Naunihal Singh

Assistant Professor, Political Science
University of Notre Dame
Kellogg Institute Faculty Fellow

"Military Weakness and Civil Wars in Africa"

Tuesday, January 30, 2007
12:30 PM - C103 Hesburgh Center

Abstract

This project examines one relatively unexplored cause of civil wars, namely state weakness. The literature on civil wars has largely focused on two types of factors as explanations: those emphasizing broad macro-social factors (such as economic development or ethnic heterogeneity) and those emphasizing factors relating to insurgent strength (such as mountainous terrain, the presence of lootable resources or grievance strength). However, factors relating to state strength have been relatively understudied, even though insurgent strength and state weakness are two halves of the same puzzle. I will present some very preliminary results of an investigation into the relationship between state weakness (proxied by past civil-military relations) and civil wars in Africa.

Biography

Singh (PhD, Harvard University) works in comparative politics specializing in conflict, civil-military relations, and the politics of Sub-Saharan Africa. His published work includes a monograph, Civil Military Relations in Ghana, and software development for the program, Amelia (Windows version). He is currently working on a book explaining why some attempted military coup d’etats fail while others succeed. He has worked in numerous African countries including Ghana, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Uganda, Kenya and South Africa.