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The relationship between inequality and civil conflict has attracted considerable interest in conflict research. Recent large-N studies have shown that inequalities significantly contribute to the outbreak of civil conflict and have proposed a number of causal pathways to account for this. These pathways, however, have rarely been assessed in systematic case-based research. This study implements a "middle-N" qualitative congruence analysis of 16 conflicts, focusing on the observable implications of the pathways through which inequalities are typically theorized to influence conflict. The study finds evidence to support some of the main pathways proposed in the quantitative literature. Furthermore, the analysis finds that different types of inequalities relate to different conflict categories. Specifically, vertical inequalities relate to non-ethnic governmental conflicts (via an "individual deprivation pathway"), regional inequalities to non-ethnic territorial conflicts (via a "separatist pathway"), and horizontal inequalities to ethnic conflicts (via a "group deprivation pathway").

The impact of inequality on the outbreak of intrastate armed conflicts or civil wars has recently attracted considerable interest in conflict research. In contrast to previous studies that have focused on inequality in the total population (vertical inequality), recent studies have analysed inequality between certain groups of people (horizontal inequality), and found that inequality significantly increases the likelihood of conflict onset. However, most of the recent studies on the inequality-conflict nexus have focused on conflicts fought between ethnic groups. The relation between inequality and other (non-ethnic) categories of conflicts has attracted less attention. The present study aims to address this gap: it implements a theoretical and empirical analysis of the relation between inequality and popular rebellions, a subset of conflicts where mobilization transcends ethnic boundaries and hostilities involve popular participation. Based on a sample of 77 popular rebellions and new global data on vertical inequality in income and education, this study shows that inequality significantly increases the likelihood of popular rebellion onset. In addition, the study reveals that inequality proxies (income and education Gini indices) outperform proxies of the absolute level of income (GDP per capita) in the model of popular rebellion onset, suggesting that it is relative, not absolute, well-being that ultimately motivates people to rise up in arms. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

We present a two-stage approach to civil conflict analysis. Unlike conventional approaches that focus only on armed conflict and treat all other cases as "at peace," we first distinguish cases with and without contested incompatibilities (Stage 1) and then whether or not contested incompatibilities escalate to armed conflict (Stage 2). This allows us to analyze factors that relate to conflict origination (onset of incompatibilities) and factors that predict conflict militarization (onset of armed violence). Using new data on incompatibilities and armed conflict, we replicate and extend three prior studies of violent civil conflict, reformulated as a two-stage process, considering different estimation procedures and potential selection problems. We find that the group-based horizontal political inequalities highlighted in research on violent civil conflict clearly relate to conflict origination but have no clear association with militarization, whereas other features emphasized as shaping the risk of civil war, such as refugee flows and soft state power, predict militarization but not incompatibilities. A two-stage approach to conflict analysis can help advance theories of civil conflict, assess alternative mechanisms through which explanatory variables are thought to influence conflict, and guide new data-collection efforts.

The debate on democratic civil peace has centered on three general claims: democracies have a low risk of civil conflict, autocracies have the same low risk of conflict as democracies, and hybrid regimes have the highest conflict risk. We reevaluate these claims, emphasizing that previous studies have focused on the aggregate categories of regimes, neglecting the role of particular institutional features. We propose focusing on the electoral qualities of regimes, which constitute the core of democracy, and argue that constraints on electoral contestation generate incentives for opposition to use force. Building on this framework, we distinguish between five regime types according to their electoral features—non-electoral autocracies, single-party autocracies, multi-party autocracies, minimalist democracies, and polyarchies—and specify hypotheses regarding the likelihood of conflict in each. In a global statistical analysis spanning 1817‒2006 and employing the new Lexical Index of Electoral Democracy (LIED), we find that polyarchies, characterized by unconstrained contestation, have a lower risk of conflict than any other regime type (although minimalist democracies are only slightly more prone to conflict). Subsequently, we find that single- and multi-party autocracies, characterized by non-competitive elections, are more peaceful than non-electoral autocracies. Our analysis also reveals two factors that have the most substantive effects on peace: the presence of (any form of) elections and minimal electoral competition. Overall, our study underscores the importance of focusing on the central attributes of democracy and sheds new light on the relationship between particular regime features (or types) and conflict, thereby contributing to the growing efforts in conflict research to disaggregate political regimes.

Despite extensive scholarly interest in the association between economic inequality and civil conflict, we know surprisingly little about the micro-level mechanisms through which the former influences the latter. Drawing on pioneering theories of political violence, social psychological research on intergroup attitudes and behavior, and prospect theory, we examine individual-level mechanisms relating inequality to political violence. Our theoretical analysis generates two propositions that diverge from extant civil conflict research. Despite being the key explanatory mechanism, perceived lower economic status vis-à-vis other individuals (relative deprivation) is unlikely to motivate people to participate in political violence. By contrast, although virtually unexplored, a projected decrease in one's own economic status (decremental deprivation) is likely to motivate participation in political violence. Multilevel analyses of nationally representative samples from a large number of countries provide strong evidence to support these claims. Based on this, we posit that focusing on economic changes, rather than the economic status quo, is key to understanding political violence.

Given the costs of political violence, scholars have long sought to identify its causes. We examined individual differences related to participation in political violence, emphasizing the central role of political orientations. We hypothesized, specifically, that individuals with dominance-driven autocratic political orientations are particularly prone to political violence. Multilevel analysis of a large sample, spanning 34 African countries (N = 51,587), indicated that autocracy-oriented individuals, compared to democracy-oriented individuals, are four times more likely to participate in political violence. As a predictor of violence (indexed with attitudinal, action intent, and behavioral measures), autocratic orientation outperformed other variables highlighted in existing research, including socioeconomic status and perceived injustice. Additional analyses of original samples from South Africa (N = 2,170) and Denmark (N = 1,012) indicated that the association between autocratic orientation and political violence reflects individual differences in dominance orientations, and that the findings generalize to societies extensively socialized to democratic values.