Civil war

[[File:Spanish Civil War - Mass grave - Estépar, Burgos.jpg|thumb|right|165px|A rediscovered mass grave from the Spanish Civil War]]
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A '''civil war''' is any war that occurs <i>within</i> a [[state]], rather than among states.{{efn|Sit down, Americans.}} Based on multifactoral statistical analysis, it has been found that modern civil wars are most likely to start when a [[government]] either moves from [[democracy]] towards [[authoritarianism]] or vice versa.<ref name=walter>''How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them'' by Barbara F. Walter (2022) ISBN 0593137787.</ref>{{rp|12-14,35-36}}<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/174664 Colorful Community or Ethnic Witches' Brew?: Multiethnicity and Domestic Conflict during and after the Cold War] by Tanja Ellingsen (2000) ''Journal of Conflict Resolution'' 44(2):228-249. doi:10.1177/0022002700044002004.</ref><ref>[https://pages.nyu.edu/debraj/Courses/Readings/CollierHoeffler.pdf Greed and grievance in civil war] by Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler (2004) ''Oxford Economic Papers'' 56:563–595. doi:10.1093/oep/gpf064.</ref><ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/27640646 Polarization and Conflict: Theoretical and Empirical Issues: Introduction] by Joan Esteban & Gerald Schneider (2008) ''Journal of Peace Research'' 45(2):131-141. doi:10.1177/0022343307087168.</ref> Among all the factors considered, rapid transition towards a government type that is neither wholly democratic nor wholly autocratic (anocracy), using a scale similar to the ''[[Democracy Index]]'', was the most likely predictor of civil war onset. As governments transition towards anocracy, factional disgruntlement becomes a greater force in politics, having either been actively suppressed in autocracies or channeled into minority rights and election processes in democracies. During anocracy, elites and their factional supporters see it as an opportunity for seizing more power.<ref name=walter/>{{rp|37-38}} The likelihood of a civil war increases when a country has a superfaction, a faction that shares the same ethnicity as well as another form of identity ([[religion]], [[social class]], or geographic location).<ref name=walter/>{{rp|39}} Factions are also more likely to resort to violence when their status or power has been reduced.<ref name=walter/>{{rp|52}} The desire for civil war is often inflamed by people known as 'ethnic entrepreneurs', people who exploit fear and promote [[bigotry]] and [[discrimination]] for their own personal gain.<ref name=walter/>{{rp|44}} Examples of ethnic entrepreneurs include:<ref name=walter/>{{rp|44-51,121-124,144,150,152,224}}
{{collist|2|
*{{wpl|Omar al-Bashir}} (Arab [[Muslim]] in Sudan)
*[[Tucker Carlson]], [[Sean Hannity]] and [[Donald Trump]] ([[white supremacy]] in the [[United States]])
*[[Marine Le Pen]] (anti-immigration in [[France]])
*[[Slobodan Milošević]] and {{wpl|Radovan Karadžić}} ([[Serbia|Serbs]] in [[Yugoslavia]])
*[[Narendra Modi]] ([[Hindus]] in [[India]])
*{{wpl|Léon Mugesera}} (Hutus in [[Rwandan Genocide|Rwanda]])
*{{wpl|Franjo Tuđman}} ([[Croatia|Croats]] in Yugoslavia)
*[[Paul Joseph Watson]] ([[Islamophobia]])
*{{wpl|Pete Wilson||,}} won the 1994 [[California]] governor's race on an explicitly anti-immigrant platform
}}

Due to the extremely high feelings fanned by civil wars, they tend to become the bloodiest and most intractable wars possible; in other words, they aren't, in fact, very ''civil''.<ref>Ann Hironaka, ''Neverending Wars: The International Community, Weak States, and the Perpetuation of Civil War'', Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 2005, p. 3, ISBN 0-674-01532-0</ref> Examples of this include the civil wars in [[Rwandan Genocide|Rwanda]] and in [[Yugoslavia]] (circa 1990s). Nowadays<ref>[[Good old days| Back then]] bigger countries (who usually can [[pwn]] both sides simultaneously) intervene to [[Imperialism|put the country into their "sphere of influence"]].</ref> most other nations are loath to interfere in a civil war for this reason. However, civil wars often have effects beyond the border of the state experiencing it, as refugees flee to bordering states or combatants try to use neutral states as a hiding-ground.

There have been many cases where a civil war has changed history for the entire world. Prominent examples include the [[Russian Civil War]] (1917-1923, occasioning the birth of the [[Soviet Union]] in 1922), the [[Spanish Civil War]] of 1936 to 1939 (when [[Hitler]] and [[Mussolini]] tested tactics and weapons while backing [[Francisco Franco]] against the proteges of [[Stalin]]), the [[American Civil War]] of 1861-1865 (when the US government became more centralized after defeating secession), and the [[Chinese Civil War]] (when the Communist Party came to power and established the Peoples' Republic in 1949).

==Civil wars with their own pages==
{{collist|2|
*[[American Civil War]]
*[[Chinese Civil War]]
*[[English Civil War]]
*[[Russian Civil War]]
*[[Spanish Civil War]]
*[[Syrian Civil War]]
*[[Yemeni Civil War]]
}}

==See also==
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*[[Revolution]]
*[[Coup d'état]]
*
}}
==Notes==
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==References==
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[[Category:Oxymorons]]
[[Category:Political terms]]
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Categories: Oxymorons, Political terms