Description
This is a panel of the Centre for the Comparative Study of Civil War hosted at the University of York. It explores cutting-edge research on the dynamics of civil war, from diverse relationships between rebel groups, to international engagement with these groups, and transformations of political orders after war that highlight issues of power sharing and reintegration of armed actors. The papers by the Fellows of the Centre and their collaborators apply relational approaches to examine these dynamics in a range of contexts. Regine Schwab considers dynamic interactions between multiple rebel groups to understand different forms of cooperation and conflict between these actors. Edoardo Corradi zooms into a particular form of inter-rebel relationships—alliances—and examines the effects of rebel groups’ political and instrumental goals on the durability of rebel alliances. Tom Buitelaar shifts attention to rebel groups’ broader environment in an analysis of the impact of international labelling of rebel groups on United Nations peacekeepers’ approaches to these groups. Victor Bouemar, Romain Malejacq and Kai Thaler show that prewar and wartime legacies shape the use of state power after rebel victory. Finally, Pauline Zerla asks how ordinary people navigate war legacies with a focus on the relationships between ex-combatants and communities. Combined, these papers advance a relational understanding of civil war as a process that evolves through interactions between nonstate, state, civilian and external actors involved.
