TY  - JOUR
AU  - Acemoglu,Daron
AU  - Ticchi,Davide
AU  - Vindigni,Andrea
TI  - Persistence of Civil Wars
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15378
PY  - 2009
Y2  - September 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15378
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15378.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Daron Acemoglu
Department of Economics
MIT, E52-380B
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA  02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-1927
Fax: 617/253-1330
E-Mail: daron@mit.edu

Davide Ticchi
Department of Economics
University of Urbino
via Saffi, 42
61029 Urbino  ITALY
E-Mail: davide.ticchi@uniurb.it

Andrea Vindigni
Princeton University
Department of Politics
037 Corwin Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
Tel: 0039 011 8995890
Fax: 0039 011 3130 424
E-Mail: vindigni@Princeton.EDU
AB  - A notable feature of post-World War II civil wars is their very long average duration. We provide a theory of the persistence of civil wars. The civilian government can successfully defeat rebellious factions only by creating a relatively strong army. In weakly-institutionalized polities this opens the way for excessive influence or coups by the military. Civilian governments whose rents are largely unaffected by civil wars then choose small and weak armies that are incapable of ending insurrections. Our framework also shows that when civilian governments need to take more decisive action against rebels, they may be forced to build over-sized armies, beyond the size necessary for fighting the insurrection, as a commitment to not reforming the military in the future.
ER  -