There is surprisingly little empirical scholarship on the spread of capitalistic economic policies under the rubric of ‘globalization’ and domestic peace. While the classical liberals saw free markets leading to social harmony because of self-interest of individuals, who cooperate...

This article studies the impact of economic sanctions on the duration and outcome of intrastate conflicts. Sanctions are argued to foster the convergence of beliefs over parties' capacity, to reduce the utility of victory and to increase the costs of continuing fighting. Using a sample of 87...

Theories of mobilization suggest that groups are more likely to resort to violence in the presence of political opportunity structures that afford greater prospects for extracting concessions from the government or better opportunities to topple ruling govemments. However, existing efforts to...

Civil wars are complex events affected by numerous factors. Recent research, however, seems to have concentrated on the rebels and their motivations to the exclusion of how the state can affect the onset and outcome of civil wars. This special issue addresses this lacuna by looking at the role...

This article explores the strategic motivations for insurgent violence against civilians. It argues that violence is a function of insurgent capacity and views violence and security as selective benefits that insurgents manipulate to encourage support. Weak insurgent groups facing collective...

What explains the effect of external intervention on the duration of civil war? The literature on intervention has made some progress in addressing this question, but it has been hindered by an assumption that states intervene in civil wars either to help one side win or to facilitate...

This article studies the effects of conflict onset on asset markets applying the event study methodology. The authors consider a sample of 101 internal and inter-state conflicts during the period 1974-2004 and find that a sizeable fraction of them has had a significant impact on stock market...

Important gaps remain in the understanding of the economic consequences of civil war. Focusing on the conflict in Rwanda in the early 90s, and using micro data to carry out econometric analysis, this paper finds that households and localities that experienced more intense conflict are lagging...

Purpose As the Syrian civil war winds down, the massive reconstruction of the devastated cities has become a recurring subject of political and scientific discussions. A crucial question pervades all these debates: is the current legal framework adequate for confronting the reconstruction...