Essay On Civil Conflict

Civil conflicts tend to erupt “within nation-states and threaten their governments, the social order, and the rate and path of their development” (Anastasion et al. 17). Throughout the years there has been much debate centered on defining the underlying cause(s) of civil conflict. There are many theories that have evolved over time that suggest reasoning for the occurrence of civil conflict(s). Yet there still remains no concrete definition of cause. However, there was a theorist and scholar by the name of Thomas Malthus that offered a considerably plausible argument for the cause of civil war. Malthus produced a theory called Malthusianism; this theory expressed the potential underlying effects that can evolve from the rapid growth of a population combined with the scarce availiability of resources (Anastasion et al.).

Particularly, one of the probable adverse effects that seemingly emerge from Malthusianism is civil war. It is presumed that citizens of a nation-state become unsettled when resources start to become scarce consequent of rapid population growth and when there are no longer enough resources available to compensate for the growth that the nation-state has experienced. Crops are specific examples of prominent resources that ignite distress and uproar when it grows to be inadequate in supply, considering the fact that food is a substantial resource to maintaining human life and that the harvesting of crops is a means of producing income. There has been evidence that demonstrates that there is a considerably low amount of arable land across the world; however, in the global south evidence provides that developing countries in that area tend to suffer from extreme unattainability of arable land (Map 5.1). Yet, there ser...

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...obtain change is through civil disobedience in the form of riots, protests, regimes, warfare, etc. (Anastasion et al.).

“Pinker’s power law distribution suggests that all wars are generated by same process. Thus, if war in the global south is caused by x, then the absence of war in the global north must be caused by not x.” The United States experienced there own civil war during the time when their economy was transitioning from an agricultural to industrial economy. The war spiraled from the southern states underlying fear of economic instability not on the basis of social differences. Often it is assumed that civil war is caused ethnic, social or religious issues because rebel groups tend to spiral from already organized groups. Malthus’s argument serves to be truth in that its underlying basis for civil conflicts is economic deficit shocks (Anastasion et al.).