How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them

The word “autocracy” comes from two Greek words. The first is autos, which means “self,” and the second is kratos, which means “power.” Thus, autocracy is a form of government in which one person has absolute power over a state. Unlike in democracies, people living under autocratic governments do not have a say in determining their country’s laws or the enforcement of these laws. There is also no system of checks and balances on the autocratic ruler. Dissent is typically not tolerated by autocratic governments and is often brutally suppressed.

In the book, Walter cites three widely used datasets that quantify a country’s system of governance: the Polity Project’s Polity Score, Freedom House, and V-Dem. These datasets have their own definitions of democracy, resulting in them measuring democracy in three different ways. Walter notes that “despite these differences, scholars have found a high level of agreement in terms of how countries are coded in each dataset, and high intercorrelations between the democracy measures included in each” (20).

The word “democracy” comes from two Greek words. The first is demos, which means “people,” and the second is kratos, which means “power.” Thus, democracy is a form of government that depends on the people’s will. In democracies, people either have direct authority to decide on legislation (direct democracy) or choose officials to do so on their behalf (representative democracy). People living in democratic countries have much greater freedoms than those living in autocracies.

Downgrading refers to a situation where a group who was once in power loses this power. The group becomes embittered by this reality since they strongly believe they deserve the power. Downgrading can happen to any group regardless of race, geography, or socioeconomic factors. This phenomenon represents the third risk factor or pattern that Walter argues is necessary for civil war to erupt.

Ethnic cleansing refers to the removal of a group of people from a certain area. In contrast to genocide, international law does not define or recognize ethnic cleansing as a crime.

Walter notes that factionalism is “an acute form of political polarization” (35). Experts consider countries to be factionalized when political parties are based on identity groups rather than policy. Once a country is in the anocracy zone, the appearance of factions represents the biggest sign that a civil war could occur.

The United Nations first defined the term “genocide” in 1948 in its Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. For actions to constitute genocide, there must be evidence that a group or individual is trying to eliminate an entire group of people. Without this provable intent, the actions are labeled as “ethnic cleansing” or “crimes against humanity.” Tribunal courts find it exceedingly difficult to try people for genocide, although it has been done.

The Polity Score is one of the most influential measures in the Polity Project dataset at the Center for Systemic Peace, which is a nonprofit that conducts research on civil wars and democracy. The Polity Score focuses on the democratic and autocratic features of a country.

The Polity Score “is a 21-point scale that ranges from -10 (most autocratic) to +10 (most democratic)” (13). Countries with scores of +6 to +10 are considered full democracies. Countries with scores of -6 to -10 are considered autocracies. Anocracies receive scores between -5 and +5. Walter notes how “the moment of peak risk [for civil war] occurs smack in the middle of the zone—between -1 and +1” (21), primarily because the government is still weak.

Superfactions are created by “a group whose members share not only the same ethnic or racial identity but also the same religion, class, and geographic location” (39). Walter underscores how superfactions are even more dangerous than factions. They form because people to move areas where they can interact exclusively with people from the same identity. They also form because economic resources are distributed unevenly in a country, exacerbating tensions among different groups. Societies that are especially prone to political instability are divided into two dominant groups. The urban-rural divide, which has only deepened in the modern era with globalization and technological innovation, emerges most prominently (and dangerously) among superfactions.

V-Dem is a Swedish research institute. It collects data on different types of democracies around the world. It then rates them on a 100-point scale, with 0 being the least democratic and 100 being the most. Since 2010, V-Dem has consistently documented the backsliding of many liberal democracies around the world. In 2020, the institute issued its first “Autocratization Alert.”