The Future of Civil War Studies

Session Submission Type: Virtual Roundtable

Session Description

Civil wars are the dominant form of armed conflict today. Every year, civil wars kill, displace, and force millions of people into poverty, leaving long-lasting effects at the individual, local, national, and international levels. While the number of civil wars declined in the 1990s, civil wars have been on the rise over the last two decades and have drawn significant scholarly attention. Studies of civil war have examined a range of factors underlying the phenomenon, producing major advances in our understanding of civil war onset, the dynamics, duration, and termination of fighting, and post-war recidivism and recurrence of violence short of war. However, we still know little about how conflicts turn violent, how civil wars evolve over time, and how violence transforms once the fighting is over to generate protracted conflict.

This roundtable brings together leading scholars of civil war to reflect on the advances in the field to date and propose ways forward, with a focus on the processes that connect the pre-war, war, and post-war stages of conflict. Ana M. Arjona (Northwestern University), Laia Balcells (Georgetown University), Amelia Hoover Green (Drexel University), Patricia Justino (UNU-WIDER), Stathis N. Kalyvas (the University of Oxford), Dipali Mukhopadhyay (Columbia University), and Paul Staniland (the University of Chicago) will discuss these themes. Anastasia Shesterinina (the University of Sheffield) will chair the roundtable.

Sub Unit

• Division 21: Conflict Processes

Chair

• Anastasia Shesterinina The University of Sheffield

Presenters

• Ana M. Arjona Northwestern University

• Amelia Hoover Green Drexel University

• Patricia Justino UNU-WIDER

• Stathis N. Kalyvas Yale University

• Dipali Mukhopadhyay Columbia University

• Paul Staniland University of Chicago