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Civil War and

What can the study of bring to our understanding of ?

Professor David Armitage, Harvard University

The study of civil war has recently become academic Civil war has gradually become the most widespread, big business, especially among political scientists the most destructive, and now the most characteristic and economists. A surge of intellectual interest in form of organised human . Since 1820, an a major problem like this often has two sources: average of two to four per cent of all countries have the internal dynamics of academic disciplines experienced civil war at any given moment. This themselves, and external currents in the wider world striking average disguises the fact that some periods that scholars hope their findings might shape. The were even more acutely afflicted by internal warfare: ongoing ‘boom in the study of civil war,’ as it has for example, the middle decades of the nineteenth been called, has both these motives. Economists who century, the period of the US Civil War, the Taiping study underdevelopment, especially in Africa, have and the Indian , among other internal isolated civil war as one of its main causes. Students conflicts.2 The decades since 1975 have seen a similar of international relations who focused their attention spike in the incidence of internal warfare. Indeed, in on wars between states have turned to the study of the last thirty years, an average of at least ten per cent civil wars as they found their traditional subject of all countries at any one time have been suffering disappearing before their very eyes: since World War civil war: in 2006 (the last year for which complete II, the developed world has enjoyed a ‘Long ’ data are available), there were thirty-two civil wars in without interstate war, while between 1989 and 2006, progress around the world. As if these totals are not 115 of the world’s 122 wars were fought within states alarming enough, the global economic impact of civil as part of a ‘Long Agony’ of civil war for many of the wars has been estimated to be roughly US$120 billion world’s poorest peoples. Meanwhile, the rise of ethnic a year: that is more than the developed world’s annual conflict since 1989 excited interest in the various budget for the developing world.3 Civil war is causes of civil strife across the world from the Balkans therefore a global scourge and in every sense a costly to the Horn of Africa.1 This has led to an explosion one. Its occurrence has dipped slightly in the last few of social-scientific research on civil wars, especially years, but it shows no signs of disappearing from the those that occurred in the last half-century. world any time soon.

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1 Stathis N. Kalyvas, “Civil In light of the prevalence, the within the boundaries of a single Wars,” in The Oxford ruinousness, and the appalling price sovereign state? Did calling the conflicts Handbook of Comparative of civil war, it is striking how little in Rwanda and Bosnia civil wars allow , eds. Carles attention historians have paid to it as a the rest of the world to wash their Boix and Susan Stokes (Oxford: Oxford phenomenon central to both the past hands of responsibility for what took University Press, 2007), and the present. Yet they may have place behind closed borders? And does 417; Lotta Harbom and overlooked its importance for some naming what has happened in Darfur Peter Wallensteen, of the same reasons social scientists ‘genocide’ rather than civil war render a “Armed Conflict, have been transfixed by it. Few, if any, fundamentally political conflict instead 1989–2006,” Journal of historians have the kind of influence intractably ethnic, and hence beyond Peace Research, 44 (2007): over public policy that economists hope of reasonable resolution?7 624, Table II. 2 C. A. Bayly, The Birth of the can command. Diplomatic historians The conventional definition of civil war Modern World, 1780-1914 can still study past interstate wars and used by political scientists stipulates (Oxford: Blackwell, hence have little need to redirect their that there must be ‘sustained 2004), 148–65. energies to the study of civil war. Nor combat, primarily internal, resulting 3 Carles Boix, “Civil Wars have historians generally been quite so in at least 1000 battle-field deaths per and professionally committed to tying their in the Contemporary year, pitting central forces World,” in Order, research agendas to current events and against an insurgent force capable of … Conflict, and Violence, contemporary issues. When historians inflict[ing] upon the government forces eds. Stathis N. Kalyvas have studied civil war, they have treated at least 5 percent of the fatalities the et al, (Cambridge: it not as a single phenomenon, across insurgents sustain.’8 This definition dis- Cambridge University time and around the world. Instead Press, 2008), 206; Paul tinguishes civil wars from other kinds of they have seen civil wars as a series of warfare; it marks civil war off from other Collier, Lisa Chauvet distinct events in discrete places: for and Håvard Hagre, The sorts of violence, like rioting, Security Challenge in example, the English Civil Wars, the and genocide; and it allows analysts to Conflict-Prone Countries, , the Russian Civil generate large sets of data from which Copenhagen Consensus War and the . Each they can draw statistical conclusions 2008 Challenge Paper of those conflicts has its own massive about the duration, recurrence and total (April 2008), 22. and sophisticated historiography. The 4 This essay is drawn from number of civil wars. But different crite- sheer size and complexity of those ria can, of course, lead to very different my own foolhardy treatments has deterred all but the most work in progress, Civil results. During the debate on whether War: A History in Ideas ambitious – or foolhardy – historians or not Iraq was suffering a civil war, one (: Knopf, from attempting any comparative or author used the yardsticks I have just forthcoming). connected histories of civil war across 4 quoted to calculate that there had been 5 Kalyvas, “Civil Wars,” 416. space and time. seven civil wars there since 1945, while 6 James D. Fearon, “Iraq’s Civil War,” Foreign Affairs A further reason why historians have two journalists who used a less sophis- 86, No. 2 (March/April not examined civil war outside its ticated version – that it ‘must be “civil” 2007): 2–16. See also the specific contexts might be the lack of and it must be “war”’ – counted only articles quoted in Note 9. consensus about just what counts as a five civil wars in world history since the 7 Mahmood Mamdani, civil war. ‘Civil war is … a phenomenon 1640s.9 “The Politics of Naming: prone to serious semantic confusion, Genocide, Civil War, A less controversial working definition ,” London even contestation. The description of a might be the one offered by Yale Review of Books 29, No. 5 conflict as a civil war carries symbolic political scientist Stathis Kalyvas: (8 March 2007): 1–9. and political weight since the term can ‘armed combat within the boundaries of 8 Melvin Small and J. confer or deny legitimacy to a warring a recognized sovereign entity between David Singer, Resort to party.’5 Its application can depend on Arms: International and parties subject to a common whether you are a ruler or a rebel, the at the outset of the hostilities.’10 This Civil Wars, 1816-1980 victor or the vanquished, an established (Beverley Hills: Sage, less restrictive definition might help us 1982), 210–20. government or an interested third party. to see one major area of historical study 9 David A. Patten, “Is Iraq Outside powers may hedge their bets for which debates about the nature in a Civil War?,” Middle or decide that such wars are beyond and meaning of civil war could have East Quarterly 14, No. 3 their control because they are solely special relevance to historians: the study (Summer 2007): 27–32; ‘civil,’ that is, internal, matters: this was John Keegan and Bartle of revolutions. It defines civil war as one major issue at stake in the British organised collective violence within a Bull, “What is a Civil and American debates in late 2006 War? Are We Witnessing single polity which leads to a division of One in Iraq?” Prospect 129 and 2007 over whether the violence in 6 sovereignty and consequently a struggle (December 2006): 18–19. Iraq should be called ‘civil war.’ The for authority. Put this way, I would 10 Stathis N. Kalyvas, consequences of such decisions have suggest, the definition can encompass The Logic of Violence in been central to major conflicts across Civil War (Cambridge: most, if not all, of what we think of as the centuries and around the world. Was the world’s great revolutions: English, Cambridge University the American Civil War a war between Press, 2006), 17. American, French, Russian and Chinese, equal opposing parties, or a rebellion among others. Indeed, I would go

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‘Civil war is in fact the genus of which revolution is only a species.’

further, and say that civil war is in fact within the city, or civitas, for control of the genus of which revolution is only a Rome itself.13 A sequence of such con- species.11 flicts had marked Roman history from On the face of it, there would seem to the days of Sulla and Marius through to be excellent reasons to resist such a the victory of Octavian (later, Augustus) conflation of civil war and revolution. at the battle of Actium in 31 BCE which Our preconceptions about the two marked the transition from the Roman forms of violent response to political to the . Rome’s greatest breakdown strive to keep them apart historians established that civil wars, both conceptually and academically. like sorrows, came not singly but in Civil wars are destructive; revolutions battalions: they knew intuitively, long are progressive. Civil wars are sterile; before political scientists could prove revolutions are fertile with innovation it statistically, that civil wars rarely and transformative possibilities. end cleanly and are likely frequently to Civil wars are local and time-bound; recur. Rome’s legacies in the matter of revolutions have occurred across the civil war would be fundamental to later world in an unfolding sequence of conceptions of internal conflict and for human liberation. Civil wars mark centuries before revolution became a the collapse of the human spirit; leading category of political analysis. revolutions, its unfolding and self- Take those who lived through the realisation. Such preconceptions – even , for example. They prejudices – about revolution and civil had more civil wars than revolutions 11 Harry Eckstein, “On the war were the product of ’ to call to mind when they wanted to Etiology of Internal own aspirations, beginning in the place the conflict between Britain and Wars,” History and Theory eighteenth century. As the late German its colonies in historical perspective. 4 (1965): 133. conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck And they recalled these civil wars 12 Reinhart Koselleck, argued, during the Enlightenment sequentially, as the Romans had, “Historical Criteria of the Modern Concept ‘“civil war” … acquired the meaning of and distinguished them from mere of Revolution,” in a senseless circling upon itself, with . In this vein, Koselleck, Futures Past: respect to which Revolution sought argued in Common Sense (1776) that On the Semantics of to open up a new vista.’ Before this that ‘the whole history of England … Historical Time, trans. decisive semantic shift, ‘“civil war” and since the conquest’ by the Normans Keith Tribe (Cambridge: “revolution” were not interchangeable in 1066 had been a record of almost MIT Press, 1985), 49, 47. but [they] were not at the same time constant turmoil in which ‘there 13 Robert , “The Terms Bellum Sociale mutually exclusive.’ The American and have been (including the [Glorious] and Bellum Ciuile in the French Revolutions accelerated these Revolution) no less than eight civil wars Late Republic,” in Studies semantic changes and rendered them and nineteen Rebellions.’14 Civil war, in Latin Literature and effectively irreversible.12 We now live not revolution, was what inhabitants of Roman History 11, ed. with the consequences of those changes both Britain and the American colonies Carl Deroux (Brussels: as we strive to maintain an analytical had most reason to fear and avoid. Just Latomus, 2003), 102–20. separation between civil wars and over six months before Paine published 14 Thomas Paine, Common Sense: Addressed to the revolutions. his pamphlet, the Inhabitants of America Yet before these changes, had argued in its ‘Declaration ... Seting (: Robert Europeans and their settler descendants Forth the Causes and Necessity of Bell, 1776), 26. around the world would have viewed Taking Up Arms’ (6 July 1775) ‘that we 15 See Declaration in A Decent Respect to the civil war through Rome-tinted specta- mean not to dissolve that Union which has so long and so happily subsisted Opinions of Mankind: cles. It was in fact the Romans who gave Congressional State civil war its name, bellum civile, though between us’ and Great Britain but Papers, 1774-1776, they were not of course the first to suf- sought instead ‘reconciliation on ed. James H. Hutson fer such internal warfare. They usually reasonable terms, ... thereby to relieve (, DC: called their wars after the enemies they the [British] empire from the calamities Library of Congress, of civil war.’15 And indeed almost from 1975), 96, 97. Original were fighting: a ‘civil’ war was thus a war spelling used in quote. against cives, or fellow-citizens, fought the moment the trans-Atlantic conflict

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‘Our preconceptions about the two forms of [violence] strive to keep them apart ... Civil wars are destructive; revolutions are progressive. Civil wars are sterile; revolutions are fertile with innovation and transformative possibilities.’

16 See Civil War; a Poem. had begun, commentators in Britain social conflict which would do most Written in the Year 1775 had been calling it ‘the American Civil to reconfigure conceptions of revolu- [n.p., n.d. (1776?)], sig. War’.16 What for Paine might have tion for the future. Yet it was also the A2r; David Hartley, Substance of a Speech been the ninth was for one that most amply confirmed Arno in Parliament, upon the such British observers (and for many Mayer’s suggestion that civil war is a State of the Nation and colonists) the first American civil war. ‘common form of collective violence the Present Civil War Recent historians have confirmed con- which fires the Furies of revolution, all with America (London: J. temporaries’ intuitions that the Ameri- the more so if it should interlock with Almon, 1776), 19. 20 can Revolution should be understood quasi-religious foreign war.’ To an im- 17 Maya Jasanoff, “The placable opponent of the Revolution like Other Side of Revolution: as a civil war. On the broadest scale, it Loyalists in the British was indeed ‘armed combat within the , the French after 1789 Empire,” William and boundaries of a recognized sovereign had fissured into two warring nations, Mary Quarterly, 3rd entity between parties subject to a each of which claimed sovereignty, one series, 65 (2008): 205–32. in the name of the King, the other on 18 Paul Collier, Wars, Guns, common authority at the outset of the hostilities.’ The recognised sovereign behalf of the people. The violence in and Votes: in the Vendée during the Terror in 1793 Dangerous Places (NY: entity was Great Britain, at least until HarperCollins, 2009), British recognition of American inde- has long been seen as the localised civil 139. war at the heart of the Revolution, and pendence in 1783. When the hostilities 21 19 Jean-Clément Martin, began, both sides were subject to the perhaps even typical of its violence. “Rivoluzione francese e common authority of George III. Before Later, in 1796, Burke argued that the guerra civile,” in Guerre French proponents of popular sover- fratricide, ed. Gabriele 1776 (in the eyes of American patriots) and even until 1783 (according to Loyal- eignty had turned their ‘armed doctrine’ Ranzato (Turin: Bollati against the rest of Europe, and that for Boringhieri, 1994), 28–55. ists and British opponents of American 20 Arno Mayer, The Furies: rebellion), the American War was a civil these Jacobins the ensuing conflict ‘in Violence and Terror in war among fellow-citizens of the British it’s spirit, and for it’s objects, … was a the French and Russian Atlantic empire. It also encompassed civil war; and as such they pursued it. … Revolutions (Princeton, a string of local civil wars in bitterly a war between the partizans of the anti- NJ: ent, moral, and political order of Europe Press, 2000), 4–5. divided colonies such as New York and . And as long as an against a sect of fanatical and ambitious 21 Jean-Clément Martin, atheists which means to change them La Vendée et la France estimated one-sixth of the population 22 (Paris: Seuil, 1987); David of the mainland British colonists re- all’. This was now a civil war not just Andress, The Terror: mained loyal to the , it would be within France but for all the inhabitants Civil War in the French experienced as a civil conflict by tens of of Europe: a peculiar extension of the Revolution (London: idea of civil war on Burke’s part, to be Little, Brown, 2005). thousands of people within the colonies, 60 000 of whom would form a global sure, but one that foreshadowed later 22 Edmund Burke, First appropriations of the term in the twenti- Letter on a Regicide Peace Loyalist as refugees from the (20 October 1796) and infant .17 When the im- eth century to apply to the entire period Second Letter on a Regicide mensely destructive conflict known to 1917–45 (‘the European Civil War’) or to Peace (1796), in The posterity as ‘the’ American Civil War describe the , as John F. Ken- Writings and Speeches of broke out eighty years later, both sides nedy did, as ‘a global civil war [that] has Edmund Burke IX, ed. R. divided and tormented mankind.’23 B. McDowell (Oxford: envisaged it (for very different reasons) Oxford University Press, as a second American Revolution. The The sequence of great revolutions – 1991), 187, 267. Original fact that it was perceived as finishing American and French, Russian and spelling used in quote. business left unresolved since the Chinese – was seen for much of the 23 Ernst Nolte, Der may also have confirmed retrospectively twentieth century as the scarlet thread europäische Bürgerkrieg, the kinship between the two conflicts in a narrative of emergent . 1917-1945 (Berlin: as civil wars: for, as the social scientists These were the great pivotal moments Propyläen, 1987); John F. Kennedy, “State of who study them have shown, ‘the most in the progressive liberation of the Union Address” (11 likely legacy of a civil war is further civil humanity. However, at least since 1989, January 1962), in Public war.’ 18 it has been much harder to view these Papers of the Presidents The has an equal revolutions without an awareness of the United States: of the appalling violence and human John F. Kennedy ... (US claim to be seen as a civil war in multiple 19 devastation that accompanied them. Government, 1963), 9. dimensions. This was the political and

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Part of the revolutionaries’ success faith in revolution’s utopian promises 24 V. I. Lenin, The Military had lain in obscuring the fact that all has precipitately declined. Second, it Programme of the the major modern revolutions were, at can serve to bring together a variety of (September 1916), in their heart and for much of their course, historiographies – for example, those on Lenin, Collected Works, 45 civil wars. Lenin noted in 1916 that ‘civil the American and French Revolutions vols. (Moscow: Progress wars … in every class society are the along with that on the era of indepen- Publishers, 1960–70), natural, and under certain conditions, dence in – which have XXIII, 78. inevitable continuation, development lately had too little to say to each other. 25 François Guizot, and intensification of the class struggle. One common strain now emerging Histoire de la révolution That has been confirmed by every great from these literatures is that the late d’Angleterre (1826), cited 24 in J. C. D. Clark, Rebellion revolution.’ The Chinese and Russian eighteenth and early nineteenth century and Revolution: State Revolutions, each of which spawned Age of Revolutions was also an Age of and Society in England its own civil war, certainly confirmed Civil Wars, taking place within in the Seventeenth and it, but so, in their own ways, had the as much as within states.27 Third, it can Eighteenth Centuries American and French Revolutions, as we help to place the great political upheav- (Cambridge: Cambridge have seen. Those revolutions spurred als of the last two centuries into a longer University Press, 1986), the impulse to rebrand earlier civil wars historical perspective, stretching back at 37. 26 The original epigram retrospectively as revolutions, as when least to the Roman Civil Wars and for- runs: ‘ doth François Guizot in 1826 became the ward to comparisons with civil violence never prosper, what’s the first historian to call the English Civil around the contemporary world. Fourth, reason?/ For if it prosper, Wars of the mid-seventeenth century it might open up novel conversations none dare call it treason.’ the ‘,’ on the grounds between historians and social scientists 27 Jeremy Adelman, that ‘the analogy of the two revolutions about a major subject of common inter- “An Age of Imperial Revolutions,” American is such that the first [the English] would est. Historians have not so far tested so- Historical Review 113 never have been understood had not the cial scientists’ assumptions or wrestled (2008): 319–40; The Age second [the French] taken place.’25 Such with their conclusions about the causes, of Revolutions in Global revisionist renaming suggests a version course and consequences of civil war; Context, c. 1760–1840, of Sir John Harington’s sixteenth nor have the political scientists and eds. David Armitage and century epigram on treason: ‘Civil war economists who study civil war been Sanjay Subrahmanyam doth never prosper, what’s the solution? confronted by findings about civil wars (Basingstoke: 26 28 Palgrave Macmillan, For if it prosper, it’s called revolution.’ that took place before 1815. Finally and forthcoming). It is the historian’s job to go back behind perhaps most importantly, a rapproche- 28 This is because the two such mystifications, but also to at- ment between revolution and civil war major databases used by tempt to understand the motivations would challenge our students to link social scientists to study the great political transformations of civil and other forms for them. If we could get behind such of war – the Correlates preconceptions, what would be the the past to some of the most costly and widespread disruptions in the present. of War Project at the broader benefits for studying revolu- University of tions in light of what we know about If civil war has again become humanity’s and the UCDP/PRIO civil wars? First, it would give a renewed defining form of mass conflict, then the Armed Conflict Database energy to the historical understanding era of revolutions might appear to be at the University an aberration from more enduring, but of Uppsala – begin, of revolutions, a field that has somewhat respectively, in 1816 and lost direction in the last twenty years as much less reassuring, patterns of collec- tive human action. 1946.

Left English Redcoat © James Nicholson. Fotolia.

page 18 Union soldiers and band marching through a city street on their way to join the Civil War, 1800s. Hartford, Ct.: Calhoun Show Print. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-98810.

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