Civil War

3-0-9 units · Graduate

Surveys the social science literature on civil war. Studies the origins of civil war, discusses variables affecting duration, and examines termination of conflict. Highly interdisciplinary and covers a wide variety of cases. Open to advanced undergraduates with permission of instructor.

Spring 2010

Topics

Introduction
Old and New Civil Wars
The World Bank Approach to Civil War
Security Dilemmas
Identity Issues:Thugs and Ethnic Groups, Victims and Saviors
Collective Action and Identity
Death and Killing
Organization
Termination: General Issues
Negotiation and Partition
Aftermath
Maintaining the Peace
Building Democracy
General Discussion. Application of Course Material to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Readings

[Conflict Trap]= Collier, Paul, V. L. Elliott, Havard Hegre, Anke Hoeffler, MartaReynal-Querol, and Nicholas Sambanis. Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy . Copublication of the World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780821354810.
Required
[Insurgent]= Weinstein, Jeremy. Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780521677974.
Required
[Logic]= Kalyvas, Stathis. The Logic of Violence in Civil War . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780521670043.
Required
[Peacekeeping]= Fortna, Virginia Page. Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents’ Choices after Civil War . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780691136714.
Required
[Sustainable]= Roeder, Philip G., and Donald S. Rothchild. Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil Wars . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780801489747.
Required
SES #: 1 · TOPICS: Introduction · READINGS: No readings
Reading assignment
Fearon, James, and David D. Laitin. “ Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War .” American Political Science Review 97 (2003): 75-90. ↗
Required
Thucydides. “The Dispute over Corcyra,” “Pericles Funeral Oration,” “Revolt at Mytilene,” “Civil War in Corcyra,” and “The Melian Dialogue.” In The Peloponnesian War . Translated by Steven Lattimore. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub. Co., 1998. ISBN: 9780872203945.
Required
Fearon, James. “ Iraq: Democracy or Civil War? ” Testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations. September 15, 2006. ↗
Required
Kalyvas, Stathis. “ ‘New’ and ‘Old’ Civil Wars. A Valid Distinction? ” World Politics 54 (2001): 99-118. ↗
Required
Sambanis, Nicholas. “Expanding Economic Models of Civil War Using Case Studies.” Perspectives on Politics 2, no. 2 (2004): 259-280. ( PDF ) ↗
Required
Posen, Barry. “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict.” Survival 35, no.1 (1993): 27-47. ( PDF - 1.3MB ) ↗
Required
Snyder, Jack, and Robert Jervis. “Civil War and the Security Dilemma.” In Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention . Edited by Barbara Walter, and Jack Snyder. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1999, pp. 15-37. ISBN: 9780231116275.
Required
Kasfir, Nelson. “Domestic Anarchy, Security Dilemmas and Violent Predation: Causes of Failure.” When States Fail: Causes and Consequences . Edited by Richard Rotberg. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780691116723.
Required
Hardin, Russell. One for All: The Logic of Group Conflict . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997, chapters 1 and 6. ISBN: 9780691048253.
Required
Mueller, John. “The Banality of ‘Ethnic War.’” International Security 25, no. 1 (2000): 42-70. ( PDF ) ↗
Required
Kaufman, Stuart J. Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001, chapters 1 and 2. ISBN: 9780801487361.
Required
Sambanis, Nicolas. “Do Ethnic and Nonethnic Civil Wars Have the Same Causes?” Journal of Conflict Resolution 45, no. 4 (2001): 259-82. ( PDF ) ↗
Required
Bob, Clifford. The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media, and International Activism . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005, chapters 1 and 2. ISBN: 9780521607865.
Required
Kuperman, Alan. “ Suicidal Rebellions and the Moral Hazard of Humanitarian Intervention .” Ethnopolitics 4, no. 2 (June 2005): 149-173. ↗
Required
Gurr, Ted Robert. “ Ethnic Warfare on the Wane .” Foreign Affairs 79, no. 3 (2000): 52-64. ↗
Required
Wood, Elisabeth J. Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003, chapters 1 and 8. ISBN: 9780521010504.
Required
Fearon, James D., and David Laitin. “Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity.” International Organization 54, no. 4 (2000): 845-877. ( PDF ) ↗
Required
Valentino, Benjamin. “ Final Solutions: The Causes of Mass Killings and Genocides .” Security Studies 9, no. 3 (2000): 1-59. ↗
Required
SES #: 8 · TOPICS: Organization · READINGS: [Insurgent].
Reading assignment
Luttwak, Edward N. “ Give War a Chance .” Foreign Affairs 78, no. 4 (1999): 36-44. ↗
Required
Licklider, Roy. “How Civil Wars End: Questions and Methods.” In Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End . New York, NY: NYU Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780814750971.
Required
Walter, Barbara. “Designing Transitions from Civil War.” In Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention . Edited by Barbara Walter, and Jack Snyder. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1999, pp. 38-72. ISBN: 9780231116275.
Required
Mason, T. David, and Patrick J. Fett. “ How Civil Wars End: A Rational Choice Approach .” Journal of Conflict Resolution 40, no. 4 (1996): 546-568. ↗
Required
Stedman, Stephen. “ Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes .” International Security 22, no. 2 (1997): 5-53. ↗
Required
Kaufmann, Chaim. “ Intervention in Ethnic and Ideological Civil Wars: Why One Can be Done and the Other Can’t .” Security Studies 6, no. 1 (1996): 62-100. ↗
Required
Kuperman, Alan J. “ Is Partition Really the Only Hope? Reconciling Contradictory Findings about Ethnic Civil Wars .” Security Studies 13, no. 4 (2004): 314-49. ↗
Required
Betts, Richard. “ The Delusion of Impartial Intervention .” Foreign Affairs 73, no. 6 (1994): 20-33. ↗
Required
Licklider, Roy. “ The Consequences of Negotiated Settlements in Civil Wars, 1945-1993 .” American Political Science Review 89, no. 3 (1995): 681-690. ↗
Required
Daly, Sarah Zukerman. “ Bankruptcy, Guns, or Campaigns: Explaining Armed Organizations’ Post-War Trajectories .” PhD diss., MIT, 2010. ↗
Required
Paris, Roland. At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004, chapters 1, 2, 6, and 10. ISBN: 9780521541978.
Required
Smooha, Sammy, and Theodor Hanf. “ The Diverse Modes of Conflict-Regulation in Deeply Divided Societies .” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 33 (1992): 26-47. ↗
Required
Alexander, Marcus, and Fotini Christia. “ Institutionalizing Cooperation: Public Goods Experiments in the Aftermath of Civil War .” Working Paper 2009-0005, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, March 2009. ↗
Required
Doyle, Michael W., and Nicholas Sambanis. Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006, chapters 1, 2, and 8. ISBN: 9780691122755.
Required
SES #: 13 · TOPICS: Building Democracy · READINGS: [Sustainable].
Reading assignment
SES #: 14 · TOPICS: General Discussion. Application of Course Material to Iraq and Afghanistan. · READINGS: No readings
Reading assignment

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: Permission of instructor G (Spring) Not offered regularly; consult department 3-0-9 units

Sources

Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2010
MIT OCW readings ↗
MIT OCW calendar ↗
MIT OCW syllabus ↗
Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.