A4 Conflict Anomalies

Topic

Collapse into civil war is a conflict anomaly that occurs when two conditions combine: the breakdown of the state's monopoly on the use of force and an unchanneled grievance. Along with Power and Geopolitics, Conflict is one of the three themes carried over by the political authority track as it shifts stages. As long as the state's monopoly on the use of force remains intact, any unchanneled grievance within society lacks the armed vacuum necessary to trigger a collapse into civil war.

The breakdown of the state's monopoly on the use of force—which occurs when armed forces fragment—precipitates a collapse into civil war only when combined with an unchanneled grievance; the fragmentation of armed forces alone can leave a state weakened without a collapse into civil war ensuing, provided there is no unchanneled grievance to provide a motive for violence. Conversely, an unchanneled grievance on its own remains contained—without escalating into a collapse into civil war—as long as the state's monopoly on the use of force remains intact.

Once the breakdown of the state's monopoly on the use of force and the unchanneled grievance combine and the collapse into civil war is triggered, sudden escalation and atrocities are the forms in which that collapse typically manifests, although this model does not yet specify a distinct trigger variable for each of these phenomena. Monitoring the state's monopoly on the use of force alongside unchanneled grievances is, therefore, the way to anticipate a collapse into civil war before it manifests as sudden escalation or atrocities.

ID:4654