How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them

Prior to the 21st century, civil wars took place on large battlefields and involved armies and conventional fighting tactics. In addition, ideology or class often caused civil wars. The civil wars of our current age are drastically different. For this reason, one of the main themes in this book is the patterns and risk factors that predict where and when civil wars might break out.

Walter notes how there are two factors that “predict better than anything else where civil wars [are] likely to break out” (36). The first is anocracy, the zone in which a country is moving toward or away from democratic principles. Countries that are most at risk for civil war fall within anocracies—a form of government that shares both democratic and autocratic principles. As one example, under Saddam Hussein, Iraqis did not face civil war. Civil war erupted as soon as his government was dismantled, and political power was fought over by different religious and regional militias. While many Iraqis hoped for a democratic government, the already deep factionalism prevented them from being able to rapidly transition to a