Alliance Formation in Civil Wars

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Cambridge University Press, Nov 12, 2012 - Political Science
Some of the most brutal and long-lasting civil wars of our time involve the rapid formation and disintegration of alliances among warring groups, as well as fractionalization within them. It would be natural to suppose that warring groups form alliances based on shared identity considerations - such as Christian groups allying with Christian groups - but this is not what we see. Two groups that identify themselves as bitter foes one day, on the basis of some identity narrative, might be allies the next day and vice versa. Nor is any group, however homogeneous, safe from internal fractionalization. Rather, looking closely at the civil wars in Afghanistan and Bosnia and testing against the broader universe of fifty-three cases of multiparty civil wars, Fotini Christia finds that the relative power distribution between and within various warring groups is the primary driving force behind alliance formation, alliance changes, group splits and internal group takeovers.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
Figures
10
Literature and Research Design
19
A Theory of Warring Group Alliances and Fractionalization
32
The Afghan IntraMujahedin War 19921998
57
The Afghan CommunistMujahedin War 19781989
101
The Theory at the Commander Level in Afghanistan 19781998
126
The Bosnian Civil War 19921995
149
Quantitative Testing on the Universe of Cases of Multiparty
213
Note on Sources
247
Appendix
253
A1 Comparison of Means for Available Covariates
254
A5 Commander Tribe Kandahar and Nangarhar Only
260
A8 Classification of Intergroup Manpower by Conflict
271
References
307
Index
339

The Bosnian Civil War 19411945
197

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About the author (2012)

Fotini Christia is Associate Professor of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. in Public Policy at Harvard University in 2008. Her research interests deal with issues of ethnicity, conflict and cooperation in the Muslim world. She has done extensive ethnographic, survey and experimental research in Bosnia-Herzegovina and is presently working on a field experiment in Afghanistan that addresses the effects of development aid on post-conflict governance and state building. Her current Afghanistan research project, on which she is co-principal investigator, draws upon a randomized impact evaluation of a $1 billion community-driven development program. Professor Christia has received support for her research from the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, the London School of Economics International Growth Center, the UN's World Food Program and the World Bank, among other institutions. She has published work in publications such as Science, Comparative Politics and the Middle East Journal. She has also written on her experiences in Afghanistan, Iran, the West Bank and Gaza and Uzbekistan for Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. She graduated magna cum laude with a joint B.A. in Economics and Operations Research from Columbia College and an MA in international affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

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