How Much War Will We See? Estimating the Incidence of Civil War in 161 Countries
نویسندگان
چکیده
Quantitative studies of civil war have focused either on war initiation (onset) or war termination and have produced important insights into these processes. In this paper, we complement these studies by noting that equally important to finding out how wars start and how they end is to identify how much war we are likely to observe in any given period? To answer this question, we combine recent advances in the theory of civil war initiation and duration and develop the concept of war incidence, which denotes the probability of observing an event of civil war in any given period. We test the theories of war initiation and duration against this new concept using a five-year panel data-set of 161 countries. Our analysis of war incidence corroborates most of the results of earlier studies on war initiation and duration and enriches those results by highlighting the significance of socio-political variables as determinants of the risk of civil war. ♦ World Bank, DECRG, 1818 H Street, NW., Washington DC 20433. The authors can be contacted at: [email protected], [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this paper are the authors’ and do not necessarily represent the World Bank or its Executive Directors.
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