During the 1990s, civil society emerged as the prime political force in the policy agenda of the major lenders and development agencies. An active civil society, it was believed, would enable choice, scrutinise errant governments, and ultimately lead to regularised, plural democracy. This article subjects this policy discourse to theoretical and empirical scrutiny. Theoretically, civil society ...

The prevailing scholarly wisdom is that weak states, or resource-poor states, are the most prone to civil war. Yet many weak states never experience civil war. Why then are some weak states prone to civil war while others are not? The author offers a theory that explains how dissidents and states interact to jointly produce civil war. In sum, states that repress their citizens are the most like...