https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R19Q1JQ_99U
"Barbara F. Walter is a professor of political science and Rohr Chair in
Pacific International Relations at the School and an adjunct professor in the
UC San Diego Department of Political Science. She is an expert on international
security, with an emphasis on civil wars. She is author of the
New York Times
bestseller,
How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them. Her current research
is on the behavior of rebel groups in civil wars, including inter-rebel group
fighting, alliances and the strategic use of propaganda and extremism."
Via Wayne Radinsky, who wrote:
"Is the US headed toward a second civil war? This is from 2 years ago but I
just saw it today. Barbara F. Walter from UC San Diego led a research project
for the CIA where they analyzed 30 factors that correlated with civil war in
countries other than the US. They found that there were 2 factors that
predicted civil war: when the government is neither a democracy nor an
autocracy, but in an in-between state (which she calls “anocracy”), and when
people organize around identity rather than ideology.
As an example, she cites the civil war in Yugoslavia. After the collapse of the
Soviet Union, Yugoslavia tried to transition to democracy but never made it out
of the in-between state. And in the elections, you might imagine they could
have had parties organized around ideology, such as a communist party and a
capitalist party, but instead what Yugoslavia got was a Serbian party and a
Croat party.
So is the US headed toward a second civil war? Voting in the US is increasingly
based on identity (which she defines as race, ethnicity, or religion), so the
question largely rests on the question of how stable US democracy is or whether
it is leading towards the in-between “anocracy” state. Which yo-yos up and down
according to some index she cites where the strength of US democracy is
estimated (“the polity scale”). In the end she seems to give an estimate of 4%
odds per year. That means over a 20 year period, the odds reach 50%. I don’t
know about you, but 50/50 odds of a civil war in the next 20 years seems about
right to me. [Insert sarcastic joke about 2024 election here.]
She doesn’t mention that Yugoslavia didn’t just have 2 ethnicities – the
country broke up into 7 countries as a result of the war. Thankfully the
different ethnic groups have been able to live peacefully side-by-side in their
own separate countries since the war. She also makes a point of putting the
blame on Slobodan Milošević, the former ruler under the Soviet regime, and says
that the group that formerly has power but sees their power decline are always
the ones who start civil wars, not the downtrodden like people think. She
doesn’t mention that the US, NATO, and Russia got involved. I’m guessing I
should interpret that as meaning that these details are not predictive factors
of civil war in general.
If you’re interested in more, she’s published a whole book on the topic."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
