Civil conflict - Ended or never ending?

In many historical cases, victory by a challenger for political dominance o ver an initially dominant group has ended civil conflict. But in other plac es, victory by a challenger has provided only a temporary respite, a brief intermission before the resumption of civil conflict. This article uses a t heoretical model of civil conflict to identify the factors that determine w hether civil conflict is ended or never ending. This theory focuses on how the values that rival groups attach to political dominance relate to each o ther and to the technology of conflict. These relations determine whether t here is civil conflict and, if there is civil conflict. whether civil confl ict ends whenever the initial challenger group becomes politically dominant or whether civil conflict is never ending. For example, the authors find t hat for civil conflict to be never ending, the ratio of values attached to political dominance can be neither too large nor too small. The implication s of the theory seem to be consistent with the evolution of 20th-century ci vil conflicts in such diverse places as Russia, China, Iran, South Africa, the Balkans, Israel/Palestine, and many parts of central Africa.