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Comentarios
de autores de artículos:
James Fearon
Field:
Social Sciences, general
Article Title: Ethnicity, insurgency, and civil war
Authors: Fearon, JD; Laitin, DD
Journal: AMER POLIT SCI REV
Volume: 97
Page: 75-90
Year: FEB 2003
* Stanford Univ, Dept Polit Sci, Stanford, CA 94305 USA.
* Stanford Univ, Dept Polit Sci, Stanford, CA 94305 USA.
James Fearon adds a few new thoughts to his previously featured
commentary on this paper which was the Fast Breaking Paper in Social
Sciences, general for October 2004.
What
are the social or political implications of your research?
Peacekeeping
operations to civil war-torn countries with low state capabilities
are likely to fail unless "peacekeeping" becomes successful
state building. Where civil war was caused by, or facilitated the
destruction of central government institutions, mediating social
and policy differences among different groups may be insufficient
to bring about a viable peace.
Could
you summarize the significance of your paper in layman's terms?
The remarkable
spread of persistent civil war in the poorest countries of the world
has had little to do with ethnic demographics, religious hatreds,
economic inequality, dependence on primary commodity exports, or
even absence of political rights. Instead, it mainly reflects the
success of a set of military techniques—rural guerrilla warfare—in
poor countries whose state administrative and police capabilities
are weak and underdeveloped. The best predictors of a higher probability
of civil war onset are low per capita income, a large population,
recent independence, mountainous terrain, oil production, and recent
change in the level of democracy.
James
Fearon, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science,
Stanford University,
Department of Political Science,
Stanford, CA, USA
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