Kristian Gleditsch on Inter-State and Intra-state conflict

Abstract

In his April 26, 2005 talk at Mershon, Kristian Gleditsch examined how interactions between states influence the risk of conflict within states. He said that past research on conflict has tended to draw a sharp distinction between interstate conflict between states and civil war, or intrastate conflict within states. The two types of conflict have generally been treated as mutually exclusive phenomena and studied in very different ways. But treating civil war as fully domestic events confined to the country where the conflict takes place is problematic, Gleditsch argued, as participants and processes outside the boundaries of the nation state may influence the risk of civil war.