Do ethnic and nonethnic civil wars have the same causes? A theoretical andempirical inquiry (part 1)

A booming quantitative literature on large-scale political violence has ide ntified important economic and political determinants of civil war. That li terature has treated civil war as an aggregate category and has nor conside red if identity (ethnic/religious) wars have different causes than nonident ity wars. The author argues that this is an important distinction and that identity wars are due predominantly to political grievance rather than lack of economic opportunity. Ethnic heterogeneity is also associated different ly with identity than nonidentity wars. Some systemic variables are also im portant determinants of civil war, and these have been neglected in the exi sting literature. An important new result is that living in a bad neighborh ood, with undemocratic neighbors or neighbors at war, significantly increas es a country's risk of experiencing ethnic civil war.