Polarization, Foreign Military Intervention, and Civil Conflict

In a behavioral model of civil conflict, foreign military intervention alters the resources available to warring groups and their probability of winning. The model highlights the importance of distributional measures along with the modifying effect...

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Main Authors:	Abu Bader, Suleiman, Ianchovichina, Elena
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2017
Subjects:	CONFLICT POLARIZATION FOREIGN INTERVENTION CIVIL CONFLICT RELIGION ETHNICITY
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/486121511208828389/Polarization-foreign-military-intervention-and-civil-conflict http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28909

id	okr-10986-28909
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-289092021-06-08T14:42:47Z Polarization, Foreign Military Intervention, and Civil Conflict Abu Bader, Suleiman Ianchovichina, Elena CONFLICT POLARIZATION FOREIGN INTERVENTION CIVIL CONFLICT RELIGION ETHNICITY In a behavioral model of civil conflict, foreign military intervention alters the resources available to warring groups and their probability of winning. The model highlights the importance of distributional measures along with the modifying effect of the intervention for conflict incidence. The paper confirms empirically the finding in the literature that ethnic polarization is a robust predictor of civil war, but it also finds evidence that religious polarization is positively and significantly associated with civil conflict in the presence of foreign military intervention of non-humanitarian and non-neutral nature. Such external interventions exacerbate religious polarization, leading to high-intensity conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa region, but not in the rest of the world. These results suggest that, unlike in the rest of the world, where civil conflicts are mostly about a public prize linked to ethnic polarization, in the Middle East and North Africa they are mostly about a sectarian-related public prize. The results are robust to allowing different definitions of conflict, model specifications, and data time spans, and to controlling for other types of foreign military interventions. 2017-11-30T21:51:41Z 2017-11-30T21:51:41Z 2017-11 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/486121511208828389/Polarization-foreign-military-intervention-and-civil-conflict http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28909 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8248 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Middle East and North Africa Middle East North Africa
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	CONFLICT POLARIZATION FOREIGN INTERVENTION CIVIL CONFLICT RELIGION ETHNICITY
spellingShingle	CONFLICT POLARIZATION FOREIGN INTERVENTION CIVIL CONFLICT RELIGION ETHNICITY Abu Bader, Suleiman Ianchovichina, Elena Polarization, Foreign Military Intervention, and Civil Conflict
geographic_facet	Middle East and North Africa Middle East North Africa
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8248
description	In a behavioral model of civil conflict, foreign military intervention alters the resources available to warring groups and their probability of winning. The model highlights the importance of distributional measures along with the modifying effect of the intervention for conflict incidence. The paper confirms empirically the finding in the literature that ethnic polarization is a robust predictor of civil war, but it also finds evidence that religious polarization is positively and significantly associated with civil conflict in the presence of foreign military intervention of non-humanitarian and non-neutral nature. Such external interventions exacerbate religious polarization, leading to high-intensity conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa region, but not in the rest of the world. These results suggest that, unlike in the rest of the world, where civil conflicts are mostly about a public prize linked to ethnic polarization, in the Middle East and North Africa they are mostly about a sectarian-related public prize. The results are robust to allowing different definitions of conflict, model specifications, and data time spans, and to controlling for other types of foreign military interventions.
format	Working Paper
author	Abu Bader, Suleiman Ianchovichina, Elena
author_facet	Abu Bader, Suleiman Ianchovichina, Elena
author_sort	Abu Bader, Suleiman
title	Polarization, Foreign Military Intervention, and Civil Conflict
title_short	Polarization, Foreign Military Intervention, and Civil Conflict
title_full	Polarization, Foreign Military Intervention, and Civil Conflict
title_fullStr	Polarization, Foreign Military Intervention, and Civil Conflict
title_full_unstemmed	Polarization, Foreign Military Intervention, and Civil Conflict
title_sort	polarization, foreign military intervention, and civil conflict
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2017
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/486121511208828389/Polarization-foreign-military-intervention-and-civil-conflict http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28909
_version_	1764468006389284864

Polarization, Foreign Military Intervention, and Civil Conflict

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