Description: This book argues that political and economic inequalities following group lines generate grievances that in turn can motivate civil war. Lars-Erik Cederman, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, and Halvard Buhaug offer a theoretical approach that highlights ethnonationalism and how the relationship between group identities and inequalities are fundamental for successful mobilization to resort to violence. Although previous research highlighted grievances as a key motivation for political violence, contemporary research on civil war has largely dismissed grievances as irrelevant, emphasizing instead the role of opportunities. This book shows that the alleged non-results for grievances in previous research stemmed primarily from atheoretical measures, typically based on individual data. The authors develop new indicators of political and economic exclusion at the group level, and show that these exert strong effects on the risk of civil war. They provide new analyses of the effects of transnational ethnic links and the duration of civil wars, and extended case discussions illustrating causal mechanisms.
Brief description: Kristian Skrede Gleditsch is Professor in the Department of Government, University of Essex, and a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Civil War, Peace Research Institute Oslo. His research interests include conflict and cooperation, democratization, and spatial dimensions of social and political processes. He is the author of All International Politics is Local: The Diffusion of Conflict, Integration, and Democratization (2002) and Spatial Regression Models (2008), as well as numerous journal articles. He is the winner of the 2012 American Political Science Association's Heinz I. Eulau Award (with Lars-Erik Cederman and Nils B. Weidmann), the 2011 International Association for Conflict Management outstanding article in the field award (with David E. Cunningham and Idean Salehyan), the 2007 Karl Deutsch Award from International Studies Association, and the 2000 American Political Science Association's Helen Dwight Reid Award.
Review Quotes: "The role of grievances in insurgency and civil war has had a roller coaster career since the 1970s. Once regarded as prime causes of these conflicts, grievances subsequently were shelved in favor of factors like resources, political opportunities, and state capacity. Inequality, Grievances, and Civil War makes a persuasive case that the literature has thrown the baby out with the bath water. Based on the methodologically sophisticated analysis of comprehensive new cross-national databases, Cederman and his associates reinstate the causal priority of shared grievances in explaining civil war - an achievement that has profound policy implications. A must-read for scholars of civil conflict."
Michael Hechter, Arizona State University and the University of Copenhagen