Abstract
In this paper we analyze the relationship between ethnic polarization and the duration of civil wars. Several recent papers have argued that the uncertainty about the relative power of the contenders in a war will tend to increase its duration. In these models, uncertainty is directly related to the relative size of the contenders. We argue that the duration of civil wars increases the more polarized a society is. Uncertainty is not necessarily linked to the structure of the population but it could be traced back to the measurement of the size of the different groups in the society. Given a specific level of measurement error or uncertainty, more polarization implies lengthier wars. Our empirical results show that ethnically polarized countries have to endure longer civil wars than ethnically less polarized societies.
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We thank two anonymous referees and the participants in several workshops. Montalvo holds the Prize ICREA Academia for excellence in research funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya. Reynal-Querol has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement n. 203576. The authors acknowledge the financial support of the grant SEJ2007-64340 from the Spanish National Science Foundation. Both authors also acknowledge the support of the Barcelona GSE Research Network and the Government of Catalonia.
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Montalvo, J.G., Reynal-Querol, M. Ethnic polarization and the duration of civil wars. Econ Gov 11, 123–143 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10101-010-0077-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10101-010-0077-8