05 CIWAWO1C algeria.qxd

The Algerian civil war that began in 1992 has gained notoriety for several reasons. It originated in a democratic process that came to an abrupt halt and had massacres of civilians that were shocking in their scale and atrocity. The government received significant amounts of external support despite accusations of widespread abuses relating to its prosecution of the conflict, and many recognized the possibility that Algeria represented another foothold for "radical Islam." In part because analysts often choose to investigate puzzles pertaining to one or another of these attention-catching aspects, research on the conflict has generated a number of seemingly competing perspectives, each with its own conclusions about the causes of the war and the logic of its conduct. Approaching Algeria from a comparative perspective on civil wars allows a synthesis of the insights of previous research and a comprehensive understanding of the war. Attention to the details of the Algerian civil war also offers a promising opportunity to refine theories of civil war. War duration as a consequence of the interaction between governments and insurgents rather than of determining structural factors, the role of diasporal communities defined on the basis of factors other than national identity, and the nature of opportunity costs to war emerge as important areas of future inquiry. Country Background Algeria’s war for independence from France, fought between 1954 and 1962, brought to a close more than one hundred years of colonial rule. Power struggles within the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), which—along with its military organization the Armeé de Libération Nationale (ALN)—was the force behind the struggle for independence, continued during the conflict. By the time Algeria gained its independence on July 2, 1962, the confrontation between the general staff of the armed forces and the provisional government had grown particularly intense as forces loyal to each group fought for control. This period is coded as a civil war (Doyle and Sambanis 2000; Fearon and Laitin 2003). In August, the provisional government offered to surrender, but the military faction continued to press the fight, successfully taking Algiers by September 8. Ahmed Ben Bella was chosen as president of the republic and Ferhat Abbas as president of the National Assembly in the elections that followed on September 20, 1962 (Laremont 2000). Ben Bella thus took control of what was, through a referendum on proposals for the constitution, a one-party state in which the executive and the FLN had exclusive power, the National Assembly standing without any functions of consequence. In the years following independence, Ben Bella worked to consolidate his power, and