| In the last decades of the 20th century, waves of democratization and economic globalization swept much of the world, and it was thought by many that these expanding freedoms would be harbingers of a new era of peace and stability. This has not happened, however, and state and non-state actors still view violence as a legitimate means of achieving political ends. The primary purpose of this project is to further the understanding of the genesis of mass political conflict by examining this period of expanding political and economic freedoms.; Previous explanations of violent political conflict have identified the discontents generated by economic suffering and the ability of groups to oppose their government as the most important causes of violence. Earlier analyses tended to focus on one or the other of these factors, while more recent scholarship recognizes that they both have important roles in the genesis of violence. But these theories do not go far enough. Merely including both sets of factors is not sufficient to explain violence and instability. The socio-economic factors associated with the generation of discontent and the opportunities that are associated with political situations interact with each other in important and powerful ways, with each systematically reinforcing the other's effects on the incidence of violence and instability.; This project uses pooled, cross-sectional time-series designs to systematically analyze mass political violence in 121 countries for the period 1975--1994. It comprehensively examines these two sets of factors in isolation, in combination, and in interaction with each other. |
