useable by non-military combatants, including the children that are forced to become child combatants.[26]

Demographic factors can further add capacity and opportunity. Half of the population of the Arab world is under 30 years of age.[27] In Egypt, with two-thirds of the population under 30, educated, urbanized, and unemployed young people were key to the extraordinary revolution there.[28] Sub-Sahara Africa is even younger, with some countries like Uganda with 70 percent of the population under 30.[29] The advent of liberal democracies is associated with older populations, meaning that as Arab and African populations age, the prospects for less combat and for more stability and accountable governance increase, but in the meantime a large, young, male population adds an extra layer of volatility.

In a sense, small arms facilitate what can be described as the demilitarization of war – without any particular expertise or training required, small arms and light weapons have helped to transform armed combat from the “profession of war,” carried out by professional military organizations and soldiers, or even volunteer soldiers trained and commanded by professionals. Most armed conflicts involve the armed forces of a Government on one side, but some don’t and in many cases antigovernment forces are civilian or citizen fighters rather than trained soldiers. Civilians are the primary victims of contemporary war,[30] but they have also become the principle combatants. The UN Secretary General reports regularly on the plight of civilians in combat situations, and the most recent report concluded that “civilians still account for the vast majority of casualties and continue to be targeted…,”[31] and at least part of what lies behind this is the fact that the distinctions between civilians and civilian combatants is blurred.

In addition to basic military capabilities, organizational capacity and governance structures within affected communities become important means of mobilizing and retaining popular consent for armed struggle. Access to media, including of course modern social media to influence an international constituency, comes into play, as does foreign assistance (sometimes through diaspora communities). What are referred to as “opportunity structures” (that is, the environmental or contextual opportunities or restraints) can play a major role. Such factors as terrain on which to battle (e.g. mountains available for hideouts), opportunities to “loot” or commandeer resources, a supportive diaspora, sympathetic foreign governments or rebel groups – all of these and other factors contribute to or restrain the military option.

In advanced armed campaigns there inevitably emerge benefits that flow to actors in war that are not available in peace (employment, spoils of war). In that sense, “war does not represent anarchy, but an alternative order for obtaining and distributing power and profit.”

The presence of strong identity groups can also be understood as a conflict “resource” or “opportunity” inasmuch as an identity group offers an alternative to the state for a social compact.

Absence of alternatives

A key element in developing a collective resolve to resort to overt violence through an armed campaign is the genuinely perceived or credibly claimed absence of alternatives to violence. If the absence of alternatives is pervasively felt, then when triggering events occur, the aggrieved are likely to turn much more readily to armed options that are available, than to spend a lot of time trying to construct alternatives in an environment that they believe has offered them none.

As the power and sovereignty of states erode in the face of economic, cultural, environmental, and security conditions that transcend national boundaries (globalization), it is those same increasingly dependent and essentially weakened states that bear the primary responsibility for maintaining local, and thus ultimately global, security. Inasmuch as the main contemporary threat to global security is not the threat of war between states but of war within states, it is national governments even more than international systems that find themselves on the front lines of war prevention. To meet that responsibility, according to the OECD Guidelines on Conflict, Peace and Development Cooperation, each state needs “institutions capable of managing socio-political tensions and avoiding their escalation into violence.”[32] But, of course, states that are failing, where the threat of disintegration into armed violence threatens directly, are the states that also have the weakest political institutions and are the least likely to find means of effectively mediating national conflict. And it is a measure of the dysfunction (or underdevelopment) of modern states that there have been times in the past quarter century when almost one in five had failed so badly in managing their socio-political affairs that tension had escalated into a level of violence sufficient to define them as a location of ongoing war – currently it is down to one in eight.

Even though armed conflict is heavily correlated with underdevelopment, meaning especially institutional underdevelopment that results in the absence of conflict management capacity, the international community has been very slow to recognize that the promotion of human development – not only moving states into higher categories of human development, but also building trusted mediating institutions – needs to become a strategic security objective.

The international community has come to understand the strategic threats that are inherent in failures in human security and in the local conflicts that ensue. Even before 9/11 it had become “clear that isolating chaos with a cordon sanitaire was not a realistic option in a world in which the movement not only of people, but also that of information could not be stopped.”[33] Global strategic stability cannot be separated from the promotion of stability and accountability within states. But there is not yet sufficient recognition that armed conflict mitigation actions need to be focused much more prominently on the final of the four conditions identified above – notably, the absence of alternatives to violence in getting grievances addressed.

The pervasive sense or claim that there is no alternative to armed resistance in the effort to get grievances heard, and no alternative to armed confrontation in pursuing equitable solutions to inter-group competition/conflict, is at the root of transforming political conflict into armed conflict. Gerd Schönwälder, in the new IDRC publication on neoliberalism and armed conflict, makes the point that “the prevention of political violence must include fundamental improvements to the quality of democracy as such. Creating more opportunities for political participation – including for expressing dissent – will help, especially when accompanied by institutional channels and capacities to deliver on legitimate demands.”[34]

In a sense, of the four basic drivers of armed conflict – grievances, competing identities, capacity, and the lack of alternatives – it is the latter that is most amenable to short-term change. Grievances rooted in structural inequities require long-term attention. Inter-group conflict, usually with deep historical roots, may be amenable to short term measures and policies available to ease tensions, but such tensions are linked to serious and structural economic and political conditions that require generations to shift. What has to, and can, change is a group’s perception that its best option is armed conflict. Changing that perception or resolve cannot, obviously, be premised on persuading an aggrieved group to accept or acquiesce to inequity. Rather, the focus needs to be on addressing the perception/conviction that there are no alternatives. That requires the demonstration and the construction, in the short-term, of genuine alternatives. Such measures might include:

• demonstrable international political solidarity with aggrieved populations;

• external economic and political pressures on regimes;

• third party mechanisms for addressing the conflict.

The international community has been especially weak, and in many cases actively counter-productive, in demonstrating political solidarity with aggrieved populations. Rather than generating ideas and conditions conducive to seeking diplomatic and non-violent remedies for vulnerable populations, too often the international community has focused on the opposite. In Egypt and Libya, before the recent crises, the international community was in fact fully concentrated on sending messages to the Egyptian and Libyan people that the regimes that oppressed them had the backing of the international community, that the regimes served the interests of powerful international interests and were regarded as agents of stability. The message was that the Mubarak and Gadhafi regimes had powerful friends and backers – and that the people of Egypt and Libya could expect no help from the international community in seeking peaceful change. The same goes now for Saudi Arabia, and for Zaire before that, but the examples are legion. The international community’s withdrawal of support from the Mubarak and Gadhafi regimes were belated but important gestures in the pursuit of a non-violent end to the crisis. In Libya, obviously, many other factors – not least its deep regional and ethnic cleavages – served to drive it increasingly toward violence.

To reverse that pattern the international community will have to find new approaches, multilaterally and locally. On the macro diplomatic front there is a requirement for sustained measures and efforts to delegitimize dictatorial regimes and create external pressures for change that are supportive of internal efforts. In short, at the national and local levels there is a requirement for measures that build a sense that alternatives to violence can become available.

Triggering war

Armed conflict is rooted in political and economic conditions that typically build up over a long period of time, that take a long time to alter, and that typically don’t lead to violence without a significant triggering event. Such an event can, for example, be specific economic or political decisions that are perceived by a particular group or segment of the population to be egregiously unjust or discriminatory (e.g. sharp food price increases, infrastructure projects that threaten the livelihood or homes of a particular region or group). Triggering events can also be external, like a drought or other natural catastrophes, adding extraordinary stress to an already fragile political/economic environment and thus also building toward a tipping point.

One survey[35] identifies several such key triggers that are distinct from underlying causes or conditions. Climate change, migration, and conflict are inextricably linked – climate change is seen to be a root cause of migration (water scarcity, for example); a triggering event can be extreme drought, flash floods, and so on. Dependence on foreign aid and investment leads to instability when “aid shocks” occur. Aid can obviously reduce the likelihood of armed conflict by helping a state to credibly address economic grievances. But “sudden aid shortfalls make governments relatively less able to make enough side-payments or military investment to preserve the peaceful status quo in the future.”[36] Water scarcity and consumption patterns, for example, can generate conflict over long periods – as reflected in urban/rural divisions, competition among agricultural communities, nomad/settler divisions, the conflicting interests of users and managers of water supplies, conflicts related to large water projects (dams, export plans, etc.).

Preconditions for mass atrocities

It is not possible to predict whether or when an armed conflict will involve mass atrocities, but it is clear that there are governments as well as non-state groups that are prepared to engage in mass killings under certain conditions – but it is not predictable when that point will be reached or what the triggering event will be. Thus the prevention of mass atrocities is fundamentally the prevention of armed conflict itself (although there are instances of mass atrocities outside of armed conflict).

A recent Stanley Foundation Report[37] identifies “preconditions of genocide and mass atrocities.” These are to be understood as “necessary but insufficient risk factors” that should be addressed in the context of armed conflict prevention generally. “The presence of one or more of these conditions is necessary for the future commission of genocide or mass atrocities, but their presence does not mean that genocide or mass atrocities are inevitable or that these crimes will occur within a given period of time.” These are assessments of the likelihood of mass atrocities – and likelihood increases in the context of certain conditions, such as the politicization of religious or ethnic conflict, the absence of democracy and the rule of law, low and unequal national income, and the presence of armed conflict and multiple armed groups (see Appendix II for the Stanley Foundation summary).

At the outset we asked why the rebellion in Egypt, while it involved violent episodes, did not descend into full-scale war, while in Libya it did. Both were obviously grievance-based revolts, but in Libya ethnic and regional cleavages were much more important. In Libya the opposition had basic capacity for violence through access to arms while the regime showed a capacity, willingness, to resort to mass attacks on civilians (while in Egypt the Army played a moderating role). And in Egypt, the protestors, with international support, had opportunities for negotiation – in other words, saw political alternatives to violence.

[…]

[1] Thomas Ohlson, “Understanding Causes of War and Peace,” European Journal of International Relations, 2008 14:133 (Sage, http://www.sagepublications.com).

[2] Alex J. Bellamy, “Mass Atrocities and Armed Conflict: Links, Distinctions, and Implications for the Responsibility to Prevent,” Policy Analysis Brief, The Stanley Foundation, February 2011. http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/publications/pab/BellamyPAB22011.pdf.

[3] Murshed, S.M., and Tadjoeddin, M.H., 2007, “Revisiting the Greed and Grievance Explanations for Violent Internal Conflict,” MICROCON Research Working Paper No. 2, MICROCON, Brighton. http://www.un.org/esa/policy/wess/wess2008files/mansoob_postconflict.pdf.

[4] Thania Paffenholz, “Underdevelopment and Armed Conflict: Making Sense of the Debates.” Paper presented at the International Studies Annual Convention San Francisco, 26-29 March 2008. Centre for Conflict, Peace and Development, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.

[5] Maria Kett and Michael Rowson, “Drivers of violent conflict,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, September 2007, Vol. 100, No. 9, pp. 403-406.

[6] Bakrania, S., and Lucas, B., 2009, ‘The Impact of the Financial Crisis on Conflict and State Fragility in Africa’, Emerging Issues Paper commissioned by AusAID, Governance and Social Development Resource Centre (GSDRC), University of Birmingham http://www.gsdrc.org/docs/open/EIRS6.pdf.

[7] Maria Kett and Michael Rowson, “Drivers of violent conflict,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, September 2007, Vol. 100, No. 9, pp. 403-406.

[8] See Francisco Gutierrez and Gerd Schönwälder, eds., Economic Liberalization and Political Violence: Utopia or Dystopia? (Pluto Press and the International Development Research Centre, 2010, p. 339.

[9] Blundell, A., 2010, ‘Forests and Conflicts: The Financial Flows that Fuel War’, Program on Forests (PROFOR), Washington D.C.

http://www.profor.info/profor/sites/profor.info/files/Forests-fuelwar_Blundell.pdf.

[10] Kok, A., Lotze, W., and Jaarsveld, S.V., 2009, ‘Natural Resources, the Environment and Conflict’, ACCORD/Madariaga College Foundation, Durban.

http://www.accord.org.za/downloads/reports/Natural_Resources_Conflict.pdf.

[11] Felhab-Brown, V., 2010, ‘The Drug-Conflict Nexus in South Asia; Beyond Taliban Profits and Afghanistan’, in ‘The Afghan-Pakistan Theater: Militant Islam, Security, and Stability’, Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2010/05_regional_counternarcotics_felbabbrown/05_regional_counternarcotics_felbabbrown.pdf

Studies and Threat Analysis Section, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 2008, ‘Drug Trafficking as a Security Threat in West Africa’, UNODC, Vienna.

http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Studies/Drug-Trafficking-WestAfrica-English.pdf.

[12] Murshed, S.M., and Tadjoeddin, M.H., 2007, “Revisiting the Greed and Grievance Explanations for Violent Internal Conflict,” MICROCON Research Working Paper No. 2, MICROCON, Brighton. http://www.un.org/esa/policy/wess/wess2008files/mansoob_postconflict.pdf.

[13] Atack, I (2009) 'Peace studies and social change: The role of ethics and human agency' in Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review, Vol. 9, Autumn 2009, pp. 39-51, available: http://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue9-focus3.

[14] Socheat Som, “Pol Pot's Charisma,” Cambodia: Beauty and Darkness, December 2001. http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/pol_pot1.htm.

[15] Atack, I (2009) 'Peace studies and social change: The role of ethics and human agency' in Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review, Vol. 9, Autumn 2009, pp. 39-51, available: http://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue9-focus3.

[16] Thomas Ohlson, “Understanding Causes of War and Peace,” European Journal of International Relations, 2008 14:133 (Sage, http://www.sagepublications.com).

[17] Human Security Report Project. Human Security Report 2009/2010: The Causes of Peace and the Shrinking Costs of War. Pre-publication. Vancouver: HSRP, 2010. (Forthcoming in print from Oxford University Press). http://www.hsrgroup.org/human-security-reports/20092010/text.aspx.

[18] “Kenya violence: Deadly mix of politics and old grudges,” AlertNet, http://www.trust.org/alertnet/crisis-centre/crisis/kenya-violence.

[19] Robert Fisk, “The historical narrative that lies beneath the Gaddafi rebellion,” The Independent, 3 March 201. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-historical-narrative-that-lies-beneath-the-gaddafi-rebellion-2230654.html.

[20] Michelle Maiese, “Causes of Disputes and Conflicts,” BeyondIntractability.org, October 2003. http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/underlying_causes/.

[21] Michelle Maiese, “Causes of Disputes and Conflicts,” BeyondIntractability.org, October 2003. http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/underlying_causes/.

[22] Interview, The PBS News Hour, 12 February 2007. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june07/harvard_02-12.html.

[23] Michelle Maiese, “Causes of Disputes and Conflicts,” BeyondIntractability.org, October 2003. http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/underlying_causes/.

[24] Michelle Maiese, “Causes of Disputes and Conflicts,” BeyondIntractability.org, October 2003. http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/underlying_causes/.

[25] Lyons, T., 2007, 'Conflict-generated Diasporas and Transnational Politics in Ethiopia', Conflict, Security and Development, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 529-549. http://www.gsdrc.org/go/display&type=Document&id=3411.

[26] Many thousands of children, some as young as nine years, are mobilized in today’s wars. Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers: http://www.child-soldiers.org/childsoldiers/questions-and-answers.

[27] Bobby Ghosh, “Rage, Rap and Revolution: Inside the Arab Youth Quake,” Time Magazine, 17 February 2011. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2049808,00.html.

[28] Duncan Green, “What caused the revolution in Egypt?” PovertyMatters Blog, guardian.co.uk. 17 February 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/feb/17/what-caused-egyptian-revolution.

[29] Jennifer Wells, “Young and restless means Africa is at risk,” Toronto Star, 27 February 2011.

[30] The ICRC challenges the commonly advanced figure that 80 to 90 per cent of war casualties are civilians. The ICRC uses two sources to produce more conservative estimates. Its own surgical database, begun in 1991, shows that, reports of persons admitted for weapons injuries showed 35% to be female, or males under 16 and over 50 years of age – in other words, 35% of injuries were to persons could properly be assumed to be non-combatants. A second ICRC study found that 64% of fatalities tabulated were considered to be civilians. The ICRC concludes that, in any case, both figures for civilian casualties highlight the need for greater efforts toward special protection for civilians in conflict, and secondly, the evidence suggests the proportion of civilian deaths in conflicts has been increasing over the twentieth century. [ICRC, pp. 16-17] ICRC, Arms Availability and the Situation of Civilians in Armed Conflict (ICRC: Geneva, 1999), 80 pp.

[31] Report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, Security Council (S/2009/277), 29 May 2005. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N09/343/97/PDF/N0934397.pdf?OpenElement

[32] DAC Guidelines on Conflict, Peace and Development Co-Operation, OECD, Paris, 1997, p. 9. Available at: http://www.fas.org/asmp/campaigns/smallarms/eguide.pdf.

[33] Jean-Marie Guehenno, “The Impact of Globalization on Strategy,” Survival (IISS Quarterly, Winter 1998-99), p. 10.

[34] Francisco Gutierrez and Gerd Schönwälder, eds., Economic Liberalization and Political Violence: Utopia or Dystopia? (Pluto Press and the International Development Research Centre, 2010, p. 339.

[35] Helpdesk Research Report: Global Drivers of Conflict and Instability, Governance and Social Development Resource Centre. UK. http://www.gsdrc.org/docs/open/HD739.pdf.

[36] Helpdesk Research Report: Global Drivers of Conflict and Instability, Governance and Social Development Resource Centre. UK. http://www.gsdrc.org/docs/open/HD739.pdf.

Nielson, R.A., Findley, M.G., Davis, Z.S., Candland, T., and Nielson, D.L., 2010, ‘Foreign Aid Shocks as a Cause of Violent Conflict’, University of Harvard, Cambridge MA.

http://politicalscience.byu.edu/mfindley/assets/aid_shocks_war.pdf.

[37] Alex J. Bellamy, “Mass Atrocities and Armed Conflict: Links, Distinctions, and Implications for the Responsibility to Prevent,” Policy Analysis Brief, The Stanley Foundation, February 2011. http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/publications/pab/BellamyPAB22011.pdf.