Sticks or Carrots? State Capacity and Civil Wars

Increasingly, studies explain the risk of civil war with the existence of weak states. The present study analyzes for a sample of 152 states for the years 1960-99 the impact of military, redistributive, and extractive components of state capacity on the onset of civil war. Instead of deterring civil unrest, high military expenditures in the previous year increase the likelihood that a civil war will break out. However, large numbers of military personnel are associated with a lower risk. The provision of public goods, in terms of government expenditures, and specifically spending on education and health, are not related to the onset of a civil war. Whereas state revenues in general showed no significant effect, higher income from taxes proved advantageous to the prevention of civil war.