World War II Indigenous Military Mobilization and Post-independence Civil Wars

• In Event: Poster Session: Politics of Post-Communist Countries & Politics and History
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Politics and History

Abstract

This paper explores the causes of civil wars in newly independent states, focusing on indigenous military mobilization in World War II (WWII). I argue that because WWII mobilization leads to the rise of legitimate and popular indigenous leadership succeeding colonial rule, civil wars are less likely to occur in former colonies and dependencies where the colonial authorities recruited the native population in WWII. I test this argument with an original measure of WWII indigenous military recruitment data available for 66 former colonies and dependencies that gained independence after WWII. Time-series cross-sectional regression analysis provides supportive evidence that the size of WWII recruitment is negatively associated with the likelihood of civil war onset after independence. I also present some supportive evidence on the theoretical mechanism that WWII mobilization reduces the chance of future civil wars through building an inclusive political platform at the time of independence. This paper provides two contributions to the civil war and state formation literature. First, the study adds to the literature on the historical legacies of colonialism to state formation and later conflicts by using a novel measure that varies across all former colonies and dependencies that achieved independence at the global level. Second, the paper contributes to the literature on ethnic conflicts by explaining why some former colonies achieved inclusive national institutions at the early stage of state formation while others did not.

Author

• Joowon Yi, University of Georgia