Viva La Revolucin?

The 'rough terrain proposition' and other variables that may determine the likelihood of civil war onset globally looking at the time period 1945-2011
Thomas Surr

"and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks...neither shall they learn war anymore" (Micah 4:3)

I certify that this dissertation is entirely my own work and no part of it has been submitted for a degree or other qualification in this or another institution. I also certify that I have not constructed data nor shared data with another candidate at Exeter University or elsewhere without specific authorisation. BA Geography with Honours in Geography at the University of Exeter Signed................................................................................ March 2012

Ethics Form

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Table of Contents CHAPTER HEADING TITLE PAGE COPY OF ETHICS FORM TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF TABLES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT 1. 1.1 1.2 2. 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3. 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 4. 4.1 4.2 4.3 5. 5.1 5.2 5.3 INTRODUCTION Civil Wars Trends Research Aims LITERATURE REVIEW Old Wars and New Wars Old Civil Wars and New Civil Wars Theoretical Frameworks The Variables - A Brief Introduction METHODOLOGY What Is Civil War? The Dependent Variable - Countries That Have Experienced Civil War(s) Independent Variable 1 - The Country's Political Structure Independent Variable 2 - Land Area (km2) Independent Variable 3 - Number of Land Borders Independent Variable 4 - Forest Cover (%) Independent Variable 5 - Ruggedness Independent Variable 6 - Desert Cover (%) Independent Variable 7 - Real GDP per capita 1950-2000 (2006 international dollars) Introducing the Statistical Tests RESULTS, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION Data Coding Information For Chi-squared Tests Chi-squared and ANOVA - Test Results Logistic Regression Analysis - Test Results CONCLUSION Civil War Onset - Rough Terrain Civil War Onset - The Other Variables Limitations of This Dissertation and Desiderata for Future Research PAGE i iii v vii viii ix 1 1 4 7 7 8 9 12 14 14 20 23 30 32 34 36 40 41 46 54 55 57 68 71 71 72 74

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APPENDICES Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Dissertation Diary that I kept throughout my research process (first page provided as a sample) Preliminary document about possible variables affecting civil war onset, sources for relevant data, appropriate statistical tests and expectations for the relationship between each variable and civil war onset. Table was created over the summer holidays between 2nd and 3rd year (first two pages provided as a sample) Original Civil War Dataset - this data set shows every individual civil war that occurred in the time period of my study, and the means by which the ruling group/individual at the start of that civil war had come to power. This was created before I made the decision to change my dependent variable from instances of civil war to countries that have experienced civil war (sample of full data sheet). Complete data set used in SPSS analysis, plus accompanying notes (complete data sheet) List of websites used to try and obtain mountain coverage data List of websites used to cross check my initial list of civil wars Appendix 7: The following sources were found in the Royal Geographical Society Archives used to help compile and cross check my data for number of borders each country has, in addition to the CIA World Factbook. List of Nunn and Puga (2012) definitions for ruggedness and GDP per capita variables (sample of full text) BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Appendix 3

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Appendix 4 Appendix 5 Appendix 6 Appendix 7

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Appendix 8

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List of Figures FIGURE 1.1 TITLE Bar chart showing average duration of civil wars globally in months for each decade 1960s - 1990s (inclusive). 1.2 Line graph showing numbers of different armed conflicts by type, 1946-2010. 3.1 Line Graph showing relative risk of armed conflict in Democracies and Nondemocracies 3.2 Line graph showing how probability of peace in a country fluctuates over time after a civil war event has finished 3.3 3.4 3.5 World map of forest distribution (2003) World map showing mountains of the world (2002) Bar graph showing GDP per capita before and after civil war in six countries 3.6 Figure illustrating the interrelated nature of the different variables in this dissertation 4.1 Histogram showing the means by which the ruling group/individual in each country came to power 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Histogram showing land area (km2) Histogram showing number of borders Histogram showing forest cover (%) Histogram showing ruggedness - T.R.I. Histogram showing ruggedness - T.R.I. population weighted (100m) 4.7 Histogram showing ruggedness - average slope (%) 63 58 59 60 61 62 57 45 35 39 43 29 29 3 PAGE 2

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4.8

Histogram showing ruggedness - local standard deviation in elevation (100m)

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4.9

Histogram showing ruggedness - moderate to high ruggedness (%)

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4.10 4.11

Histogram showing desert cover (%) Histogram showing Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita 1950-2000 (2006 international dollars).

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List of Tables TABLE 3.1 TITLE Table listing the additional parameters that I included when setting a definition for civil war in order to include/exclude certain types of conflicts. 3.2 The Country's Political Structure Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations 3.3 Table showing the different categories I constructed for the means through which a ruling group/individual can come to power. 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Land Area Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations Number of Land Borders Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations Forest Cover Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations Ruggedness Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations Table showing Nunn and Puga's (2012) five measures of ruggedness 3.9 3.10 3.11 4.1 Desert Cover Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations Real GDP Per Capita Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations Table showing the different statistical tests used in this dissertation Coding information for variables being analysed with chi-squared tests 4.2 Table showing list of predictors and the percentage variation in civil war onset that each predictor accounts for (conclusions made with 95% certainty) 69 40 41 49 55 30 32 34 36 39 27 23 PAGE 17

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Acknowledgements First and foremost I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Nick Gill for helping steer me through my dissertation research, even with his wife due to give birth just a few days before the dissertation deadline he was always available for a chat. His advice and assistance in helping me master the statistical analyses in particular were invaluable. I would also like to thank the library staff at the University of Exeter for arranging the inter-library loans I needed, the staff at the RGS for letting me set up shop in their archive room and the numerous other academics and staff I contacted via email asking for help with finding data. I would also like to thank my housemates Dan, Mel, Betul, Holly and Megan for always being there for me and with a cup of tea/pint of lager (delete as appropriate) at the times I struggled to keep going. Finally thanks to my mum and dad for their invaluable support throughout.

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Abstract Since the end of World War II, there has been a dramatic shift in the incidence and nature of global conflict. There has been a marked decrease in international wars between nations and a marked increase in civil wars, and the gap between the two is growing steadily. The reasons that countries experience civil war are invariably complex and numerous. The 'rough terrain proposition' posits that inaccessible landscape (e.g. mountains, swamps, forests) is favourable to rebel groups during a civil war as it provides shelter and is ideal for guerrilla tactics, and rebel groups will actively seek out rough terrain during conflict as they perceive it will be beneficial to them. Can this theory then also be applied to the onset of civil war? Are nations with more types of inaccessible landscape more likely to experience civil wars? I intend to determine whether this is the case by exploring the significance of three rough terrain variables (forest, mountains and deserts) on civil war onset. I also consider other physical, political and economic variables to broaden this dissertation's field of vision. Statistical analyses are then employed, through the use of chi-squared, ANOVA and logistic regression tests to determine the role of each variable in determining likelihood of civil war onset. This is a large-N statistical analysis that looks at the period 2nd September 1945 - 31st December 2011.

KEYWORDS: civil war, rough terrain proposition, civil war onset, chi-squared, ANOVA, logistic regression analysis

1.

Introduction

This dissertation took its prompt from the academic concept of the 'rough terrain proposition' (Buhaug and Rod, 2005). It posits that "inaccessible landscape (mountains, jungles, swamps etc.) is favourable to rebel groups [during a civil war] as it provides shelter from less mobile government forces and is ideal for guerrilla tactics" (ibid.: 1). They go on to ask: "does this mean that Norway is more at risk of civil war than Spain because it has relatively more mountainous and forested terrain?" (ibid.: 1-2). The main research aims of this dissertation were borne from this question.

1.1

Civil War Trends

Civil war can be defined as a war between citizens or organised groups of and within the same nation state or republic (O'Loughlin and van der Wusten, 1993; Oxford Dictionaries Online, 2012). I discuss definitions of civil war in more detail in my methodology. For the time being, this one will suffice. Civil war matters. It is a global issue that affects many of us directly or indirectly, and one that I believe we have a collective responsibility to try and prevent. With the onset of the most recent phase of globalisation which occurred around the end of WWII, we have seen the global political environment change as a "devolutionary trend has swept the world" (Rodriguez-Pose and Gill, 2003: 336). As a consequence, the landscape of global conflict is now dominated by civil wars rather than interstate wars. There has been a new growth in interest in the discipline of political geography about geographical factors that that may affect civil war onset, duration and outcome; there has been a shift beyond interest in just the variables of contiguity and distance to include a whole host of new variables (Buhaug and Lujala, 2005). This dissertation slots in as part of this new

shift in interest in the literature. O'Loughlin and van der Wusten found that over the course of the 20th century civil war has grown as a ratio of all four types of wars (the other three being global wars, world wars and local wars), to become the "stereotypical conflicts of the late twentieth century" (1993: 94) (see Fig. 1.2). During the period 1945 - 1990, the ratio of civil wars to international wars was 5:1. By 2003 the ratio was 8.5:1 (O'Loughlin, 2004; cited in O'Loughlin and Raleigh, 2007). There have been some notable shifts in the spatial and temporal trends of civil war incidence since the end of WWII. Civil wars have become concentrated in the Third World (O'Loughlin and van der Wusten, 1993) and tend to last longer (see Fig. 1.1) and claim more lives than interstate wars (between 1945 and 1999, there were 3.3m deaths in interstate wars compared with 16.2m deaths in civil wars). Civil wars are also much more destructive of life and property than interstate wars (Kaldor, 2003; O'Loughlin, 2004). Hence I have used 1945 as the start of my time period to frame it within this context of increasing civil war trends. Figure 1.1: Bar chart showing average duration of civil wars globally in months for each decade 1960s - 1990s (inclusive)

Source: Collier, Hoeffler and Soderbom (2003; cited in Collier et al., 2003) - note the slight decline in 1990s average, suggesting that the 1980s was a particular violent decade.

Figure 1.2: Line graph showing numbers of different armed conflicts by type, 19462010

Source: (UCDP, 2011) - note the substantial increase in intrastate wars whilst other types of armed conflict have decreased (numbers of extra-state and interstate conflict are almost at zero) or roughly stayed the same (in the case of internationalised intrastate conflict). Whether or not this shifting ratio is part of deeper structural changes to the global political system remains to be seen, or whether, as Hegre et al. (2001) propose, the amount of civil wars in the global system may fluctuate cyclically over time, possibly following global political, ideological and economic variations. Krippendorff (cited in Tilly, 1975) has suggested that higher levels of civil conflict are associated with lower levels of international conflict, and vice versa. This hypothesis bears out in history as being accurate, and suggests a cyclically alternating relationship between high levels of civil and international conflict.

1.2

Research Aims

This dissertation is grounded in the areas of political geography and the spatial analytical tradition. It captures the fundamental aspect of what human geography is all about by investigating one particular relationship between people and their environment. OLoughlin and Raleigh (2007) have called for further development of methodologies that link social science approaches to the physical environment, as well as arguing that existing dominant political and economic perspectives on organised violence are flawed by their narrow vision of what constitutes the role of geographic factors. Sheppard (2001) calls for research that breaks down the dualism between quantitative and qualitative geography and engage the two into a single piece of research. My dissertation intends to answer these calls by combining statistical analysis with qualitative theory and to contribute literature to promote a broader understanding of the role of geographical factors. It also responds to the perceived paucity of data hindering the study of civil war (O'Loughlin and Raleigh, 2007) by contributing an extensive data set which has been compiled over many months, which I hope future researchers will use. This dissertation is also a response to a number of criticisms and desiderata stated in other literature. It is a response to the criticism of Buhaug and Rod (2005) that there is a tendency in civil war research to neglect the spatial aspect of the context in which civil wars occur. This dissertation will endeavour to be aware of the spatial contexts of civil war, through focusing of my variables on geographical terrain which are very much spatial variables, focused at the national level. By researching all my data on a national level the extent to which I can consider sub-national and supra-national contexts are limited. However I feel that my variables of borders and GDP have a supra-national contextual element. Borders entail relations and networks with various actors beyond a

nation's borders. Similarly, GDP is tied into and affected by all sorts of global processes. By the same reasoning that DeRouen and Sobek (2004: 305) argue that "understanding what factors most influence outcomes and durations [of civil war] will point to possible solutions", I very much hope that this paper can perhaps contribute to ideas of how we can mitigate the problems of civil wars and perhaps even ultimately look to prevent civil wars. Collier et al. (2003) argue persuasively that the global incidence of civil war is so high partly because the international community has done so little to avert it. This inertia is based on the opinion that nothing can be done and that civil wars should be left to the belligerents to fight out amongst themselves without consequence for the wider global political community. It can and must be challenged through developing more nuanced and complete understandings of what causes civil wars. If the international community perceives that civil wars have causes that can be mitigated, my hope is that they will start to take action. I believe that in the wake of this rapid and substantial shift in the nature of global conflict, there is a necessity now more than ever for a thorough understanding of why civil wars occur as an important step to the longer term goal of reducing the incidence of civil war globally. We are also in a unique revolutionary moment across the world (e.g. the Arab Spring of 2010-present and the worldwide Occupy movements) whereby the citizens around the world are being imbued with more and more power and influence through technologies (e.g. social media) and there is genuine belief that change is possible. It seems that the literature on civil war is struggling to keep up with the pace at which conflict, as well as the factors that determine its onset, duration and outcome are changing and evolving. As Buhaug (2003: 1) asserts: "After some forty years of systematic conflict research we still know next to nothing about the general interaction between geography and civil war". There are two main research aims for this paper:

(i) To determine whether or not there is a correlation between different types of rough terrain and incidence of civil war in a country (in the given time period) in order to answer the question posited by the rough terrain proposition. If there is a correlation, I will then endeavour to explain why there might be causality. (ii) To compare and contrast the significance of rough terrain as a potentially contributing factor to civil war onset against other variables and rank the relative significance of each variable. Attempting to determine whether the 'rough terrain proposition' is applicable to the onset of civil war is, to the best of my knowledge, a unique undertaking in the literature. This is why I believe this dissertation will make new and relevant contributions to the literature. Through the use of chi-squared and ANOVA tests I will look to determine whether there is an individual association between each variable in a set of variables and likelihood of civil war onset. I then employ a logistic regression analysis to determine the interaction of all these variables with likelihood of civil war onset. The chapters of this dissertation are organised to generate a narrative of existing literature and identify areas that warrants further research. I then discuss my findings and contributions to the literature, before linking the two in a conclusion as well as identifying limitations of my dissertation and desiderate for future research. My hope for this paper is that it will contribute to the formation of a new relationship between the discipline of geography and war. In colonial times, geography was very much a tool of waging war. I believe that geography is now increasingly being used as a tool to prevent war by generating better understandings of the processes of war and increasing public awareness of conflicts going on in the world.

2.

Literature Review

As already stated, the starting academic prompt for this dissertation was the question posited by the 'rough terrain proposition' (Buhaug and Rod, 2005). There are also a number of other academic concepts, theories and perspectives that I have drawn upon to make sense of my research questions.

2.1

Old Wars and New Wars

Mary Kaldor coined the terms (2005) 'old' and 'new' wars to discuss the changing nature of conflict. These terms can refer to both intrastate and interstate conflicts. Civil wars are 'new wars' according to Kaldor and are understood as such in this dissertation, since "World War II really did mark the end of 'old wars' (ibid.: 9). 'New wars' take place in the context of the disintegration of states and are fought by a network of state and nonstate actors. The decisive encounter of battles that typified 'old' wars' has been replaced by guerrilla warfare and most violence is directed at civilians as a consequence of counter-insurgency tactics. We now live in a global space that is increasingly interconnected and where the autonomy of the state is being tested (Kaldor, 2003). Of course 'new' wars are not entirely 'new'. It is possible to identify some elements of 'new' wars within 'old' wars'. For example, states were not always monolithic entities in the past that are only now (arguably) disintegrating. The global political state system is constantly in flux as power and influence ebbs and flows across the sub-national, national and supra-national. Whilst we can critique the 'old'/'new' binary as being inaccurate, it is useful because it helps our understanding of "what is happening to-day and what we need to do about it" (Kaldor, 2005: 3). It supports the idea that we need to develop a new literature that is continually being updated and taken in new directions or the changing nature of war will accelerate away and existing literature will lose its

relevance very quickly. Kaldor (2005) argues that 'old war' ways of seeing the world run very deeply in the discourses of politicians and this prevents them from seeing the reality of 'new wars'. A wealth of new literature will be required to demonstrate and explain to these powerful politicians how civil war is both changing in, and changing the nature of, the global political arena, so that policymaking can evolve accordingly. This dissertation hopes to be part of this wealth of new literature.

2.2

Old Civil Wars and New Civil Wars

Kalyvas (2001) introduces a useful extra dimension to this 'new war' understanding of civil wars by discussing the suggestion that civil wars prior to the end of the Cold War are 'old civil wars' and civil wars post the end of the Cold War are 'new civil wars' - this dissertation deals with both types. 'New' civil wars are distinguished as criminal phenomena that are fought for loot, rather than political phenomena which are fought for justice. 'New civil wars' are also fought with gratuitous violence and generally lack popular support. Kalyvas has argued that some 'new' civil wars lack purpose entirely and are fought over nothing at all. Whilst I am cautious to make such blanket assertions over the motives for civil wars in different time periods, these conceptions are useful because they show how the nature of civil war is constantly changing. In particular, the assertion that civil wars are fought over nothing at all is problematic as it represents certain groups/nations as essentially warmongers who will take any excuse for a fight. This is of course inaccurate and there will always be reasons that civil war is initiated, however they may be too subtle or specific, for those not familiar with the political, social and cultural contexts, to understand. Kalyvas also argues that there are global misconceptions about the belligerents involved in civil wars, particular in the West. Far from being the mere gangs of criminals and bandits portrayed by some academic and

popular media sources, rebel groups and their warlord leaders are complex organisations and state builders respectively, who levy taxes, administer justice and generally assume the burdens of government in the areas they control. They also engage in economic interactions with internal and foreign organisations and individuals to buy and sell resources and weapons. I very much hope that this discussion of Kaldor and Kalyvas' theories will have illustrated that civil wars are highly complex affairs, rather than binary conflicts between rebels and the government over well-defined grievances. My dissertation and my understandings of civil wars are set in the context of these understandings of 'old' and 'new' wars and civil wars.

2.3

Theoretical Frameworks

This dissertation adopts a state-centred approach in that the variables I use all rely on national level data. Authors have written persuasively on the limitations of adopting an aggregated, state-centred approach. Buhaug and Rod's (2005) main criticism is that an aggregated approach to two variables assumes that all other conditions in the countries being considered are the same, which is never the case. This is an important reality to bear in mind and adds a potential limitation to the applicability of my variables and the statistical findings I obtain. Dodds (2005) has argued that a state-centred approach is too narrow in its view and that there are also a variety of other supra-national and subnational actors and organisations that share global political space today which must be taken into account. I nonetheless defend my choice of an aggregated, state-centred approach for several reasons. Firstly, due to time constraints and my unfamiliarity with complex GIS software I felt that a disaggregated approach was impractical. Secondly, some of my variables are only applicable to the national level. Many other studies of

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variables affecting the onset of civil war take a state-centred approach so I do not feel that this dissertation's contribution to the literature is any less valid. The rough terrain proposition, as a way of analysing the actions of state and non-state actors, adopts a strong belief in the framework of the 'ecological perspective' developed by The Sprouts (1965; cited in Diehl, 1991). In this conception, the milieu can enhance or inhibit the ability of the state to perform a particular action, creating both sources and conditions for conflict which may result in civil war. My dissertation is fixed very much in this ecological perspective. The reasons for a civil war starting are often mixed. In my mind there is no doubt that "to fully understand the dynamics of conflicts - why they occur and how they evolve - we must always consider their geographical context" (Buhaug, 2003: 1). Whilst geography is not an exclusive or determining factor in the likelihood of conflict occurring (Diehl, 1991), it still has an important role to play. Both peace and civil war are highly persistent states - societies at peace are highly likely to remain at peace and societies in civil conflict are highly likely to remain in civil conflict (Collier et al., 2001). So what is it that causes a society to go from peace to civil conflict? Providing answers to this question is another of the main research aims of this dissertation. There is a fairly limited volume of research that looks at the variables that determine civil war onset and there are still many unanswered questions in the literature. First and foremost is a lack of consensus over whether terrain is in itself a cause of conflict or a condition that affects the likelihood of civil war onset. Civil war is ultimately caused by the interplay of domestic structures and domestic contexts. Ellingsen (2000; cited in Lujala et al., 2005) identifies three factors that lead to civil war onset: frustration (a grievance or a desire to obtain resources), opportunity (favourable environmental conditions and necessary resources at their disposal, couple with the belief they can obtain victory) and identity (the perception that there is a group of people facing the same problems that will unite them in a common goal). However

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geographers contend that the effects of domestic structures (e.g. GDP, government structure) and domestic contexts (e.g. terrain) are in turn shaped by the nature of regional context. This idea, the belief in regional context in the role of shaping civil war, is the one that underpins this dissertation and explains why I focus on variables relating to physical terrain with less attention being given to political and economic variables. Many people and organisations perceive that they already know the causes of civil war. "Those on the political right tend to assume that it is due to longstanding ethnic and religious hatreds, those in the political centre tend to assume that it is due to a lack of democracy and that violence occurs where opportunities for the peaceful resolution of political disputes are lacking, and those on the political left tend to assume that it is due to economic inequalities or to a deep-rooted legacy of colonialism" (Collier et al., 2003: 53). According to O'Loughlin and Raleigh (2007: 10), civil war onset is "typically not explained by one cause but by the interplay of underlying ethnic and economic conditions with catalytic political factors". However Fearon and Laitin conclude that the factors that explain which countries are at risk for civil war are not ethnic or religious characteristics but rather conditions that favour insurgency including poverty, political instability and geographical remoteness from centres of power (2003: 1). Collier et al. (2001) group the empirical correlates of the initiation of civil war into economic, social, geographical and historical. They also found that the duration of civil wars is determined by a substantially different set of variables from those which determine the onset. Buhaug and Rod (2005), in their appraisal of the 'rough terrain proposition', argue that unless rebels actually operate out of rough terrain, then it shouldn't matter to the risk of civil war whether 20% or 80% of the country is rough terrain. The 'rough terrain proposition' may be valid without there being a deterministic relationship between country-level statistics of terrain and civil war onset (Buhaug, 2003). Hence we can see that from even this literature review that there is a

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lack of consensus over the causes of civil war, the role of geography (both physical and human) and that the variables we are dealing with are a mix of social, economic, political and physical geography. This dissertation will aim to incorporate all these types of variables into its statistical analysis, but it will also look to narrow down more specifically on the role of physical geography in the onset of civil war.

2.4

The Variables - A Brief Introduction

There are a number of different papers that point to a possible association between likelihood of civil war onset and rough terrain, and of course there are also papers which do not believe that such a relationship exists. Diehl (1991) breaks down empirical studies of geography and war into two categories: those that treat geography as a facilitating condition for conflict and those that treat geography as a source of conflict. This draws a distinction between the circumstances in which people are able to rebel (i.e. conditions) and want to rebel (i.e. motives) respectively. Collier and Hoeffler (2004) conclude that conditions to rebel are more important in explaining civil war onset than motives. However Hirshleifer (1995, 2001; cited in Collier and Hoeffler, 2004) adds an important refinement to this motive-opportunity binary, which I agree is overly simplistic, by introducing an extra category called 'perceptions'. This category allows for the very real possibility that both motives and conditions might be based on incorrect perceptions of grievance and the existence of facilitating conditions for waging an effective campaign, respectively.. I intend to break the mould of Diehl (1991) and produce a dissertation that looks at geography as a facilitating condition for conflict AND as a source of conflict, through careful choice of variables, statistical analysis and theory to increase the applicability of my dissertation. The variables borders, land area, forest area, ruggedness and desert

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area are being investigated as possible facilitating conditions for civil war - these conditions may enhance the opportunities available for conflict. The variables for how the ruling group/individual came to power and GDP per capita are being investigated as possible sources of conflict - politics and economics may be primary issues of dispute in a particular country. This dissertation looks at three major types of rough terrain - forest, mountains and desert. Other types of rough terrain such as swamps and rivers were excluded either because I was not able to obtain sufficient data for them or because time constraints prohibited me from including them. In the wider literature, mountains and forest are the two most frequently discussed so I felt these were essential to include. I chose desert as a third variable because very little research exists for it so I felt this was a good opportunity to contribute something new to the existing literature. Originally, I hoped to condense all three variables into one 'rough terrain' variable, but upon adding the three percentages (forest cover, desert cover and ruggedness as average slope), a figure greater than 100% was returned in multiple instances. I rationalised that this is because forests, mountains and deserts often overlap geographically, and hence unfortunately there is no simple way of calculating all three into a rough terrain variable. The idea of calculating a cumulative 'rough terrain' variable was abandoned, and I instead decided to look at forests, mountains and deserts as three separate examples of rough terrain.

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3. 3.1

Methodology What Is Civil War?

The very first step towards achieving my research aims was to decide upon a definition of civil war. I would like to stress at this point in my dissertation that there are no preexisting 'out there' realities of variables that affect civil war onset that this dissertation is hoping to uncover. Instead, it simply intends suggests possible associations and directions for future research. Defining civil war was much more complex than I initially anticipated. As already stated in my introduction, I started with a straightforward and all-encompassing definition. I then proceeded to explore the literature on civil war to find other definitions which might inform this definition. DeRouen and Sobek (2004) view civil war as a pathology of the state, a deviation from a healthy and desired state, where people inflict violence on one another and/or the freedom of movement of the individual is limited. Doyle and Sambanis (2000: 779) argue that "civil wars arise when individuals, groups, and factions discover that a policeman, judge, soldier, or politician no longer speaks and acts for them". This is a very politically focused definition. Doyle and Sambanis (ibid.: 783) define civil war as an armed conflict that: "causes more than 1,000 battle deaths overall and at list in a single year; challenges the sovereignty of an internationally recognised state; occurs within the recognised boundary of that state; involves the state as a principle combatant". I have a number of critiques of this definition. Its focus on the state is too narrow, as a number of conflicts that have happened within nations since the end of WW2 have not involved the state as a principle combatant (e.g. the 1994 Rwandan ethnic genocide). Conflicts based on ethnic or religious divides which do not challenge the sovereignty of the state should still, in my opinion be classified as civil wars. This will produce a much more inclusive data set. This definition also reproduces

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an outdated Westphalian understanding of the world political landscape that nations are sovereign within their own territories and that the only conflicts that occur are rebels challenging state authority (Dodds, 2005). I do not set any threshold for number of battle deaths for two reasons. Firstly, calculating the number of deaths in a civil war is very difficult and there are often multiple estimations which can be unreliable and contradicting. Secondly, I feel that it is insensitive to those affected by the horrors of civil war. A civil war in which 'only' 999 people have died should not be excluded from this dissertation. The pain and suffering experienced by these 999, and those connected to them, is no less meaningful or significant than a civil war in which 1000 people have died. I instead use the definition of Singer and Small (1982; cited in Collier and Hoeffler, 1998) which states that a civil war simply requires that the belligerents have the capacity to inflict death upon one another. If this paper is to try and offer useful conclusions which might contribute to efforts to put an end to civil war, then conflicts involving any number of deaths must be included. Regan (1996) argues that setting battle death threshold, even a relatively low one (his paper sets the threshold at 200 deaths), is important for three reasons: it conveys a sense that the conflict is sufficiently intense, that it could escalate and in order to exclude coups and riots. I disagree that deaths alone is a sufficient measure of intensity. I respond to the point about excluding coups and riots by using a different measure to differentiate between coups/riots and civil wars. I use the belligerents as the determining factor rather than number of battles deaths (see Parameter 5 in Table 3.1). Doyle and Sambanis (2000) also code the termination of civil war. They classify any hostilities that occur two years after the conclusion of peace as a new civil war. I do not set a minimum period of time that must elapse between civil wars. Instead, I determined whether there had been a clear ceasing of existing hostilities for however short a period of time, only for them to be restarted. Pecaut (1999; cited in Kalyvas, 2001) argues that

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civil wars where the population does not support any side should not be classed as civil wars. However short of actually going into civil war zones to conduct interviews, determining the allegiances of a population in civil war is very tricky and so I disregarded Pecaut's qualifier. We have also already discussed Kalyvas' (2001) theory, (which opposes the argument of Pecaut) which is that 'new' civil wars often occur without popular support, so excluding such conflicts would have drastically reduced the size of my data set. As my research progressed it became necessary to include my own additional parameters as to what does and does not qualify as a civil war for the purposes of my research. This involved adapting the above definitions and adding complexities, listed in Table 3.1.

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Table 3.1: Table listing the additional parameters that I included when setting a definition for civil war in order to include/exclude certain types of conflicts PARAMETER Parameter 1 DESCRIPTION Cases where external forces have become involved in a conflict and constitute an independent force, as opposed to supporting an existing belligerent from within the country, are not classed as civil wars. However in cases whereby during the civil war one or more of the factions involved are supported by external nations and organisations, these conflics are still counted as civil wars. In addition, incidences whereby foreign forces have intervened simply to try and broker peace (e.g. UN peacekeeping forces) rather than constitute an aggressive force are still classed as civil wars. Conflict may also spread into other countries, as long as the fighting remains between the factions from the original nation. This is in keeping with the spatial-analytical approach of this dissertation which argues that the location of country relative to other countries (neighbouring, near, distant, remote, connected by transport links, sharing minorities across borders etc.) is an important consideration in understanding the distribution of conflict. O'Loughlin and van der Wusten (1993) found that since 1945, participants in civil wars increasingly look to regional and global allies beyond their own borders for help in supplying (amongst other things) economic aid and weapons. The fact remains that all the conflicts I include started in one particular country between groups within that country. On a more practical note, if I had decided to not include any civil war where external forces were involved or where the fighting spilled over into other countries in my research, I would have been left

18

with a very short list of civil wars to investigate. This would have significantly reduced the scope of my dissertation research and the validity and confidence that I would have in my findings. Parameter 2 Cases in which two sides did not engage in violence with one another, but rather one side attacked another without retaliation, are not classed as civil wars. Parameter 3 All incidences of "one-sided violence" (UCDP, 2011a) are not classed as civil wars, which may include some (but by no means all) riots, bloodless coups, genocide and violent repressions of civil unrest. Parameter 4 Cases of coups and revolutions in which there was no actual fighting between two sides are not classed as civil wars. In such cases, there may have been aggression by one side against a capitulated/unresisting enemy or the coup/revolution may have been bloodless. However cases of political violence, regardless of their smaller scale or how acute they are, will still be included. Parameter 5 Cases of riots and protests that are violently dispersed by the police/army where there may be minor acts of violence and possibly fatalities, but no significant or recognisable incidences of two groups engaging in conflict with one another, are not classed as civil wars. Deciding on a quantifiable factor that differentiated between a large scale riot and a small scale civil war proved challenging. I decided to use the belligerents as the deciding factor. In a riot it seems that people attack authority and destroy indiscriminately without clear motive or establishment of an organised group. Riots often occur spontaneously rather than being planned in advance and tend not to have a clear pattern of connected incidents. Whereas in a civil war, rebel groups usually proclaim some sort of grievance or desire for political change (Collier et al., 2003). Belligerent groups

19

in civil wars are, in my opinion, much more coherently organised than typical rioters (some small groups of 'professional' rioters do exist however) with supply chains of resources, an established organisational structure and expressed motives and demands which they will plan strategies to achieve. Parameter 6 Cases in which a conflict has been over trade or resources (e.g. drugs, diamonds) for financial gain are not classed as civil wars. I feel that such conflicts would skew the potential variation caused by other factors and make them much less significant. The conditions for starting a drugs war for example are not comparable with causal factors for civil war, given that the overriding objective is financial gain. Parameter 7 Cases whereby a nation has either experienced an individual terrorist attack that has not let to any subsequent civil conflict are not classed as civil wars. Nor are cases where a nation has experienced conflict between terrorist groups operating in that country and the nation's government or another group who want to try and oust the terrorists. Terrorists operate in shadowy networks and so, in my opinion, cannot truly claim to be a part of any one nation in particular. Furthermore their attacks are often, but not always, random and indiscriminate.

20

I readily accept that the definition of civil war I have chosen is by no means perfect, and I invite others to critique it and build upon it. Indeed, perhaps civil war is becoming an obsolete term altogether. As Kaldor (2003) points out, modern day civil wars involve an array of global actors such as diaspora supporters, mercenaries, weapons dealers and financiers. In this era of new war', where wars are increasingly fought as much with ICT, social media, televisions and radios as much as they are fought with guns and grenades, the networks of a civil war invariably extend across multiple borders. People from all around the world are enrolled into a conflict in a number of ways, including reading about it in the media, perhaps pressuring their governments to intervene, donating money to aid charities and so on and so forth. So can we really ever say that a conflict is exclusively between set groups from one particular country and geographically contained to a certain country? In my opinion, no we cannot. My next step was to choose a small number of variables that might be contributing factors to the onset of civil war which I could research (see Appendix 2).

3.2

The Dependent Variable - Countries That Have Experienced Civil War(s)

The next state of my data collection was to generate a list of every civil war that had occurred globally in my given time period and the country where it had occurred. Generating this list took almost two months of extensive research using a number of different online databases to ensure reliability. It was by no means a case of simply copying and pasting information into my spreadsheets. I conducted both primary and secondary research in order to create data for this dissertation. By the very nature of how they are fought, civil wars can often be elusive and so I was concerned that finding sufficient and reliable data would be very difficult. I started with website called 'Death Tolls for the Multicides of the Twentieth Century' (White, 2010) which provides a very

21

lengthy list of conflicts that have occurred in the 20th century. I re-wrote this list into an excel spreadsheet and then began the hugely time consuming process of researching each of the approximately 300 conflicts listed in this dataset to determine whether each conflict did in fact qualify as a civil war by my parameters. This involved researching the facts of every civil war to determine the combatants involved, what the conflict was being fought over, where the conflict occurred, who ruled the country at the time and how they had come to power. If a conflict did qualify as a civil war, I then entered it into an excel spreadsheet along with the start and end dates of the conflict and a brief description of the belligerents and what the conflict was primarily about (see Appendix 3). As I'm sure readers will appreciate, this was a hugely time consuming and painstaking process. I then cross-checked my existing list of civil wars with a number of other websites (listed in Appendix 6) to ensure reliability. Originally my dependent variable was 'individual incidences of civil war' so there were multiple incidences of civil war in some countries. However once I commenced with the coding of my data, I had to re-index my list so that my dependent variable would be 'countries that had experienced civil wars'. This required me to be flexible of the changing nature of my dissertation and my research questions as my investigation progressed. Countries that had experienced civil wars were coded as '1' in my spreadsheet. I also include number of countries that have not had civil wars as a control group. "Analysis of risk conflict needs to include null cases; that is, units without conflict" (Buhaug and Rod, 2005: 4). Countries that had not experienced civil war were coded as '0' in my spreadsheet. The full list of countries that have and have not experienced civil war is in Appendix 4.

22

My list has 141 countries in total - 101 have experienced civil war and 40 have not experienced civil war between 2nd September 1945 and 31st December 2011. I am very wary not to assert that I have compiled a definitive list of nations that have experienced civil war during this time period for a number of reasons. Firstly, I have knowingly excluded some conflicts that others might define as civil wars. Secondly, it is very likely that some civil wars have gone undocumented on the internet and in academic books and papers, and indeed it is possible that some civil wars have gone on with very little, if any, international attention. However I have researched this list exhaustively and so I am assured that it is more than comprehensive enough for the purposes of this research paper. All the variables that I have chosen are taken from my literature review and each has been posited as having an association with civil war onset. They are also interlinked and inter-dependent in many ways, and I will try to capture a sense of this in my discussion. The list is dominated by variables relating to the physical terrain of the country, some of which are being used to test the 'rough terrain proposition'. However in reality all variables are a mix of physical and human geography. For example the number of borders a country has variable deals both with the physical terrain of a country and the numerous social, political and economic factors that have shaped the formation of these borders and continue to shape the networks that move across these borders. My positionality as a researcher and the background reading that I had done meant that I selected some variables and disregarded others. For example, Sprout (1965; cited in Diehl, 1991) and others have long claimed that climate is an important factor in determining state behaviour and perhaps likelihood of civil war onset. However I chose to avoid variables related to climate as I felt this might lead to ugly environmental determinist such as 'people in nations nearer the equator are more prone to civil war'.

23

To tee up the following discussion of my variables, I would like to quote the speculative (and I stress that is very speculative) interpretation of Collier et al. (2001: 15) of how civil conflicts may be triggered as it feel it provides an interesting overview of how civil wars may start. "They [civil wars] start when a rebel organisation is both militarily and financially viable. A dispersed population, mountainous terrain, and prior establishment in a neighbouring country, all enable the rebel organisation to build up an initial military force in remote areas. In such conditions governments are powerless to prevent the emergence of rebellion regardless of preventative military expenditure".

3.3

Independent Variable 1 - The Country's Political Structure

Table 3.2: The Country's Political Structure Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations H0 (the null hypothesis) The methods by which the ruling group/individual at the start of the civil war have come to power in a country have no effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country. H1 (the alternative hypothesis) The methods by which the ruling group/individual at the start of the civil war have come to power in a country does have an effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country.

Expectations I expect to find that H1 is true. I expect that countries where power is determined through democratic methods are less likely to experience civil wars. There appears to be a correlation between the level and strength of democracy in a nation and the absence of international conflict (O'Loughlin and van der Wusten, 1993). This is known as the 'democratic peace' hypothesis (O'Loughlin and Raleigh, 2004). For example, between 1973 and 1992 First World democracies did not

24

experience a single civil war (Ellingsen and Gleditsch, 1997; cited in Hegre et al., 2001). I predict that this hypothesis will also be true for civil wars for a number of reasons. Firstly, the demands of the electorate are much better represented and dealt with in democratic nations, rather than being ignored and repressed by regimes that are less accountable to their publics and can seize power rather than being elected (Collier and Hoeffler, 2001). Elections are also much more fairly organised and more open to international scrutiny. Secondly, democratic regimes are less exclusionary and provide an outlet for resolution of conflict by peaceful means; grievances are also better addressed and the government is more efficient (DeRouen and Sobek, 2004). However other authors disagree with the democratic peace hypothesis. O'Loughlin (2004: 91) adds a caveat which is that the "effects of democracy on conflict are significantly mediated by the regional location of the country of interest. Democracies within democratic regions [e.g. Europe] have much better prospects of peace". Bremer (1992; cited in Buhaug, 2005) argues that findings of democratic peace in a dataset are conditional on the choice of data. O'Loughlin (2004) asserts that democracy fails to reduce the risk of civil war in low income countries. Fearon and Laitin (2003) add that civil wars are not less frequent in democracies after controlling for income. Collier et al. (2001) support this assertion with their findings that prior political repression is insignificant in affecting civil war onset. Fearon (2004) goes one further and finds that there is no relationship between polity and civil war onset at all.

25

I also expect power acquired through inheritance, promotion and occupation to be less likely to experience civil wars as they tend to be quite authoritarian. Hegre et al. (2001) found that that both coherent democracies and harshly authoritarian states have few civil wars, and semidemocracies (regimes which fluctuate between a democracy and an autocracy) exhibit a higher propensity to civil war than either extreme. In other words, stability increases safety. "Semidemocracies are partly open yet somewhat repressive, a combination that invites protest, rebellion and other forms of civil violence" (ibid.: 33). Intermediate regimes are four times more prone to civil war than consistent democracies. This is backed up by Bleaney and Dimico (2011) who find that anocractic (a mixture of democratic and authoritarian) states are more likely to experience civil war. However this association between partial democracy and civil war may be spurious because partial democracies are associated with other characteristics such as low GDP which are also associated with higher likelihood of civil war onset. In Fig. 3.1, we observe the finding of Collier et al. (2003) that whether or not democratic nations are stable and hence less at risk from civil war is critically dependent on the level of economic development. Below a certain GDP per capita (approximately $800), risk of civil war is shown to actually be higher in democracies than non-democracies, because political institutions tend to be less stable in democracies than in autocracies.

I expect that countries where power has been acquired through a civil war/coup, undemocratic methods or martial law will be more likely to

26

experience another civil war. In these countries political power shifts regularly; in the short run, domestic violence seems to be associated with political change in general, whether towards greater democracy or greater autocracy (Hegre et al., 2001). Groups/individuals that have come to power through undemocratic methods or by force are much less likely to be accepted by their populations and the international community and sooner or later civil discontent tends to emerge. Bleaney and Dimico (2011) argue that by far the most important factor influencing civil war onset is recent history of war, and this will interact with all other variables. They find that the probability of civil war increases from 60% - 84% (depending on the data set) if there was war in the previous year. Hibbs (1973; cited in Hegre et al., 2001) found that countries that have previously experienced internal war (but not collective protest) are around 50% more likely to experience renewed conflict within the first year or two years of reaching peace (Bleaney and Dimico, 2011) and five years of reaching peace (Hibbs, 1973; cited in Hegre et al., 2001). This is shown in figure 3.2. This finding that the chief legacy of civil war is another civil war is known as the conflict trap (Collier et al, 2003). Conflict renewal is more likely than conflict initiation, all other things being equal (Collier et al., 2001). This ties back to Kaldor's (2003) assertion that 'new' wars are very difficult to contain and very difficult to end. Simply put, war will recur if the expected utility of war is greater than the expected utility of peace to the various groups involved. This attitude is rational on the level of one individual or one group, but collectively it is irrational since war is collectively suboptimal (Doyle and Sambanis, 2000).

27

Creating this data table required lengthy investigation of the political history of each country. The CIA World Factbook (2011) was my main resource and other websites were occasionally used to cross check minor details. There were incidences whereby there had been a quick succession of changes around the time of a civil war starting, which was in itself often a contributing factor to the start of the civil war, and in some cases leaders had only been in power for a matter of days before the civil war started. This required me to be very precise with my research to ensure accuracy, and a number of results were double and even triple checked against other sources. I have come up with six categories by which ruling powers have come into power:

Table 3.3: Table showing the different categories I constructed for the means through which a ruling group/individual can come to power Means through which ruling group/individual came to power Martial Law (coded as 0 in my data table) Democratic (coded as 1 in my data table) When the ruling leader/group had been democratically elected (this includes indirect elections where the electorate vote for a congress who then in turn select a new leader) Un-Democratic (coded as 2 in my data table) When the ruling leader/group came into power through questionable democratic processes. For example, when the incumbent banned all opposition parties and imprisoned opposition politicians so that the electorate only had one party to vote for. Or where the incumbent introduced new When the country is ruled by martial law Description

28

legislation to allow them to stay in power for an additional term(s). Promotion (coded as 3 in my data table) When the ruling leader/group was especially selected by another ruler/party already in power. For example, a monarch selecting a particular individual to be the new President after the previous incumbent rule has ended for whatever reason. Inherited (coded as 4 in my data table) Civil War/Coup/Assassination (coded as 5 in my data table) Occupying Force (coded as 6 in my data table) When a country is being occupied by another country or has been made the colony of another country. When the ruling leader/group has inherited power from the previous incumbent. For example, through a bloodline. When the new ruling leader/group acquired power through the means of a civil war/coup/assassination which deposes or usurps the incumbent.

29

Figure 3.1: Line Graph showing relative risk of armed conflict in Democracies and Nondemocracies

Source: Hegre (2003; cited in Collier et al., 2003) Figure 3.2: Line graph showing how probability of peace in a country fluctuates over time after a civil war event has finished

Source: Collier, Hoeffler and Soderbom (2001; cited in Collier et al., 2003)

30

I chose to research how power had been obtained by the ruling group/individual in power at the start of each civil war so as to make the political structure more directly relatable to the onset of civil war. Since a number of countries that I looked at have had multiple civil wars, the ruling individual/group at the start of each conflict had in some instances come into power in a different way(s). In such cases, I took the modal (most frequently occurring) means. If there were two results that occurred an equal number of times, I took the most recent conflict's result as the decider. This was the most appropriate way that I could conceive to include this data in my dissertation, but it is far from ideal. I am aware that trying to typify any country's political structure over a period of 60 years is both overly-simplistic and indeed may mis-represent the people and politics in that country. Nonetheless this must suffice for this dissertation. One shortcoming of this data that I am aware of is that political allegiance may often be based on ethnicity and religion of political parties/organisations in a country (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004). My analysis of this governance variable would have probably benefited from a complementary analysis with religious and ethnic affiliations in each country on my list. I believe that this would be a good prompt for future researchers.

3.4

Independent Variable 2 - Land Area (km2)

Table 3.4: Land Area Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations H0 The size of a country's land area has no effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country. H1 The size of a country's land area does have an effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country. Expectations I expect to find that H1 is true. I expect that larger countries are more

31

likely to experience civil war for a number of reasons. Fearon and Laitin (2003) found that countries that are larger are more likely to experience civil war. Collier and Hoeffler (2004) surmise that low population density, low urbanisation and a dispersed population, which are more typical of larger countries, may inhibit government capability to exert authority and distribute resources and thus increase the likelihood of civil unrest. Likelihood of grievance may also increase with country size as public choices will diverge more from the preferences of the average individual as heterogeneity increases, thereby possibly increasing the risk of civil war. Larger countries also tend to have larger and more dispersed populations which have been associated with higher likelihood of civil war onset. Civil unrest is more likely to occur in the peripheries of nations, far away from central authorities. Countries with a highly dispersed population have a very high risk of civil war (about 37% risk) and that risk of conflict is proportional to a country's population (ibid.). On the other hand however, Collier and Hoeffler (2001) argue that measures of opportunity, such as exports, school enrolment and income, may increase with country size, potentially reducing risk of civil war. Data for this variable was taken from the CIA World Factbook (2011).

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3.5

Independent Variable 3 - Number of Land Borders.

Table 3.5: Number of Land Borders Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations H0 The number of land borders a country has has no effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country. H1 The number of land borders a country has does have an effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country. Expectations I expect to find that H1 is true. A civil war in one country increases the likelihood of neighbouring and nearby countries experiencing civil war as well. A country is 47% less likely to remain at peace if a neighbouring country has a civil war, according to Collier et al. (2001). This may be because observing a group in a neighbouring country rebel/engage another in conflict, particularly if they are successful, may galvanize similar behaviour in neighbouring countries, or because combatants from one country may move into another country and incite rebellion there as well. Ades and Chua (1997; cited in Gleditsch and Ward, 2001) add that the favourable or unfavourable characteristics of neighbours can also exert a strong influence on a countries long-run economic growth rate, thereby possibly affecting GDP per capita (another of my variables, discussed further down in this section). Borders may be indirectly considered a rebel viability factor (e.g. rebels might be able to receive aid and weapons from friendly regimes across borders). Starr and Most (1978; cited in Diehl, 1991) suggest that borders themselves do not cause war but rather structure possible risk and opportunities in which conflictual behaviour is more or less likely to occur. Their 'warring border hypothesis' argues that geography is a

33

powerful agent of diffusion and that geographical proximity shapes actors' incentives to engage in conflictual and cooperative behaviours. On the other hand, is has been argued that there is much a much lower propensity for civil wars to diffuse in a manner that involves neighbouring states than is the case for inter-state dispute (Anselin and O'Loughlin, 1992; cited in O'Loughlin and van der Wusten, 1993). All these points relate to the spatial aspects I attempt to maintain in this dissertation. Data for this variable was taken from the CIA World Factbook (2011) and from books found in the Royal Geographical Society archives (see Appendix 7 for list).

One limitation of this variable is that it only takes into account 'strict contiguity' of borders Gleditsch and Ward (2001). It does not take into consideration governments or rebel organisations that are 'proximate', that are somehow close to one another and interact even if not physically contiguous. Including both contiguous and proximate countries would enable the generation of both binary and categorised data. One suggestion to change this would be to adopt a minimum distance approach to any variable relating to borders (Gleditsch and Ward, 2001), whereby countries within a certain distance of a country are considered as having a possible influence upon that country. However finding a variable that can reflect this will be very challenging and it is beyond the scope of this dissertation, but I call on future researchers to meet this challenge.

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3.6

Independent Variable 4 - Forest Cover (%)

Table 3.6: Forest Cover Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations H0 The percentage of forested terrain (a type of rough terrain) that a country has has no effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country. H1 The percentage of forested terrain a country has does have an effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country. Expectations I expect to find that H1 is true. I expect that areas of forest are potentially attractive to insurgents trying to conceal themselves and engage enemies in combat. Colliers rebellion-as-business model (1999; cited in DeRouen and Sobek, 2004) implies that rebels will start a war and/or maintain it as long as they are able to find rough terrain cover and obtain adequate funding, that is if they are rational they will take such factors into account (Lujala, 2010; cited in Bleaney and Dimico, 2011). Collier et al. (2001) found that the duration of civil wars is determined by a substantially different set of variables from those which determine the onset - they find that forest cover affects civil war duration but not onset. They argue that 'new civil wars (Kalyvas, 2001) are quasi-criminal activities which are profitable during the conflict. Since the duration of conflict is not a cost in this model, factors which determine duration would not influence the decision to initiate conflict and so would not be correlated with the onset of conflict (Collier et al., 2001). Bleaney and Dimico (2011) refine this position to argue that the variables which determine civil war onset and duration may be different. Buhaug and Rod (2005) go a step further and plainly state that they do

35

not believe that forest cover, or indeed any type of terrain, is a cause or condition of conflict.

Forest cover may also be inter-related to risk of conflict as a measure of primary exports. Low percentage forest cover could indicate a booming timber industry as the trees have already been chopped down. However high percentage forest cover suggests the country is well endowed with natural resources, which has also been associated with civil war onset.

Figure 3.3: World map of forest distribution (2003)

Source: UNEP/GRID-Arendal (2008) I followed the trend of the majority of studies that I have looked at and used the FAO (2010) website to obtain my forest cover percentage data. I used 2010 data because it was the most recently available set of data available on the UN website. I realise that my catchment time period extends back as far as 1945, so this may not be hugely

36

reliable as forest cover may have changed considerably. To try and mitigate for this, I conducted an auxiliary analysis and also recorded percentage of forest cover for every country in my list as it was in 1990 and then calculated the average percentage change in forest cover between 1995 and 2010. A countries average percentage forest cover increased 16.95% between 1995 and 2010. This is a not as low a figure as I was anticipating, however I still feel it justifies my decision to rely solely on 2010 data as variation is not huge for 1995-2010. I have not done auxiliary analyses for ruggedness or desert since I couldn't locate data for multiple years. However I expect that changes in mountains will be negligible over such a short period of time, as will deserts (although these are more likely to have changed).

3.7

Independent Variable 5 - Ruggedness

Table 3.7: Ruggedness Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations H0 The level of rugged terrain (a type of rough terrain) a country has has no effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country. H1 The level of rugged terrain a country has does have an effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country. Expectations I expect that H1 will be true. I expect that areas of rugged terrain are potentially attractive to insurgents trying to conceal themselves and engage enemies in combat. Fearon and Laitin (2003) and Collier et al. (2001) concur that countries that are mountainous are at greater risk of civil war however they differ over the perceived strength of this evidence. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation

37

(2002) found that in 1993, 23 of the 27 major armed conflicts in the world were being fought in mountain regions. Buhaug et al. (2002; cited in Buhaug, 2003) showed that on average 43% of the conflict zones of territorial intrastate conflicts were covered by mountains. The remoteness of mountain regions and limited availability of resources (such as water) also creates opportunities for local conflict within mountain regions which can easily evolve into a civil war. Originally, I was hoping to obtain data on percentage mountain cover in each nation so that it could be directly comparable with my percentage forest cover variable. Multiple papers that I read which used mountain cover data all obtained their data from one paper: Gerrard (2000) 'What is a mountain?'. However having looked through dozens and dozens of websites for this data, including various UN and World Bank websites, other journal websites, the Royal Geographical Society Archives, Exeter University Library and its inter-library loan system, the British Library and attempting to obtain the data myself from GIS programmes, I was still unable to find either Gerrard's paper or any other similar data source. A list of the websites I used is in Appendix 5. Having failed to find the data I required on percentage mountain cover, I conceded that it might be inaccessible/non-existent, and began to search for other measures of mountain terrain which was when I came across Nunn and Puga's (2012) ruggedness data. I feel that the ruggedness data represents the idea of the roughness and inaccessibility of terrain well, which makes it more than suitable for my rough terrain proposition analysis. I have not conducted an auxiliary analysis for this ruggedness variable because mountain area is extremely unlikely to have changed between

38

1945 and 2011. As Gerrard (1990; cited in Kapos et al., 2000) notes, numerous definitions of what constitutes a mountain have been proposed, but mountains are extremely diverse landforms and it has proved difficult to achieve consistency to achieve consistency in analysis. Several criteria, including elevation and relief, have been tried to achieve a globally consistent definition. Kapos et al. (2000) attempted to use a mixture of elevation and ruggedness criteria to arrive at a convention of what constitutes a mountain. Nunn and Puga calculate five different measures of ruggedness and I have used all of them in order to try and obtain the most comprehensive results and reflect the inherent inconsistencies that arise from relying on any one definition of what constitutes a mountain or mountainous terrain. Arguably, a ruggedness threshold is actually preferable to a threshold of low elevation as it allows for a consistent threshold of what counts as mountainous terrain and also includes less unstructured terrain such as plateaus and wide valleys or basins, which arrive at a larger extent of mountainous terrain being included in the data (Korner et al, 2011).

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Figure 3.4: World map showing mountains of the world (2002)

Source: UNEP-WCMC (2000) Table 3.8: Table showing Nunn and Puga's (2012) five measures of ruggedness (detailed explanations are provided in the appendices (Appendix 9) Number (i) (ii) Measure of Ruggedness Ruggedness Index (TRI) (100m) - Quantifies topographic heterogeneity. Population weighted TRI (100m) - To capture the possibility that ruggedness may be more important (and thus should be given more weight) in areas that are more densely populated today, we calculate a populationweighted measure of ruggedness. (iii) Average Slope (%) - As another alternative ruggedness measure - the average uphill slope of the countrys surface area.

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(iv)

Local Standard Deviation in Elevation (100m) - Another alternative ruggedness measure - average standard deviation of elevation.

(v)

Percentage Moderately to Highly Rugged - This alternative ruggedness measure is motivated by the possibility that what matters is having a largeenough amount of sufficiently-rugged terrain nearby, even if some portions of the country are fairly flat. To capture this logic, they calculate the percentage of a countrys land area that is highly rugged.

3.8

Independent Variable 6 - Desert Cover (%)

Table 3.9: Desert Cover Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations H0 The percentage of desert terrain (a type of rough terrain) a country has has no effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country. H1 The percentage of desert terrain a country has does have an effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country. Expectations I expect that H1 will be true. I expect that, as with forested and rugged terrain, areas of desert are potentially attractive to insurgents trying to conceal themselves and engage enemies in combat. Deserts have received very little attention in the literature - I only found one reference: Kratochvil (1986; cited in Buhaug, 2003) argues that there is less [international] conflict over territories that are desert areas because states do not actively dispute territories with apparently little value. I do not believe that this finding will also apply to civil conflicts. I chose to include a desert variable as a unique contribution to the literature. Data taken from Nunn and Puga (2012).

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3.9

Independent Variable 7 - Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita

1950-2000 (2006 international dollars) Table 3.10: Real GDP Per Capita Variable - Hypotheses and Expectations H0 The average level of real GDP per capita in a country has no effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country H1 The average level of real GDP per capita in a country does have an effect on the likelihood of a civil war to occur in that country Expectations I expect to find that H1 is true. I expect that countries with higher real GDP will experience fewer civil wars. By using data that is averaged from 1950-2000, which is the majority of the catchment time period that my dissertation focuses on, I can be more assured of the findings rather than having to rely on data from one particular year and conduct an auxiliary analysis to justify it, as I have had to do with the forest cover variable. Hauge and Ellingsen (1998; Cited in Hegre et al., 2001) found that civil war occurs more frequently in poor, underdeveloped countries. O'Loughlin (2004) adds that the main factor that underlies the outbreak of a civil war is economic, trumping even ethnic factors which have a very significant influence. There is strong evidence to suggest an association between slow and negative economic growth and low income with higher civil war incidence, and an impending conflict may also slow economic growth (Bergholt and Lujala, 2012). Hence there is an interdependent relationship here between income and civil war onset. Nations in poverty may also be more likely to experience multiple civil wars; The Economist has noted (2008; cited in O'Loughlin, 2004) that "poverty fosters war, and war impoverishes". This is illustrated by the

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bar chart in Fig. 3.5, which shows GDP per capita before and after a civil war in six different countries. In all six cases, GDP per capita was lower after a conflict, the implication being that they are more prone to another civil war as a result. Higher GDP per capita reduced the probability of civil war onset (Collier and Hoeffler, 1998). In particular, primary commodity exports (a part of GDP per capita) are highly significant in civil war onset. They have a non-linear effect but the risk of civil war peaks when they constitute around 32% of GDP which is a high level of dependence - at 32% primary commodity export, risk of civil war is 22%. Whereas with 0% primary commodity export, risk of civil war is just 1%. This may be because such commodities provide opportunities for extortion, make rebellion feasible and possibly even make it attractive (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004). Fearon and Laitin (2003) calculate that every fall in per capita income of US$1000 corresponds to a 34% increase in likelihood of war outbreak. This is because the incentive to rebel increases as possibility of private financial gain is perceived to be higher, and the opportunity cost of rebel labour (i.e. the income given up by those who chose to rebel) diminishes, as GDP per capita falls (Collier and Hoeffler, 1998; 2004). Civil war is initiated with the expectation of financial benefits both during and after the conflict (Collier et al., 2001). Wealthier nations tend to also spend more on their military and are more able to monitor their populations - this may discourage would be-rebels as they do not perceive victory is likely, hence reducing civil war onset (Buhaug and Rod, 2005). Whereas poorer nations often lack the state capacity and military strength to prevent and suppress armed conflict (Bergholt and Lujala,

43

2012). GDP per capita is also associated to resource endowment and the famous 'resource curse' hypothesis states that presence of valuable natural resources (e.g. timber - as discussed in the 'forest cover' variable) makes civil war more likely (O'Loughlin, 2004). However other authors have argued that scarcity of natural resources is a major threat to domestic instability (see Homer-Dixon, 1999; cited in Buhaug and Lujala, 2005). Bergholt and Lujala (2012) found that economic growth and income level may not be as significant as the studies discussed above imply. They also posit that civil war may be likely in higher income countries as well because it is perceived that there is more financial gain to be had. "In sum, the empirical evidence for direct connection between natural resource abundance and civil war is far from impressive, and findings seem to vary with the operationalisation of the resource proxy" (Buhaug and Lujala, 2005: 402). Data taken from Nunn and Puga (2012).

Figure 3.5: Bar graph showing GDP per capita before and after civil war in six countries

Source: Sambanis (2003; cited in Collier et al., 2003)

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One limitation of this choice of variable is that GDP per capita implies looking at only the poorest in society which is only one end of the inequality spectrum. The rich may also mount secessionist rebellions to pre-empt redistribution of resources (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004). O'Loughlin and Raleigh (2007) argue that poverty alone cannot provide a reasonable explanation as to why civil wars occur since poverty is ubiquitous but only some countries see civil war. Another limitation of this variable is that it does not reflect the possibility that low income level and negative income shocks tend to occur before a civil war starts. It could be improved by introducing a time lag so that GDP change over a certain period could then be compared with civil war occurrence over a later period (Bergholt and Lujala, 2012), to determine association.

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Fig. 3.6 shows the messy, interrelated nature of the different variables in this dissertation. Whilst I will not go into detail about the interactions of each, it illustrates the important fact that all variables are conceptualised as interdependent. I have also added an arrow pointing away from each variable to highlight the fact that these variables also interrelate with other variables not included in this dissertation. The advantage of the regression analysis over a chi-squared or ANOVA test is that it captures these interrelations, as will I discuss later.

Figure 3.6: Figure illustrating the interrelated nature of the different variables in this dissertation

Source: author's own diagram

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3.10

Introducing the Statistical Tests

In this dissertation I use three statistical tests to ensure statistical rigour. They are ANOVA, Chi-Squared and Logistic Regression Analysis. Whilst this is a quantitative dissertation, I have been very aware not to try and adopt a positivist attitude to variables that affect the likelihood of the onset of civil war. There is no objective truth to be identified here about which variables do and don't affect the likelihood of civil war occurring in a particular country. The variables that I am investigating are only a fraction of the total number of variables that determine the likelihood of civil war onset. Furthermore, I am only applying them to one particular list of civil wars which have been researched in particular ways to create particular types of data. The findings are hence strongly influenced by my positionality and the decisions that I have made throughout the course of my dissertation (for example, which variables and which civil wars to include and exclude). I readily accept that the research methods I have chosen or the results that I produce may have inaccuracies, however I stress that I have been as thorough as possible. Rather than proving or disproving the role of particular variables, I am simply presenting my findings as being suggestive of associations that may exist between certain variables and the likelihood of civil war occurring. I discuss how the three statistical tests used in this dissertation in Table 3.11). I decided upon these three statistical tests after lengthy discussion with my supervisor and subsequent reading of lecture notes and textbooks (e.g. Field, 2000; 2005). As a word of warning about all three of these statistical tests and my dissertation in general, I want to highlight the difference between correlation and causality. Chisquared and ANOVA statistical tests show association between certain variables, however this does not necessarily mean that there is causality. We must be aware of the third variable problem (in any relationship between two variables, there may be

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additional unmeasured variables that are still having an effect) and we also cannot say anything about the direction of the causality (which variable causes the other to change) (Field, 2005). In my conclusions I will discuss any associations found and present theoretical arguments to suggest that there might also be causality here. However the logistic regression that I have conducted does show causality in its findings, not just association. This is an important difference to bear in mind when readers are interpreting the results of my statistical analysis. I would also like to re-iterate the point once more that my data collection process was not simply a matter of copying and pasting data from pre-existing lists. Creating my list of civil wars as well as researching my variables for the means by which the ruling group/individual came to power, land area, number of borders and forest area all required extensive use of a number of different data sources which had to be located through internet and archival research, collated into one spread sheet and then cross checked to ensure reliability and consistency of data (the variables of GDP, ruggedness and desert were easier to collect as they came from one set of research data). This process took several months overall and required me to check and cross check numerous different websites, articles and spreadsheets of data. Whilst the majority of my research was done at a computer, I also contacted dozens of academics and other staff at NGOs such as the UN and FAO asking for their assistance in locating certain data. They in turn would refer me to other academics or websites that they knew of, acting as gatekeepers for particular data sets and other individuals that I would have not been able to find through regular internet searches. I am also aware of the spatial and temporal limitations of my data set as a whole that I am aware of when conducting my statistical analyses. Spatially, my data set only looks at data on a national level and although I have already made the argument that my

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variables try to incorporate other scales as much as possible, this is still a legitimate critique of my data that I would call on other researchers to take as a prompt for future research and perhaps use this data as a start point for regional analysis of variables that affect civil war onset. Secondly, temporally my data looks at a fixed time period (t) of 1945-2011. Future research could perhaps also introduce a time lag for those variables that experience a significant change over time (so not ruggedness, borders and land area since these do not experience much change over a period of just 66 years). By introducing a t-1 time period, one could for example look at how GDP levels 10 years ago affects civil war onset today. This would require me to split up my time period of study into a number of sub-sections which is something that I have not done, and this is a limitation that I am aware of. I instead leave it as a possible prompt for something that future researchers could do with my data.

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Table 3.11: Table showing the different statistical tests used in this dissertation Statistical Test Description

Pearson's Chi-Squared Test The chi-squared test is used to test a distribution observed in the field (i.e. the data that I have created) against the - this test was used for all of my variables except political structure distribution you might expect due to chance (Field, 2005). It detects whether there is a significant association between two categorical variables, however it does not say anything about the strength of the relationship (Field, 2000). It used categorical data which is why all my original data had to be coded. It is useful in this respect because any result, even an inconclusive one in which the null hypothesis must be accepted, still tells us useful information about the variables and the relationship between them. However we can never use the results of a chisquared test to say that something is certain, but that is only likely expressed with a certain percentage of certainty. Using SPSS to calculate chi-squared tests generates the all-important figure which is called a p-value. This is the value that tells us whether we can accept or reject the null hypothesis. All my chi-squared tests are conducted to the 95% confidence level, which means that I can have a 95% confidence level in my decision to accept or reject the alternative hypothesis. In my results section, I express the result of each chi-squared and ANOVA test as p = 'x' (x being the specific result for each test) Chi-Squared tests deal with observed and expected data. Given a particular set of data, there will be an expected finding and an observed finding which may or may not differ. The steps I took to conduct each Chi-Squared test are as follows: (1) Generate histogram of

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data and determine mean/median/mode (whichever was most appropriate). (2) Code data into '0' and '1' categories. (3) Data was categorised by a '0' or a '1' by splitting it using either median figure as a dividing point for every variable. I experimented initially with using the modal figure (most frequently occurring), which was not useful at all for any of my variables. I then experimented with using the mean figure for splitting each variable, as SPSS provides the mean figure in each of my histograms shown in the 'results, analysis and interpretation' section. However the mean was affected by outliers present in my data sets. The mean figure can hence be dragged upwards or downwards by outlier variables, which are quite common in my data set. This meant that using the mean figure as the dividing point gave quite an uneven distribution of data. As a result, my statistical analyses were less reliable So I decided to use the median figure for each variable which gave the most equal distribution of data into both categories and meant that my statistical analyses produced more reliable findings. The sharpness of the frequency distribution curve of a data set is known as kurtosis (Field, 2005). This curve can show positive/negative skew and are included in my histograms in the 'results, analysis and interpretation' section to illustrate distribution of the data as a descriptive statistic in its own right and also because it helped influence my decision to use the median value as the dividing point when categorising my data. This is because all of the data sets for which I used a chi-squared test (i.e. all that are continuous data) showed some degree of positive skew.

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All data must be in split into two categories (known as 'categorising the data') for a chi-squared test. Once the significance level had been decided upon and Chi-Squared test for each variable had been performed in SPSS, I could look up the respective degrees of freedom figure and critical statistics in order to decide whether the null hypothesis could be rejected. The critical statistic is the largest value which is consistent with continued belief in the null hypothesis. In this case my p-value (the significance) is 0.05. If the p-value for the calculated ChiSquared is greater than 0.05 (p > 0.05) then we must accept the null hypothesis. However if it is less than 0.05 (p < 0.05) then we have sufficient grounds to reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis. This indicated that there is some factor other than chance which is operating in order for the deviation between expected and observed to be so great. For example, a p-value of 0.01 means that there is only a 1% chance that this deviation is due to chance alone (PennState, 2010). I could then either accept or reject the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is the statement that I, as the researcher, continue to believe unless evidence is found to contradict it. It states that there is no association between the two categorisations of data. Hence the use of statistical tests was highly relevant to this dissertation as it allowed me to make more general conclusions with relation to my hypotheses. One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) - this was used only for my An ANOVA test compares the size of the difference between data sets to the spread of data within datasets and calculates a p-value based on that. It tells us whether three or more means are the same, i.e. it tests the hypothesis that all group means are equal. However it does not provide specific information about which groups were

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political structure variable

affected, which is why I chose to run a subsequent chi-squared test after it. It is employed when there are more than two independent variables involved since in such cases, t-tests are no longer useful (Field, 2000). I use the ANOVA test once, to analyse my data for government structure. Data must also be categorised, but there must be more than just two categories unlike in the chi-squared test. In this case, there are 7 independent variables involved - these are the 7 categories of means by which the ruling group/individual in a country has come to power. I also selected the Tukey procedure when using this test, meaning that all possible two way comparisons will be run. This allows me to test the relationship between every type of government structure against every other type of government structure, enabling me to get the most out of my data. There is a significance p-value of 0.05 which is the measure I will use. As with the chi-squared test, if the p-value is greater than 0.05 (p>0.05), we conclude that there is no statistically significant difference between the 7 conditions. If the p-value is less than 0.05 (p<0.05), we conclude that there is no statistically significant difference between the 7 conditions.

Logistic Regression Analysis - this was used for all my variables except political structure

The test question for my regression analysis is this: "How much (expressed as a %) does each variable account for the variation in civil war incidence?" Doing a regression analysis allows me to achieve two things that a ChiSquared or ANOVA test do not:

1. It allowed me to determine what exactly what proportion (expressed as a %) of my dependent variable (countries that have experienced civil war) can be explained by each independent variable (possible contributing

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factor to the onset of civil war) in my study.

2. It allows me to compare the influence of each individual independent variable against one another and hence rank them in order of percentage influence on the onset of civil war.

A logistic regression analysis allows me to investigate the quantitative effect of causal variables upon the variable they influence and predict the occurrence of this influenced variable (Sykes, 1992). In this case, I will use it to predict my outcome (incidence of civil war) from my predictors (independent variables) (Field, 2005). Regression analysis is possibly the most important statistical technique in the natural and social sciences, because it is directly relevant to issues of cause and effect rather than just correlation (ibid.). As with the chi-squared and ANOVA tests, tests are done to the 95% confidence level.

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4.

Results, Analysis and Interpretation

The next stage of my research was analysing and interpreting my data. It is important to note at this point that in the event that we accept H0 (the null hypothesis) for a particular variable in my analyses, that does not mean we can assume the opposite of H1 (the alternative hypothesis) is true. For example, say if H1 for the desert terrain variable is rejected and hence we assert that percentage of desert terrain does not affect the likelihood of civil war onset, this does not mean that we can conclude that countries with less desert terrain are more likely to have civil war. We can only conclude that there is no association between the two variables. The p-value, which is explained in my methodology, is the crucial figure here. To test the hypotheses of each variable I used a chi-squared test, with the exception of my variable dealing with governance, for which I used an ANOVA test. The chisquared and ANOVA tests treat each variable separately when looking at its relationship with civil war onset. Hence any conclusions that are drawn from chisquared tests can only be made with the assumption that all other things are equal. Whilst this does not reflect the reality that civil war is caused by a number of contributing factors, it is nonetheless very useful to examine each variable individually. This may reveal associations that otherwise get lost in the interactions between variables, or further strengthen the argument that one particular variable is significant regardless of other factors. I do expect that there will be interactions that the chi-squared tests will miss out on, however I will endeavour to explain their findings as best as possible just using the literature and not simply chalk down any unexpected results to the shortcomings of the test itself. Chi-squared tests are still very useful methods of analyses and their results should be paid close attention to. The regression analysis is the second stage of my statistical analysis. The regression analysis is more sophisticated

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as it examines the interaction and association of all variables with civil war onset. I systematically work through each variable, presenting the histogram for the data first to show distribution, then presenting and interpreting the results of the statistical tests. Conclusions then follow in the next section. I feel that this systematic approach will address my research questions and aims in an effective manner.

4.1 Data Coding Information For Chi-squared Tests Table 4.1: Coding information for variables being analysed with chi-squared tests Variable Coding information to transform continuous data into categorical data for chi squared tests Land Area Countries between 0 km2 and 228,712 km2 (the median value) were coded '0'. Countries larger than 228713 km2 were coded '1'. Borders Countries with between 0 and 3 borders (the median value) were coded '0'. Countries with 4+ borders were coded '1'. Forest Area Countries with 0% - 29% (the median value) forest cover are coded '0'. Countries with greater than 30% forest cover are coded '1' Ruggedness T.R.I. Ruggedness Population Weighted T.R.I. Ruggedness Average Slope All numbers less than or equal to 2.69% (the median value) are coded '0'. All numbers greater than 2.69% are coded '1'. All numbers less than or equal to 0.9550 (the median value) are coded '0'. All numbers greater than 0.9550 are coded '1'. All numbers less than or equal to 0.5500 (the median value) are coded '0'. All numbers greater than 0.5500 are coded '1'.

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Ruggedness - Local All numbers less than or equal to 0.2800 (the median value) are Standard Deviation coded '0'. All numbers greater than 0.2800 are coded '1'. In Elevation Ruggedness Moderate To High Ruggedness All numbers less than or equal to 11.9950% (the median value) will be coded '0'. All numbers greater than 11.9950 will be coded '1'.

Desert

All numbers less than or equal to 3.06% (the median value) are coded '0'. All numbers greater than 3.06% are coded '1'.

Real GDP

All numbers less than or equal to $1206.41 (the median value) are coded '0'. All numbers greater than $1206.41 are coded '1'.

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4.2

Chi-squared and ANOVA - Test Results

Independent Variable 1 - The Country's Political Structure Figure 4.1:

P = 0.000, so we reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis. We can confidently conclude that the method by which the ruling group/individual in a country came into power does have an effect on the likelihood of that country to experience civil war, all other things being equal. This is the observation I was expecting. Unfortunately, the Tukey test which I performed, failed. I was hoping that it would illustrate the relative significance of each of the 7 methods by which power was obtained in relation to civil war onset. However I realised having conducted the test that infact it compared all of my independent variables against the other independent variables, rather than against the dependent variable. Therefore I cannot say which

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means of obtaining power are associated with civil war onset and which variables are not. This means that I am unable to discuss whether I have observed my specific expectations of the relationship between certain methods of acquiring power and civil war onset. This is a research question for a future project.

Independent Variable 2 - Land Area (km2) Figure 4.2:

P = 0.458, so we accept the null hypothesis. We can confidently conclude that the size of a country has no effect on the likelihood of civil war onset, all other things being equal. This is not the observation I was expecting. Perhaps whether central authority and resources will be spread thinly is determined by other factors such as wealth and polity, rather than land area. Unfortunately due to the national level scale of this data,

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we do not know whether there is any regional variation within countries. It may be that if this variable were conducted on a disaggregated scale we would get different findings. I would expect that peripheral areas are more likely to see civil war outbreak. This is a research question for a future study.

Independent Variable 3 - Number of Borders Figure 4.3:

P = 0.30, so we can reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis. We can confidently conclude that countries with 4+ borders are more likely to experience civil war than countries with 3 or fewer borders, all other things being equal. This is the observation I was expecting and being able to quantify a set number of borders at and above which countries are more likely to experience civil war is a very specific and original contribution to the literature. There are a number of reasons that this association

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may also mean causality, which are discussed in more detail my methodology. It may be that countries with more borders are more open to influence from regional networks of discontent. For example, the Arab Spring of 2011 appeared to have almost a domino effect as would-be protesters in one country were inspired by the example of their neighbours and also initiated revolution. Or it may be that more borders mean that movement of rebels, resources and weapons is easier from neighbouring allied groups. Geographically mobile belligerents have the edge over static ones. For example, Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army have been evading capture by moving around nations in Central Africa for decades. Whatever the reason(s), we can be confident that borders matter.

Independent Variable 4 - Forest Cover (%) Figure 4.4:

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P = 0.344, so we accept the null hypothesis. We can confidently conclude that forest cover is not significant in affecting civil war onset, all other things being equal. This is not the observation I was expecting. Perhaps the influence of forested terrain is limited to the duration and outcome of civil war. It is possible that rebel decision to start a civil war is more dependent on other factors such as perceived financial gain or sense of identity amongst those rebelling. Whether their milieu is conducive to conducting an effective opposition may be an afterthought, if a thought at all, and hence not associated with civil war onset.

Independent Variable 5 - Ruggedness I have tested 5 different measures of ruggedness and created a variable for each. (i) Terrain Ruggedness Index (TRI) (100m) Figure 4.5:

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P = 0.138, so we accept the null hypothesis. We can confidently conclude that this measure of ruggedness is not significant in affecting civil war onset, all other things being equal. This is not what I was expecting.

(ii) Population weighted TRI (100m) Figure 4.6:

P = 0.788, so we accept the null hypothesis. We can confidently conclude that this measure of ruggedness is not significant in affecting civil war onset, all other things being equal. This is not what I was expecting.

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(iii) Average Slope (%) Figure 4.7:

P = 0.266, so we accept the null hypothesis. We can confidently conclude that this measure of ruggedness is not significant in affecting civil war onset, all other things being equal. This is not what I was expecting.

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(iv) Local Standard Deviation in Elevation (100m) Figure 4.8:

P = 0.167, so we cannot reject the null hypothesis. This suggests that this measure of ruggedness is not significant in affecting civil war onset, all other things being equal. This is not what I was expecting.

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(v) % Moderately to Highly Rugged Figure 4.9:

P = 0.138, so we accept the null hypothesis. We can confidently conclude that this measure of ruggedness is not significant in affecting civil war onset, all other things being equal. This is not what I was expecting. Summary of ruggedness variables: We accept H0 for all five measures of ruggedness, which means that we can confidently conclude that none of these measures of ruggedness does not have an influence on the onset of civil war, all other things being equal. It may be that, like forest, mountainous terrain is only significant in affecting duration and outcome of civil wars which has been posited by other papers. It is

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possible that availability of rough terrain is instead an afterthought to belligerents looking to incite conflict and that once a conflict has started perhaps then they will actively seek it out if they perceive it is conducive to an effective campaign.

Independent Variable 6 - Desert Cover (%) Figure 4.10:

P = 0.405, so we accept the null hypothesis. We can confidently conclude that percentage of desert terrain is not significant in affecting civil war onset, all other things being equal. This was not what I was expecting, however it does not mean that we can then support Kratochvil's (1986; cited in Buhaug, 2003) finding that there is less conflict in desert areas. We must simply conclude that there is no association. This is in

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itself an original contribution to the literature as there has been almost very little research done on the influence of desert terrain.

Independent Variable 7 - Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita 19502000 (2006 international dollars) Figure 4.11:

P = 0.266, so we accept the null hypothesis. This suggests that real GDP per person (1950-2000) is not significant in affecting civil war onset, all other things being equal. This is not what I was expecting. It may be that ethnic factors have an assocation and are hence a more significant factor. It may be that GDP interacts with other variables

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which are not captured here. It may also be that actual real GDP is not the influencing factor, but that the issue comes down to perceived financial gain vs. perceived income forgone when would-be belligerents are deciding whether to start a civil conflict. Or it may be that they do not consider financial gain or loss at all, and simply take whatever fate comes their way.

4.3

Logistic Regression Analysis - Test Results

The final stage of my data analysis was a logistic regression analysis for all my variables (except political structure as it has multiple categories, rendering it unsuitable). The important figure in a logistic regression is the R2 value given by the analysis - this tells me what percentage of the variation in my outcome (incidence of civil war in a country) is explained by each predictor variable (it works the same was as a p-value). SPSS offers two R2 values which can vary significantly. I will use the Nagelkerke figure as unlike the Cox and Snell figure it has the possibility to reach a theoretical maximum of 1 (Field, 2000). I feel that the Nagelkerke is a more appropriate test. Each variable was run separately in order to generate percentages for each variable. Additionally, running two or more variables simultaneously risked possible skewing of the figures as a result of the variation introduced by one variable on another as well as on civil war onset. I ran all five measures of ruggedness but it is important to remember that they all are accounting for the same variation, plus or minus slight differences in the results.

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Table 4.2: Table showing list of predictors and the percentage variation in civil war onset that each predictor accounts for (conclusions made with 95% certainty) Predictor (independent variable) Percentage of variation in outcome (civil war onset) that can be explained by this predictor 0.3% 4.3% 2.6% 0.7% 0.1% 1.2% 0.8% 0.2% 8.3% 34.2%

Land Area Number of Borders Forest Cover Ruggedness: - Terrain Ruggedness Index (TRI) - TRI Population Weighted - Average Slope - Local Standard Deviation in Elevation - Moderate to High Ruggedness Desert Cover Real GDP

This means that my variables account for between 49.8% and 50.9% of the variation in civil war onset in the given time period depending which measure of ruggedness you select. As was to be expected, there are other variables that are not accounted for in this dissertation that also have an impact on civil war onset. This is, I feel, a very important point to make of any debate in the literature over the impact of one particular variable, be it on civil war onset, duration and outcome. There is never a sole contributing factor. There are always multiple factors that affect civil war and they are invariably interlinked in complex ways that certain statistical tests can struggle to grasp and represent. This is why the logistic regression analysis is a very appropriate test for this dissertation as it studies the interactions of multiple variables on civil war onset. This sets it apart from the chi-squared and ANOVA. The fact that my variables account for approximately half of the variation is a good indicator of the appropriateness of the spread of my variable selection. Desert cover is the most significant of my three measures of rough terrain at 8.3%. Collectively, rough terrain (forest + mountain +

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desert) accounts for between 11% and 12.1% of variation, which suggest that infact rough terrain does have an effect on likelihood of civil war. Rough terrain does matter. This is the answer to the original research question of the 'rough terrain proposition' that I took as one of my main research aims. The economic variable of GDP has by far the most significant influence on civil war onset at 34.2%. The reader may be unsure as to how we can accept the null hypothesis for some of variable in the chi-squared tests but then find a significant percentage of influence in the regression. This is easily explained. The difference in findings is caused by interaction effects that the logistic regression analysis picks up on that the chi-squared tests do not pick up on. Bleaney and Dimico (2011) argue that analysing variables together, rather than independently, tends to strengthen results of analysis and return more significant results. It therefore presents a good progression of the statistical analyses in this dissertation.

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5. 5.1

Conclusion Civil War Onset - Rough Terrain

The chi-squared for all three measures of rough terrain did not meet the required pvalue to reject the null hypotheses. This suggests that in the post-1945 era the influence of rough terrain is limited to affecting the duration and outcome of civil war, but not the onset of civil war if all other conditions are the same. That terrain has an impact on civil war duration and outcome, this much is certain in my opinion. As Sun Tzu (1963: 158) wrote, those who do not know the conditions of mountains and forests, hazardous defiles, marshes and swamps, cannot conduct the march of an army. However subsequent analysis using the regression analysis suggests that rough terrain does have an influence when interaction of other variables is considered. Desert accounts for 8.3% of the variation in civil war onset, forest cover accounts for 2.6% and ruggedness accounts for 1.2% or less of the variation depending which measure of ruggedness you look at. Providing some empirical data and hypotheses for the relatively high influence of desert is one of the original contributions of my dissertation to the literature Overall, these findings provide fairly strong evidence that rough terrain does have an influence on the likelihood of civil war onset and that we can now apply the rough terrain proposition to civil war onset. This answer's Buhaug and Rod's (2005) initial question. All other things being equal, Norway is not more at risk of civil war than Spain just because it has more mountainous and forested terrain. However if other variables are considered, rough terrain does have an influence. At the very least, I feel that this dissertation has opened up new areas in the literature that warrant further research.

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5.2

Civil War Onset - The Other Variables

The only chi-squared test that returned a p-value which allowed us to accept the alternative hypothesis was the variable of borders. We can now assert with 95% confidence that countries with four or more borders are more likely to experience civil war in the post-1945 era than countries with three or fewer borders, based on observed data with all other things being equal. I feel that this finding both itself, and in the fact that it was the only alternative hypothesis accepted of all my variables that were tested using chi-squared, is very revealing in a number of ways and also carries multiple implications about the modern state system and the modern nature of civil war globally. It suggests that regardless of the other conditions and causes involved, borders will have an effect on civil war onset. To be able to make such a specific claim, with confidence in it, about the influence of the number of borders on civil war onset is also an original contribution to the literature. It supports the argument of Mearsheimer (1990; cited in O'Loughlin, 2004) that the probability of civil conflict is driven by the nature of the international political system. Hence multipolar systems, where there are a number of superpowers all jostling for power and the increasing disintegration of states (Kaldor, 2005), are more conducive to civil war. It is the increasing interconnectedness, complexity and porosity (arguably) of borders that makes them such a significant contributing factor to civil war. Global networks and supply chains go over, around and through borders and this brings with it a whole host of new security problems on the supra-national, national and most importantly sub-national levels. As I said in my introduction, I hoped that this dissertation might contribute to efforts to understand the factors that cause civil war with a view to ultimately reducing incidence of civil war globally and hence saving lives. I can now assert, with policymakers in mind, that one area that could be focused on in attempts to reduce civil war incidence would be to promote more rigorous management of borders in order to prevent would-be

73

belligerents from obtaining resources, aid, weapons and support from other rebel groups. That is, in itself, a small but significant contribution to civil war literature and policymaking. My ANOVA test also returned a p-value which allowed us to accept the alternative hypothesis and state that the means by which the ruling group/individual comes into power does have an effect on the likelihood of civil war onset. This finding makes the argument that more research is warranted on political structures of government and the likelihood of civil war. My findings for GDP were also in line with existing literature, showing a substantial 34.2% influence in the regression analysis, although the null hypothesis was accepted for the chi-squared test suggesting that if all other things are equal, GDP per capita does not have an effect on likelihood of civil war onset. This does not mean that we can support O'Loughlin's (2004) statement that the main factor that underlies the outbreak of a civil war is economic, trumping even ethnic factors which have a very significant influence. This is because there is still approximately 50% of civil war variation unaccounted for by my analyses, which still leaves the possibility that ethnic factors will be more significant than economic factors. Such is the nature of this kind of quantitative research that accepting the null hypothesis for some of my variables tells us just as much as if we had accepted the alternative hypothesis. It suggests with 95% confidence that there is no association between these particular variables and civil war when taken individually. The results of the regression analysis enable further scrutiny since they are more revealing about the interaction of my variables and likelihood of civil war. As well as returning p-values that meant we could accept the null hypothesis in the chi-squared test, the variables of land area and ruggedness also account for less than 3.8% of civil war onset variation according to the regression analysis. Perhaps therefore these variables warrant less attention, which

74

could allow focus elsewhere. Herein lays one of the most unique contributions of this dissertation. As well as positing possible influence, or lack thereof, of a number of variables some of which have gone under-theorised in the existing literature, this dissertation can also make suggestions as to variables that I feel warrant more research, and those that do not.

5.3

Limitations of This Dissertation and Desiderata for Future Research

One common critique of many investigations that attempt to link geographical factors like terrain to civil war is a reliance solely on national level data. Although most civil wars are geographically limited to small parts of host countries (Buhaug and Rod (2005) point out that of the 7 civil wars in India between 1945 and 2011, none have covered more than 5% of the land area), my dissertation like many others relies exclusively on national level data. This can lead to weak empirical evidence that is not robust to varying samples or coding procedures (Buhaug and Lujala, 2005). The proposed alternative is to disaggregate the unit of observation from the national to a sub-national grid-square level and utilise GIS software, as Buhaug and Rod (2005) have done. Disaggregating data would enable researchers to explore environmental features of the actual conflict zones rather than employing proxy variables on the country level that invariably have sub-national variation. However this continual impulsion to manipulate means of analysing and gathering data can perhaps be accused of trying to shape data to suit desired conclusions, rather than analysing data to find conclusions. Bremer (1992; cited in Buhaug, 2005) has made this argument before, stating that findings of a variable are conditional on the choice of data and the way it is analysed. We must also be aware of the possibility that, as Bremer (ibid.) found to be the case, the choice of data sets and statistical analysis in this dissertation may have a greater influence on my findings than

75

the choice of predictors. This is an inherent risk with any kind of statistical analyses and the reader should keep this in mind when drawing their own conclusions from my results and also from the literature of other authors reviewed in this dissertation. On a practical note, pinning down the exact location of a civil war in a country for a disaggregated approach is extremely difficult because civil wars by their nature are very geographically mobile so collecting accurate and reliable data on them is difficult. The point I am trying to make is that there are pros and cons of aggregated and disaggregated approaches and I chose the one that felt more appropriate for this dissertation. Methodology is about more than just practices and techniques; it is about picking a method that will sing in tune with the theory (Shurmer-Smith, 2001). That said, I accept that my method still has its flaws. I also agree with Buhaug (2003) that my statistical analyses may have enabled me to accept more alternative hypotheses in the chi-squared tests if my dependent variable had been number of specific civil wars rather than number of countries that have had civil wars. In this dissertation, countries where there have been 7 civil wars have the same analytical weight as countries where there has been 1 civil war. This is something that I would change if I were to conduct this study again and engineer it such that variables were analysed by number of civil wars that have occurred, rather than number of countries where civil wars have occurred (i.e. change my dependent variable). This would also open up the opportunities for a regional analysis of my data looking at each individual case of civil war which I feel would be very worthwhile. My dissertation could be accused of summarising the global distribution of my findings by adopting a global model. I call on any future research to be very considerate of the scales at which they collect their data and the inherent pros and cons of each approach. A continent-bycontinent approach is one suggestion.

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Another area in which I feel this dissertation is lacking is that it presents the belligerent groups in each conflict either as abstract groups without any real identity, or simply as numbers in a statistical analysis. Although it is beyond the scope of this dissertation, I still feel that a detailed consideration of the complex organisations of armed forces that participate in civil wars would help engage academics and other readers with the materialities of civil war and get to the heart of what it means to fight in a civil war and live in a country ravaged by conflict. There is much more to civil war than simply what variables may determine its onset, outcome and duration, and I feel strongly that geography as a discipline has a lot to contribute to this area. Papers that rely less on number crunching and more on thick description and investigative research to reveal the realities of life in civil war would be a welcome change of direction for civil war literature. This dissertation, by its very nature of being quantitative, can be accused of reducing the grim realities of civil war to a set of numbers. It arguably does little to engage with the communities and individuals affected by civil war, or those that wage civil wars. This is a criticism I am very aware of. I hope that readers will remember that behind every number crunched in this dissertation, every histogram, every statistical test and every map, there are human lives, stories of fear and of hope, the unimaginable horrors of war, death and destruction. If this dissertation can make even the smallest contribution to improving just one person's understandings of civil war, why these conflicts might start and perhaps how they could act to help prevent civil wars, I will feel that this dissertation has been a resounding success.

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Appendices Appendix 1: Dissertation Diary that I kept throughout my research process (first page provided as a sample) Over the course of this dissertation I have kept a research diary into which I have recorded in as much detail as possible my thought processes and progress as this dissertation has evolved. I was aware that I would only be able to make use of a tiny fraction of the data available to me, and so it would be important to record my decisions about the data I used and how I used it, as well as the data I didn't use and why, so that I could justify them in my dissertation. 25/08/2011 In this dissertation diary, which Nick Gill my dissertation supervisor has recommended that I start, I will endeavour to record the following: A record of the data sources that I use; there is a huge amount of data available to me and I will only be able to use a small portion of it. Therefore, I must record my decisions I make about which data I do and dont use. Why do I decide to use certain data, variables, statistical tests etc. and not to use others? These decisions need to be explained and justified for my method section. What dilemmas do I face, what are their potential consequences and how do I resolve them? Over the summer holidays, I have spoken with Nick on the phone and by email and we have started laying the foundations of my dissertation research and write-up. I have downloaded a trial version of SPSS and done a number of tutorials that Nick has set me involving number crunching in SPSS.

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Appendix 2: Preliminary document about possible variables affecting civil war onset, sources for relevant data, appropriate statistical tests and expectations for the relationship between each variable and civil war onset. Table was created over the summer holidays between 2nd and 3rd year (first two pages provided as a sample)

79 Different variables that might be a contributing causal factor to contemporary civil wars Area of country + availability of transport infrastructure + population dispersion Where will I find data to investigate this hypothesis? Which statistical test will be most appropriate for this data? Explanation for why this variable may be a causal factor of civil war, what I expect the findings of this data to be and why.

- Wikipedia - BBC country profiles - UN Environmental Programme Global Resource Information Database (UNEP-GRID). - World Bank - CIA World Factbook - Freedom House - The Economist peace index - UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset - Uppsala Conflict Data Program - World Development Report 2011 (siteresources.worldbank.org) - Reference list of dissertation proposal as well as text of proposal itself - SIPRI Yearbook (2004):

I struggled a bit in finding more than one appropriate statistical test. It seems to be that case that I have a categorical independent variable (incidence of civil war) and either categorical or continous independent variables. So, in the case of categorical independent variables, I should use a chi squared test and in the case of a continuous independent variable I should use a linear discriminant analysis.

I expect that larger countries are more likely to have civil wars. I expect countries/regions with poorer transport infrastructure are more likely to have civil wars. I expect countries with more dispersed populations are more likely to have civil wars. Fearon and Laitin (2003) assert that factors explaining which countries are at risk of civil war are not determined by ethnic or religious characteristics but rather factors which favour insurgency such as poverty, political instability and geographical remoteness from centres of power. I would expect that larger nations are more likely to experience civil war since more geographically remote areas from centres of power are more likely to experience unrest OLoughlin and Raleigh (2007: 5) poverty alone cannot provide a reasonable explanation of why groups resort to violent conflict since poverty is ubiquitous. The key might be the relative status of ethnic groups, since relative deprivation and economic inequality are common elements in poor societies that experience civil war. Buhaug and Rod (2005) find that the risk of separatist

Nick's suggestion is to use at least to different statistical tests. E.g. one that is for categorical data

80 Armaments, Disarmament and International Secutiry - The Digital Chart of the World - Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UNfor forest terrain data. conflict is highest in regions with low population density, limited rough terrain, distant from the capital city and near the state border. In contrast, the local risk of governmental conflict is highest in urban regions and hear the state border. Collier and Hoeffler (2004) find that low population density, low urbanisation and a dispersed population inhibit government capability and thus facilitate rebellion. A government is less able to maintain control of the hinterlands because of the sheer distance from the centre of state power, because of inferior knowledge of local conditions and often because of a lack of support from the local population. Populated regions with few or no road connections the capital are likely to be disadvantaged, politically as well as economically. Remote regions are also harder to reach by government forcers and are therefore ideal for organising a rebellion. Religious demographic structure and fractionalisation of nationalities across space2 I would expect nations with lots of different religions, perhaps clustered into different regions to experience more civil wars, since conflicts may arise over religious practices and customs and one religion perhaps wanting to become dominant.

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Appendix 3: Original Civil War Dataset - this data set shows every individual civil war that occurred in the time period of my study, and the means by which the ruling group/individual at the start of that civil war had come to power. This was created before I made the decision to change my dependent variable from instances of civil war to countries that have experienced civil war. (sample of full data sheet)

Incidence of Civil War [dependent variable]

Data: By what means had the ruling group/individual (at the start of the civ war) come into power? DEMOCRATIC CIVIL WAR/COUP CIVIL WAR/COUP DEMOCRATIC INHERITED (monarchy until 1972) DEMOCRATIC OCCUPYING FORCE (UK + Egypt) CIVIL WAR/COUP CIVIL WAR/COUP CIVIL WAR/COUP UN-DEMOCRATIC (elected unopposed) DEMOCRATIC OCCUPYING FORCE (Portugal) UN-DEMOCRATIC; China is a single-party state OCCUPYING FORCE (France) CIVIL WAR/COUP DEMOCRATIC UN-DEMOCRATIC; elections allegedly rigged

Solomon Islands (Civil War; late 1998-2003 foreign intervention) Somalia (Revolution; 1986-1992 to remove Siad Barre) Somalia (Civil War; 1991-present) South Africa (apartheid resistance; 1948-1996) Sri Lanka (JVP Insurrection; 1971) Sri Lanka (Tamil Tigers Civil War; 1983-2009) Sudan (First Civil War; 1955-1972) Sudan (Second Civil War; 1983-2005) Sudan (War in Darfur; 2003-2009/2010) Suriname Guerilla War Syria (Islamic uprising by Sunni islamists; 1976-1982) Syria (Uprising; 2011) Tajikistan (Civil War; 1992-1997) (East) Timor (Civil War; 1975) SEE EAST TIMOR Tibet (unrest; 2008) (Tibet was a de facto nation before being invaded and is now fighting for independence) Tunisia (War of Independence from France; 1952-1956) Tunisia (revolution, 2010-present) Turkey (Kurdish insurgency; 1978-present) Uganda ('Bush War'; 1981-1986)

82

Uganda (Ugandan People's Democratic Army; 1986-1986) Uganda (Lord's Resistance Army insurgency; 1987 to present) Uruguay (Tupamaros insurgency; 1962 - 1972) Uzbekistan (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan insurgency; 1991present) Vietnam (First Indochina War; 1946-54) Vietnam (Second Indochina War; 1955-75) Western Sahara (Polisario Front vs. Morocco;1975-78) Yemen (South) (Aden Emergency; 1963) Yemen - North (Civil War; 1962-1970) Republic of Yemen (Civil War; 1994) Republic of Yemen (Shia Insurgency; 2004-ongoing) Republic of Yemen (South Yemen insurgency; 2009-ongoing) Republic of Yemen (uprising; 2011) Zanzibar (revolution, 1964) (Semi-autonomous region of TANZANIA) Zimbabwe (Rhodesian Civil War aka The Second Chimurenga; 19641979)

CIVIL WAR/COUP CIVIL WAR/COUP DEMOCRATIC UN-DEMOCRATIC; opposition parties repressed OCCUPYING FORCE (France) UN-DEMOCRATIC; election was rigged OCCUPYING FORCE (Spain) OCCUPYING FORCE (UK) INHERITED; monarchy DEMOCRATIC DEMOCRATIC DEMOCRATIC DEMOCRATIC INHERITED; monarchy DEMOCRATIC

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Appendix 4 - Complete data set used in SPSS analysis, plus accompanying notes (complete data sheet)
Country Has it had a civil war in the last 50 years? How many civils wars has this country had? By what means had the ruling group/individual (at the start of the civil war if applicable) come into power? Land area of country in sq kilometers at the time the civil war started Number of countries that this nation had land borders with at the time the conflict started (or, if no conflict, number of borders as of 2011) 6 4 7 4 5 4 0 8 5 0 2 4 2 5 3 Ruggedness (Terrain Ruggedness Index (TRI), 100m) Ruggedness (population weighted TRI, 100m) Ruggedness (average slope %) Ruggedness (local standard deviation in elevation, 100m) Ruggedness (% moderate to high ruggedness) % Dese rt (2.s.f ) Extent of forest cover as of 2010 % of land area (rounded to nearest whole) Real GDP per person (average 19502000) (Maddiso n) By what means had the ruling group/individual (at the start of the civil war if applicable) come into power? ORIGINAL DATA

Afghanis tan Albania Algeria Angola Argentin a Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaij an Bahrain Banglad esh Belgium Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzego

1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1

4 1 2 2 2 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 3 1

5 1 2 5 5 1 1 1 6 4 1 1 1 5 1

652230 27398 2381741 1246700 2736690 28203 7682300 82445 82629 760 130168 30278 38394 1083301 51187

2.51 3.42 0.51 0.89 0.78 2.69 0.14 3.51 1.67 0.23 0.19 0.39 6.74 0.85 2.31

1.47 1.6 1.37 0.71 0.22 0.93 0.18 1.15 0.53 0.16 0.07 0.26 4.91 0.91 1.29

7.41 10.45 1.45 2.27 2.27 8.18 0.41 11.1 5.08 0.63 0.5 1.24 19.33 2.34 7.08

0.72 1.01 0.14 0.29 0.27 0.8 0.05 1.01 0.49 0.06 0.05 0.11 1.96 0.26 0.67

39 62.13 4.89 4.91 9.41 50.56 0.69 54.31 27.71 0 1.82 0.18 96.48 13.57 40.25

4.36 0 23.2 8 0.42 0 0 10.8 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

2 28 1 47 11 9 19 47 11 1 11 22 69 53 43

679.79 1931.78 2389.19 1106.76 6926.81 0 13184.23 11601.7 0 3776.9 599.12 12223.31 0 2153.28 0

1, 1, 5, 5 1 6, 2 6, 5 1, 5 1 1 1 6 4 1, 1 1 1 5, 5, 5 1

84
vina

Botswan a Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burma Burundi Cambodi a Cameroo n Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombi a Comoros Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Democra tic Republic of Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominic an Republic East Timor

0 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1

0 0 1 0 1 3 1 1 0 1

1 1 1 1 6 5 5 6 1 5

566730 8459417 5265 108489 653508 25680 176515 472710 9093507 622984

3 10 1 5 5 3 3 7 1 6

0.18 0.24 0.52 1.48 1.99 1.78 0.54 0.52 0.78 0.2

0.48 0.25 0.13 0.71 0.33 1.59 0.15 0.55 0.37 0.26

0.49 0.65 1.37 4.5 5.52 4.72 1.42 1.37 2.7 0.53

0.05 0.08 0.16 0.43 0.58 0.5 0.15 0.16 0.23 0.06

0.3 0.56 5.09 20.2 34.73 27.52 6.09 4.03 9.12 0.03

1.46 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

20 62 72 36 48 7 57 42 34 36

1631.32 3761.57 0 4567.5 725.2 530.76 766.58 1036.54 14002.5 757.84

1 1 1 1 6 5, 5, 1 5 6 1 5

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

3 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 2 1

2 5 2 1 0 1 1 5 6 5

1259200 743812 9569901 1038700 2235 51060 55974 109820 9241 2267048

6 3 11 5 0 2 5 0 0 9

0.42 2.48 1.88 0.89 3.33 2.11 1.27 0.53 2.72 0.44

0.2 0.68 0.71 0.89 2.17 1.04 0.68 0.29 0.91 0.53

1.14 7.37 5.49 2.38 9.05 5.71 3.84 1.45 7.87 1.18

0.11 0.73 0.54 0.28 1.06 0.62 0.37 0.15 0.71 0.13

3.61 38.2 28.65 14.37 64.48 36.61 17.59 6.13 44.07 2.76

21.7 2 15.4 9 5.77 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

9 22 22 55 2 51 34 26 19 68

472.88 5636.81 1268.33 3661.92 730.93 3955.16 0 2334.1 0 611.09

2, 5, 2 5 2 1, 5, 1 0 1 1 5 6 5

0 1 1

0 1 1

1 2 5

42489 23180 48320

1 3 1

0.19 2.43 1.64

0.19 0.8 0.52

0.61 6.42 4.5

0.05 0.63 0.48

0 39.02 26.18

0 0 0

13 0 41

13991.6 1647.36 1989.49

1 2 5

14874

1.85

1.29

0.58

28.3

50

85
Ecuador El Salvador Eritrea Ethiopia Egypt Federati on of Malaya Fiji Finland France French Indochin a Gabon The Gambia Gaza Strip Georgia Ghana Greece Guatema la GuineaBissau Haiti Hondura s Hungary India Indonesi a Iran Iraq Italy Ivory Coast Japan 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 3 3 1 1 1 5 5 4 5 6 276841 20721 101000 1000000 995450 328657 2 2 4 4 4 1 1.28 1.75 2.48 1.57 0.72 0 0.77 1 1.91 1.73 0.27 0 3.45 4.75 6.66 4.19 2 0 0.41 0.52 0.66 0.44 0.19 0 20.09 26.11 37.14 20.13 5.76 0 0 0 1.76 1.01 16.5 36 14 15 11 0 62 3209.84 2147.78 0 0 1711.68 0 1 5 4, 5, 5 4, 4, 1 5 6

0 0 0 1

0 0 0 2

0 1 1 6

18274 303815 640427 717385

0 3 8 3

1.4 0.33 1.1 0

0.58 0.27 0.5 0

3.72 1.2 3.41 0

0.42 0.09 0.31 0

14.01 0.14 12.07 0

0 0 0 0

56 73 29 53

0 11059.54 12907.1 0

0 1 1 6, 6

0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0

0 0 1 4 2 1 1 2 1 0 1 6 6 1 4 0 2 0

1 1 6 5 5 5 5 1 1 1 6 1 1 4 5 1 2 1

257667 10000 360 69700 227533 130647 107159 28120 27560 111890 89608 2973193 1811569 1531595 437367 294140 318003 364485

3 1 2 4 3 4 4 2 1 2 7 6 3 7 6 6 5 0

0.22 0.35 0 3.66 0.23 3.1 1.81 0.49 2.36 2.15 0.35 1.01 0.97 2.45 0.67 2.46 0.22 2.13

0.58 0.38 0 0.86 0.25 1.3 1.37 0.53 1.32 1.21 0.29 0.24 0.44 0.93 0.36 0.76 0.16 0.46

0.58 0.92 0 11.26 0.6 9.17 4.89 1.3 6.45 5.82 1.09 2.84 2.59 6.96 1.92 7.51 0.59 6.28

0.07 0.09 0 1.07 0.07 0.87 0.54 0.12 0.7 0.63 0.1 0.3 0.3 0.65 0.18 0.71 0.07 0.6

0.43 0 0 59.17 0.37 52.84 30.85 0.1 42.46 39.97 0.92 12.82 13.41 33.62 5.57 38.88 0.49 37.17

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4.5 0 0.54 0.01 0 0 0

85 48 2 39 22 30 34 72 4 46 23 23 52 7 2 31 33 69

5359.93 866.36 0 0 1217.56 6959.68 3228.05 707.15 1007.4 1690.38 5178.71 1006.15 1752.64 3593.37 2984.54 11048.93 1536.27 11248.29

1 1 6 6, 1, 5, 5 1, 5 5 5 6, 1 1 1 6 6, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 6, 6, 5, 3, 1, 1 4 5, 5, 5, 6 1 2, 2 1

86
Jordan Kenya Kuwait Kyrgyzst an Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Lithuani a Luxemb ourg Macedon ia Madagas car Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Mexico Moldova Mongoli a Mozamb ique Namibia Nepal Netherla nds New Caledoni a New Zealand Nicaragu a Niger 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 3 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 2 1 1 0 2 2 1 0 1 4 6 1 1 3 1 1 5 1 1 1 6 1 1 3 1 2 3 1 5 1 4 1 6 88802 569140 17818 191801 10230 30355 96320 1759540 62680 2586 25433 581540 94080 328657 298 1220190 1943945 32891 1553556 786380 823290 143351 33893 18275 5 4 2 4 2 1 3 6 4 3 5 0 3 2 0 7 3 2 2 6 4 2 2 0 1.1 0.67 0.25 4.29 4.2 6.2 0.26 0.4 0.18 0.88 2.67 1.17 1.03 1.01 0.01 0.15 1.73 0.8 1.06 0.61 0.91 5.04 0.04 1.59 1.65 0.56 0.27 0.95 2.17 4.17 0.26 0.34 0.23 0.58 0.89 0.74 0.82 0.37 0.01 0.31 0.83 0.57 0.77 0.44 0.42 1.26 0.04 0.62 3.12 1.78 0.69 13.11 12.04 17.6 0.7 1.12 0.58 2.84 8.19 3.19 2.76 2.68 0.02 0.39 4.8 2.53 3.35 1.65 2.49 14.46 0.11 4.34 0.28 0.2 0.06 1.25 1.1 1.56 0.08 0.11 0.05 0.24 0.78 0.33 0.3 0.32 0 0.04 0.49 0.22 0.31 0.17 0.24 1.49 0.01 0.49 12.17 5.43 0 69.77 71.64 90.25 0.46 1.54 0 1.65 49.41 12.67 10.54 12.87 0 0.23 27.34 0.4 12.62 4.54 9.72 75.27 0 24.91 15.3 3 11.6 3 0 0 0 0 0 48.2 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 26.1 3 1.7 0 1.49 0 13.8 6 0 0 0 1 6 0 5 13 1 45 0 34 33 39 22 34 62 3 10 33 12 7 50 9 25 11 46 3248.95 912.76 19359.77 0 2881.81 824.4 1195.26 3978.58 0 0 0 966.6 507.87 3467.01 0 638.53 4824.43 0 891.19 1278.82 3181.15 691.53 12961.17 0 4 6, 6, 4 1 1 3 1 5, 1 5 1 1 1 6 1 1 3 3, 1 2 3 1 6, 5 6, 1 4 1 6

0 1 1

0 1 1

1 4 5

267710 119990 1266700

0 2 7

2.04 0.99 0.18

0.45 0.77 0.22

6.23 2.67 0.48

0.61 0.29 0.05

31.49 11.92 0.25

0 0 39.2 1

31 26 1

11982.21 2131.9 683.15

1 4 5

87
Nigeria North Yemen Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippin es Portugal Qatar Republic of the Congo Republic of Yemen Rhodesia Romania Russia Rwanda RwandaUrundi Samoa Senegal Serbia Sierra Leone Slovenia Solomon Islands 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 7 1 0 1 6 1 0 1 1 2 6 1 4 1 6 1 5 3 910768 194249 304282 309500 770875 26330 74340 420540 452860 4 2 3 3 4 4 2 1 1 0.31 0 2.41 1.11 1.95 0 1.54 0 1.59 0.23 0 1.25 0.9 0.34 0 0.55 0 0.98 0.83 0 8.52 3.01 5.67 0 4.13 0 4.22 0.09 0 0.69 0.28 0.56 0 0.46 0 0.49 1.56 0 37.01 12.22 25.08 0 22.96 0 25.22 0 0 19.0 3 11.1 8 0 0 10 1 33 0 2 7 44 63 63 1109.58 0 13253.49 3880.42 1110.92 0 3954.74 0 0 5, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 6 1 4 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1 6 1 5 3

1 1 1 1 0 1

1 2 2 1 0 2

2 1 1 1 4 2

397302 1279996 298170 92090 11586 341500

3 5 0 1 1 5

0.25 1.35 2.03 1.3 0.18 0.15

0.48 0.99 0.57 0.97 0.16 0.41

0.68 3.65 5.43 3.94 0.49 0.41

0.07 0.43 0.58 0.37 0.05 0.05

0.22 20.01 34.18 15.52 0 0.24

0 0.54 0 0 1.78 0

44 53 26 38 0 66

2405.14 3502.97 1893.01 6861.5 23511.4 1914.57

2 5, 1 1, 1 1 4 6, 2

527968

2.32

2.2

6.16

0.59

33.06

10.7 5 0 0 0.06 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1703.22

1, 1, 1, 1

1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 2 2 1 0 1 2 2 1 1

1 1 1 3 6 3 3 1 2 3 1

386847 229891 ####### 24668 50348 2821 192530 77474 71620 20151 27986

5 5 11 4 3 0 5 7 2 4 0

1.19 1.27 0.94 3.31 0 1.68 0.24 1.67 0.5 2.5 1.54

1.11 0.56 0.36 3.18 0 0.97 0.25 0.71 0.57 0.75 1.11

3.23 4.01 3.28 8.75 0 4.64 0.65 5.14 1.32 7.71 4.11

0.31 0.36 0.27 0.86 0 0.55 0.07 0.48 0.14 0.71 0.48

13.84 16.71 11.41 64.63 0 22.24 0.17 27.13 1.94 39.11 21.21

40 29 49 18 18 60 44 31 38 62 79

1163.54 2935.71 0 739.71 0 0 1348.29 0 904.31 0 0

1 1 1, 1 5, 3 6 3 3 1 2, 2 3 1

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Somalia South Africa South Korea South Yemen Sri Lanka Sudan Surinam e Sweden Switzerl and Syria Tajikista n Thailand Tibet Tunisia Turkey Uganda United States of America Uruguay United Kingdo m Uzbekist an Venezue la Vietnam Western Sahara Zambia Zanzibar 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 2 1 1 1 2 3 1 0 0 2 1 0 1 2 1 3 0 5 1 0 6 2 5 5 1 1 5 1 1 2 5 1 5 1 627337 1214470 96920 333719 64630 1861484 156000 410335 39997 183630 141510 510890 9569901 155360 769632 197100 9161966 3 6 1 3 0 8 3 2 5 5 4 4 14 2 8 5 2 0.65 1.76 1.96 0 0.65 0.44 0.31 0.72 4.76 0.76 5.3 1.05 0 0.73 2.62 0.91 1.07 0.45 1.32 0.75 0 0.45 0.29 0.03 0.34 1.45 0.74 1.03 0.19 0 0.59 1.19 0.78 0.33 1.71 4.94 5.81 0 1.71 1.19 0.82 2.53 15 2.17 15.98 2.83 0 2.08 7.77 2.42 3.38 0.17 0.45 0.55 0 0.2 0.12 0.1 0.21 1.39 0.2 1.54 0.3 0 0.2 0.73 0.25 0.3 6.91 23.96 33.98 0 7.79 2.89 0.74 3.87 66.06 6.63 75.47 16.41 0 7.43 40.91 8.77 14.32 3.36 4.39 0 0 2.16 0 0 0 3.45 0.03 0 20.6 6 0 0.02 0.28 11 8 63 1 29 29 95 69 31 3 3 37 12 6 15 15 33 1117.02 3667.4 4725.64 0 1891.94 903.64 0 13259.33 16696.84 4961.03 0 2729.12 0 2441.64 3821.78 699.7 17349.76 5, 5 1 0 6 4, 2 6, 5, 5 5 1 1 5 1 1 2 6, 5 1 2, 5, 5 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

175015 241930

2 1

0.44 0.57

0.39 0.21

1.28 1.88

0.11 0.18

0.14 3.64

0 0

10 12

5841.66 12332.87

1 1

1 0 1 1 0 1

1 0 1 1 0 1

2 1 2 6 1 4

425400 882050 310070 266000 743398 886037

5 3 3 3 7 0

0.53 0.63 2.05 0.2 0.53 0.68

0.24 0.59 0.44 0.3 0.51 0.54

1.59 1.72 5.6 0.57 1.42 1.81

0.15 0.2 0.58 0.06 0.15 0.2

5.78 5.99 36.78 0.2 2.46 5.35

32.1 52 0 0 9.02 0 0

8 52 44 3 67 38

0 9366.5 932.38 0 863.64 527.04

2 1 2 6 1 4

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Accompanying notes for Appendix 4 (sample of full notes): unknown data indicated by (1) Issue of Georgia's government structure variable - Georgia had one civil war prior to, and one post, the USSR breakup. I have used the data for both for Georgia after the USSR breakup in order to be consistent with both cases and because in both cases the conflict was within the region of Georgia. Including the whole of the USSR doesn't make sense of my investigation which is to look at the specific causes of civil war. (2) Issue of Azerbaijan's government structure variable - conflict took place within the region of Azerbaijan (although was technically part of USSR at start of conflict, USSR was in no way involved and all conflict took place within Azerbaijan between local forces). (3) Palestine's area is calculated as comprising modern day Israel, West Bank and Gaza Strip. This was very difficult to come to an exact figure about, since Palestine no longer exists and the area is occupied and heavily contested. (4) For countries that were once part of the USSR, I have looked at whether the conflict occurred before or after the official dissolution of the USSR on the 26th December 1991, and made a decision on the area subsequently. (5) For Tibet, I have been consistent with my decision to list the size of the area as the total region of Tibet before China invaded rather than what is now the Tibet Autonomous Region (6) Issue of India's borders - India has 6 borders today but 5 depending which time period looked at. I chose to go with 6 borders in my data table, because it is more recently applicable and other data is more recent as well. (7) Issue of Ethiopia's borders - Ethiopia has 5 borders today (from 1993 on when Eritrea became independent) but two of the three conflicts involved with Ethiopia (and I chose the majority government structure as 4 which was before Eritrea split) so I went with the number of borders Eritrea had prior to its split which is 4.

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Appendix 5: List of websites used to try and obtain mountain coverage data (complete list) Below is a list of the websites I used trying to find mountain cover data: http://www.cde.unibe.ch/Research/glossy_view.asp?ID=25 http://www.unep-wcmc.org/mountains-and-forests-in-mountains-2000_723.html http://www.unepwcmc.org/medialibrary/2011/09/20/ae6abd99/mountains_posters_2000.pdf http://www.alpconv.org/documents/Permanent_Secretariat/web/languages/ENG LISH.pdf http://www.mtnforum.org/sites/default/files/pub/1098.pdf http://datadownload.unep-wcmc.org/datasets http://gmba.unibas.ch/portal/portal.htm http://www.mountainbiodiversity.org/ http://www.fao.org/sard/common/ecg/1126/en/Y4558E00.pdf http://www.mountainpartnership.org/files/pdf/mountain.booklet.summary.final.e n.pdf http://www.mrd-journal.org/ims.asp http://www.ornl.gov/sci/landscan/ http://www.peopleandplanet.net/ http://www.unep-wcmc.org/search_178.html?q=mountains http://www.daymet.org/ http://gcmd.nasa.gov/KeywordSearch/Metadata.do?Portal=GCMD&KeywordPa th=Projects%7CV++Z%7CWCMC&NumericId=7741&MetadataView=Full&MetadataType=0&lb node=mdlb2

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http://idn.ceos.org/portals/Metadata.do?Portal=idn_ceos&KeywordPath=%5BD ata_Center%3A+Short_Name%3D'WRI'%5D&NumericId=25120&MetadataVi ew=Full&MetadataType=0&lbnode=mdlb3

http://www.searo.who.int/LinkFiles/Publications_and_Documents_healthImapct sC2.pdf

http://www.mtnforum.org/sites/default/files/pub/289.pdf http://ia600503.us.archive.org/2/items/mountainwatchenv02blyt/mountainwatch env02blyt.pdf

http://www.springerlink.com/content/600814gv4782273j/fulltext.pdf http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/Global_datasets#Elevation_data http://www.stevepickering.net/mountains.asp

Appendix 6: List of websites used to cross check my initial list of civil wars (complete list) 'UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset v.4-2011, 1946 2010' excel document downloaded from the UCDP website (UCDP, 2011b). 'Genocies, Politicides and Other Mass Murder Since 1945' word document downloaded from the Genocide Watch website (GenocideWatch, 2008) A list of 'Past Wars' from the Global Security website (GlobalSecurity, 2011) A list of 'Intervener and Target Countries' (Couttenier and Soubeyran, 2010) A 'List of Civil Wars Post-WWII (1945 to present)' taken from Wikipedia (Wikipedia, 2012a) A list of 'Examples of Wars of Independence' taken from Wikipeida (Wikipedia, 2012b)

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Appendix 7: The following sources were found in the Royal Geographical Society Archives used to help compile and cross check my data for number of borders each country has, in addition to the CIA World Factbook. (complete list) The Times (2011) The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, HarperCollins, Glasgow. The Times (1967) The Times Atlas of the World Comprehensive Edition, The Times Newspapers LTD, London. The Times (1955) The Times Atlas of the World Mid-Century Edition Volume Three Nothern Europe, The Times Publishing Company LTD, London. The Times (1956) Atlas of the World Mid-Century Edition: Volume IV Southern Europe and Africa, The Times Publishing Company, London. The Times (1992) The Times Map of the World, HarperCollins, Edinburgh. Insight Map (2010) Map of the World, Geographic Publishers, Munich. Burgdorfer, F. (1954) World Atlas of Population: Distribution of the Population on the Earth About the Year 1950, Falk-Verlag, Hamburg.

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Appendix 9: List of Nunn and Puga (2012) definitions for ruggedness and GDP per capita variables (sample of full text)

WEBSITE URL: http://diegopuga.org/data/rugged/#country

Data from 'Ruggedness: The blessing of bad geography in Africa'

by Nathan Nunn and Diego Puga
This site distributes and documents the dataset of terrain ruggedness and other geographical characteristics of countries created by Nathan Nunn and Diego Puga for their article 'Ruggedness: The blessing of bad geography in Africa', to be published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, as well as other variables and computer code required to reproduce their results. Users of this dataset are asked to cite the Review of Economics and Statistics article as the source and emailDiego Puga (diego.puga@imdea.org) the details of any publication in which they use the data. There are two main components in this dataset:

The country-level data on terrain ruggedness and other characteristics of countries required to run the regressions in the article 'Ruggedness: The blessing of bad geography in Africa'. These data, documented below, are available for from this site as a zip file: rugged_data.zip(73 Kb.) . This contains: o The country-level data in Stata version 10/11 format: rugged_data.dta. o The country-level data in commadelimited ASCII format: rugged_data.csv. o A Stata do file that re-creates the regression tables contained in the article 'Ruggedness: The blessing of bad geography in Africa': rugged_regr.do. o A Stata log file produced when running the corresponding do file: rugged_regr.log

Country-Level Data
The country-level data on terrain ruggedness and other characteristics of countries includes the following variables:

rugged: Ruggedness (Terrain Ruggedness Index, 100 m). This is the Terrain Ruggedness Index originally devised by Riley, DeGloria, and Elliot (1999) to quantify topographic heterogeneity in wildlife habitats providing concealment for preys and lookout posts. Let er,c denote elevation at the point located in row r and column c of a grid of elevation points. Then the Terrain Ruggedness Index of Riley et al. (1999) at that point is calculated as i=r-1i=r+1j=c-1j=c+1 (ei,j - er,c)2. The source of elevation data is GTOPO30 (US Geological Survey, 1996), a global elevation data

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set developed through a collaborative international effort led by staff at the US Geological Surveys Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS). Elevations in GTOPO30 are regularly spaced at 30 arcseconds across the entire surface of the Earth on a map using a geographic projection, so the sea-level surface distance between two adjacent grid points on a meridian is half a nautical mile or, equivalently, 926 metres. After calculating the Terrain Ruggedness Index for each point on the grid, we average across all grid cells in the country not covered by water to obtain the average terrain ruggedness of the country's land area. Since the sea-level surface that corresponds to a 30 by 30 arcsecond cell varies in proportion to the cosine of its latitude, when calculating the average terrain ruggedness or the average of any other variable for each country, we weigh each cell by its latitudevarying sea-level surface. We assign land to countries for this and other variables using digital boundary data based on the fifth edition of the Digital Chart of the World (US National Imagery and Mapping Agency, 2000), which we have updated to reflect 2000 country boundaries using information from the International Organization for Standardization ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency and other sources. We exclude areas covered by permanent inland water area features contained in the same edition of the Digital Chart of the World. The units for the terrain ruggedness index correspond to the units used to measure elevation differences. In our calculation, ruggedness is measured in hundreds of metres of elevation difference for grid points 30 arc-seconds (926 metres on the equator or any meridian) apart. rugged_popw: Alternative ruggedness (pop. weighted TRI, 100 m). In addition to the Terrain Ruggedness Index, we provide four alternative ruggedness measures. To capture the possibility that ruggedness may be more important (and thus should be given more weight) in areas that are more densely populated today, we calculate a population-weighted measure of ruggedness. We start by calculating the Terrain Ruggedness Index of each 30 by 30 arc-second cell but, in averaging this for each country, we weight ruggedness in each cell by the share of the countrys population located in that cell. The population data are for 2000 and are from the LandScan data set (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 2001), which has the same 30 arc-second resolution as GTOPO30. Units are hundreds of metres. rugged_slope: Alternative ruggedness (average slope, %). As another alternative ruggedness measure, using the same GTOPO30 elevation data, we calculate the average uphill slope of the countrys surface area. To do this, for each point on the elevation grid, we calculate the absolute value of the difference in elevation between this point and the point on the Earths surface 30 arc-seconds North of it, and then divides this by the sea-level distance between the two points to obtain the uphill slope. The same calculation is performed for each of the eight major directions of the compass (North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, and Northwest), and the eight slopes obtained are then averaged to calculate the mean uphill slope for the 30 by 30 arcsecond cell centred on the point. Finally, we average across all grid cells in the country not covered by water (taking into account the latitudevarying sea-level surface that corresponds to the 30 by 30 arc-second cell centred on each point) to obtain the average uphill slope of the countrys land area.

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rugged_lsd: Alternative ruggedness (local std. deviation in elevation, 100 m). Another alternative ruggedness measure is the average standard deviation of elevation within the same eight-cell neighbourhood. Units are hundreds of metres. rugged_pc: Alternative ruggedness (% moderately to highly rugged). This alternative ruggedness measure is motivated by the possibility that what matters is having a large-enough amount of sufficiently-rugged terrain nearby, even if some portions of the country are fairly flat. To capture this logic, we calculate the percentage of a countrys land area that is highly rugged. We use a threshold set at 240 metres for the Terrain Ruggedness Index calculated on the 30 arcseconds grid, below which Riley et al., 1999, classify terrain as being level to intermediately rugged. desert: % Desert. The percentage of the land surface area of each country covered by sandy desert, dunes, rocky or lava flows, was calculated on the basis of the desert layer of the Collins Bartholomew World Premium digital map data (Collins Bartholomew, 2005) and the country boundaries described above. This was initially computed as a cruder measure of soil (in)fertility for an early draft of the paper and is no longer used in the final version. We have left it in the dataset in case it is of use to other researchers. rgdppc_1950_2000_m: Real GDP per person 1950-2000 Average -- Maddison.

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