POLI 354 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Guerrilla Warfare, Counter-Insurgency, Thomas Hobbes
13 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
POLI 360 Mar 12, 2018
Lecture 16: Ethnicity, Religion, and Civil War
Greed vs. Grievance Debate
• This debate emerged in the Cold War's aftermath
• Are rebels in civil war motivated by ethnic/regional/religious ideological grievances
against the state (Grievance)?
o Grievance rooted in ideology
• Or by a desire to make money through looting behaviour (Greed)?
o Even though these movements claimed ideology, they were in it to loot
• Rebels looting natural resources (precious minerals)
The Mechanisms of Civil War
• Since WWII, civil wars have been far more frequent and deadlier than inter-state wars
(127 civil wars vs. 25 interstate wars, 1945-99)
• Fearon and Laitin (2003) find that civil wars had been just as frequent during the Cold
War
• They also find that ethnic and religious diversity, and even levels of discrimination, do
not make a country more prone to civil war
• Rather, they find that when structural factors are favorable for insurgency, this makes
civil war more likely
• Insurgency is essentially guerilla warfare
What helps insurgency? The State Level
• Weak central governments that can't police properly make insurgency "more feasible and
attractive"
• This includes governments that retaliate indiscriminately against rebels, which helps
rebels recruitment
• Losing a foreign patron, or having few economic resources, are factors that inhibit
effective policing and counterinsurgency operations
• US - reluctant to help countries in the Global South through aid
Fearon and Laitin's "Hobbesian" explanation:
• "Where state are relatively weak and capricious, both fears and opportunities encourage
the rise of would-be rulers who supply a rough local justice while arrogating the power to
'tax' for themselves and, often, for a larger cause" (2003, p.76)
o State weakness contributes to an anarchic system
What helps insurgency? The Rebels
• Geographical factors such as:
o Rough terrain (mountainous or forested)
