Civil War Onset Analysis

Civil war onset analysis is the observational study of why internal armed conflict begins in some countries and years but not others. Organized as country-year data with a binary onset outcome, it models the probability of onset against structural, economic, and political conditions. Fearon and Laitin's (2003) influential analysis argued that civil war is best understood as insurgency, and that the conditions favoring insurgency — weak states, poverty, rough terrain, large populations — predict onset far better than ethnic or religious diversity, reframing the long 'greed versus grievance' debate.