GOVT 50.22 Civil Wars and Political Rebellion

This course examines the onset, conduct, and consequences of civil wars. Questions include: why (and how) do armed insurgencies emerge? Why do individuals join insurgent organizations rather than stay safely on the sidelines? Why are civil wars now the most frequent form of war, and why are states increasingly likely to lose these conflicts? How effective is third-party intervention in preventing the recurrence of civil war? And what are the long-term effects of civil wars? Equal weight is given to non-Western and Western examples of civil wars. We also pay particular attention to recent methodological advances in the study of civil war, including the use of (survey) experiments, fine-grained spatial data, and cellphone data to measure wartime dynamics. Students will have the opportunity to explore theoretical debates about civil war but will also draw on existing datasets to undertake their own research on a civil war (or wars) of their choice. The course does not presume any background with either prior Government courses on international security or quantitative methods, though these of course will be helpful.

Instructor

Lyall

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:INT or SOC; WCult:CI

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