Intra-State Wars and the Legitimation of Violence in Cross-national Perspective

• In Event: Cross-national Studies of Violence

Abstract

Previous studies examining whether wars cause post-war homicide rate increases due to the legitimation of violence have focused almost exclusively on inter-state wars, such as the World Wars, Vietnam, and the Gulf Wars. In contrast, we aim to extend the work of Archer & Gartner (1976) to consider both inter-state and intra-state violent conflicts. In particular, we analyze data from intra-state conflicts, such as civil wars and guerilla warfare, for the all countries involved in such conflicts from 1900 to 2010 to see whether they are more likely to experience post-conflict interpersonal violence than similar countries that did not have intra-state conflicts, and also compare them to the findings with inter-state wars. We employ several quantitative analyses of data from the Comparative Crime Data File, United Nations, and Correlates of War data to test the hypothesis that the legitimation of violence through warfare has a positive effect on post-war homicide rates.

Authors

• Janet Stamatel, University of Kentucky

• Samuel H Romans, University of Kentucky