EPB 2 Week 10: Why Class Inequality Breeds Coups but not Civil Wars

Why Class Inequality Breeds Coups but Not Civil Wars

This article is a discussion of the effect of inequality within a state on civil wars. Christian Houle comes to the conclusion that inequality has an unclear impact on civil wars but has a clear impact on coups. He comes to this conclusion through two explanations. First, that inequality increases the risk of political violence by fuelling distributive conflicts and secondly that inequality reduces structural coup preventions, which increases the capacity of the military to fight citizens.

Houle describes the implications of this finding as providing rationale for the small effect of inequality on civil war. This is significant because it moves away from the dominant theory that the cost of recruits, terrain and state capacity are more important factors in civil war rather than inequality or ethnic divisions. A key aspect of this is inequality is a greater threat to leaders/rules because it creates political instability.

This is similar to other findings. Elane Denny found in her 2014 study of Ethnicity and Civil war that when a civil war begins, it is more likely to be initiated by an ethnic group. This is because of ethnic divisions, the fact that ethnic groups live together (making mobilisation for civil war easier, and the fact that ethnic identity is a stronger form of identity – meaning compromises with the government (or opposing group) will be less likely to occur.

Another implication as described by Houle is that the finding suggests that policies promoting economic equality can be effective at increasing stability in a state by reducing inequality.

Other studies, such as one by Cederman, Gleditsch and Buhaug have found that there is no link between economic inequality and stability within a state.

It is worth noting that the papers referenced above which propose alternate conclusions to this study, were all published a few years earlier, and do not have evidence of data sets as comprehensive as the one used in this study. Therefore, it is likely that this study provides a more comprehensive overview of the role of inequality in both civil war and coups.

The final conclusion that Houle makes based on the data set is that class inequality changes the structure of a state's military which means countries will not experience civil war but are more likely to have coups.

These conclusions were reached through a study of 128 different developing countries between 1960 and 2008. Therefore, the study is quite wide, providing an accurate depiction of the impact of inequality on coups/civil wars.

The test is focused on ‘coup proofing’ which are measures taken to prevent small insurgent groups from seizing power. An easy to read summary of coup proofing can be found here, this may be helpful when reading the article for the first time as a definition is not given. This also provides some context, making it easier to understand.

Houle dates the idea that inequality causes political uprising (coups) back to the early texts of Karl Marx. This idea was later refined in Depravation Theory most recently by Carles Boix. First, This link provides a short summary of what deprivation theory is in its most basic (human to human) form. This can be helpful to gain a baseline understanding of the theory before applying it to whole states. Boix’s deprivation theory comes from the modernisation school of thought. Boix tests the theory on revolutionary episodes from 1919 to 1997 across the world. The findings of this study are that Systematic and organised conflicts are more likely in economies where economic inequality is high. This can give some understanding of the basis of which Houle is working from to develop his point of view.

I thought this article may have been better served with some specific examples from the data set, which outline the different sets of circumstances which arise out of either a coup or a civil war. Then the author could have used these examples to provide a simple justification of her conclusions.

This reading does raise some questions:

1.     How can this information be applied to specific situations (examples from states which have experienced either a civil war, coup or both?

2.     Whether there are exceptions or outliers to the study, it seems unlikely that inequality will never have an impact on civil war (thinking American Civil War) so it would have been helpful if the author had included some exceptions.

Bibliography

1.     Houle, C. (2016). Why class inequality breeds coups but not civil wars. Journal of Peace Research, 53(5), 680-695. Retrieved June 6, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/44510637

2.     Denny, E., & Walter, B. (2014). Ethnicity and civil war. Journal of Peace Research, 51(2), 199-212. Retrieved June 6, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/24557416

3.     Cederman, L., Gleditsch, K., & Buhaug, H. (2013). Economic Inequality and Civil War. In Inequality, Grievances, and Civil War (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics, pp. 93-118). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI:10.1017/CBO9781139084161.008

4.     Boix, C. (2008). Economic Roots of Civil Wars and Revolutions in the Contemporary World. World Politics, 60(3), 390-437. Retrieved June 6, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/40060203

5.     Bruin, E. (2014, July 28). Coup-Proofing for Dummies. Retrieved June 06, 2020, from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iraq/2014-07-27/coup-proofing-dummies