Global Change and Civil Wars

Vortrag von Prof. Stathis N. Kalyvas (University of Oxford) innerhalb der Ringvorlesung des Exzellenzclusters „Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen“: „The End of Pacification? The Transformation of Political Violence in the 21st Century“ am 06.02.2019

The systematic and comparative analysis of civil wars has relied primarily on the experience of the post-WWII and Cold War period (1945-1990) to draw general lessons which are extrapolated into the future. This is clearly problematic, as both the pre- and the post-Cold War periods vary on a number of key dimensions; it stands to reason that this variation would impact the likelihood but also the character of civil wars. Yet, this reasonable conjecture has yet to be explored systematically.

Moving beyond early superficial and misleading speculation about “new versus old wars,” recent research has pointed to changes in warfare between the Cold War and the post-Cold War period, but also emerging differentiations between the post-Cold War unipolar and Liberal era and an emerging period of multipolarity and newly ideological insurgencies. I take stock of these trends and sketch a theory that seeks to specify how macro-historical change has shaped civil wars from the late 18th century to the present.

Veranstalter:
Exzellenzcluster „Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen“