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Civil war has been a recurring feature of human societies throughout history - and an essential catalyst for major international conflict. Since 1945 the number of civil wars in the world has grown steadily, bringing devastation on a scale more traditionally associated with international wars. In spite of this, there is no standard treatise on civil war to compare with the classic works we have on war, revolution, or peace. On the one hand, historians have tended to treat the 'big' civil wars such as the American and the Spanish in isolation. On the other, social scientists have concentrated on identifying common patterns, without looking in too much detail at the specifics of any given conflict. Focusing on the numerous civil conflicts that have occurred throughout the world since the Second World War, the author bridges this gap, asking what the recent social-science literature adds to what we already know about civil war, but also how insights from the historical literature, from the ancient Greeks onwards, can help explain the violent experience of so may parts of the world since 1945. At its heart is the question of what makes the contemporary challenge posed by civil war so different to that of past periods - and what, if anything, is new about the experience of civil war at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

CIVIL WAR

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Civil war.

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Civil war.

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Civil war.

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Ethiopia is currently embroiled in a large-scale civil war that has continued for more than a year. Using unique High-Frequency Phone Survey data, which spans several months before and after the outbreak of the war, this paper provides fresh evidence on the ex durante impacts of the conflict on the food security and livelihood activities of affected households. The analysis uses difference-in-differences estimation to compare trends in the outcomes of interest across affected and unaffected regions (households) and before and after the outbreak of the civil war. The findings show that seven months into the conflict, the outbreak of the civil war increased the probability of moderate to severe food insecurity by 38 percentage points. Using the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data on households' exposure to violent conflict, the analysis shows that exposure to one additional battle leads to a 1 percentage point increase in the probability of moderate to severe food insecurity. The conflict has reduced households' access to food through supply chain disruptions while also curtailing non-farm livelihood activities. Non-farm and wage-related activities have been the most affected by the conflict, while farming activities have been relatively more resilient. Similarly, economic activities in urban areas have been much more affected than those in rural areas. These substantial impact estimates, which are likely to be underestimates of the true average effects on the population, constitute novel evidence of the near-real-time impacts of an ongoing civil conflict, providing direct evidence of how violent conflict disrupts the functioning of market supply chains and livelihoods activities. The paper highlights the potential of phone surveys to monitor active and large-scale conflicts, especially in contexts where conventional data sources are not immediately available.

Civil war.