Sons of the Soil, Immigrants
and Civil War
James D. Fearon
David D. Laitin
Stanford University
For presentation at the Institute of Global Irish Studies at
University College Dublin
3 February 2009
Research Questions
• What differentiates countries that have
suffered from civil wars from those that
have not?
• What differentiates groups that have
instigated civil wars from those that have
used other means to achieve goals?
• What can we learn from correlations about
the causes of civil wars?
The Dependent Variable
• Criteria
– Militias fighting against state army for
purposes of capturing state power, seceding
from the state, or changing state policies
– >1,000 killed, with at least 10% on either side
– For ambiguous cases, see F/L2003 &
Sambanis
• Specifications
– Onset; Existence; Duration; Magnitude (by
country area or number of deaths).
Patterns
• 127 civil wars in the world from 19451999, affecting 73 countries
• 17 million deaths from these wars
• Interstate wars in the same period: 25
wars and 3.3 million deaths
• Although 127 onsets are like needles in
haystack with 6327 observations, there
are enough onsets to address our
questions relying on statistical methods.
What Causes Civil Wars?
Three Theoretical Traditions
• Clash of
Civilizations?
Grievances?
Conditions that favor Insurgency?
Maoist guerrillas in the mountains
Data Sets
• Country/year
– 6,327 observations from 1945-99, with all countries
>500,000 population
– Onset as dependent variable
– 127 onsets
• Group country (Minorities at Risk)
– 357 groups (Kurds/Iraq; Kurds/Iran; Kurds/Turkey are
three distinct observations)
– Rebellion as dependent variable (8-point ordinal scale
from none reported to protracted civil war)
– Since 1945, 198 groups never had >0; 127 groups
had >3 (our criteria for a civil war rebellion).
Conclusions from Country/Year Dataset
• What differentiates countries that have suffered from civil wars from
those that have not?
–States that signal weakness [low
GDP; new state; changed
institutions; oil]
• What can we learn from correlations about the causes of civil wars?
–No support for Clash of Civilizations
or Level of Grievances – support for
Conditions that Favor Insurgency
Geographical Concentration
• Once state level variables
are included in MAR
specifications, the only
group-level variables that
consistently come out as
significant predictors of
civil war onsets are those
associated with the
geographical
concentration of the
group population and its
dispersion over a regional
base.
Average rebel score
(number of observations)
YES
NO
Has the Group Been in the
Country Since 1800?
2.9
(n=248)
1.0
(n=50)
Does the Group have a
Regional Base?
2.9
(n=276)
1.1
(n=123)
For Groups with a
Regional Base, Has the
Group Faced Competition
for Vacant Land in the
1980s?
3.3
(n=34)
2.3
(n=203)
Sons-of-the-Soil and Civil War
Onsets
• When facing government supported internal
migration that threatens their regional
predominance, we call groups that have a
regional base “sons of the soil”.
• Sixteen of 127 civil wars have been motivated,
at least in part, by sons of soil insurgents, and
these tend to be the longest by a factor of 5.
• This paper seeks to explain the causes of these
wars, in a way that is consistent with our general
findings about civil war onsets.
Sons-of-Soil Wars
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Chakma peoples in the Chitttagong Hills of Bangladesh,
Nagas and other “tribals” in Northeast India,
Moros in the Philippines,
Tamils in the North and East in Sri Lanka,
Uighurs in Xinjiang province, and Tibetans in China,
Mons and Karens in Burma,
Sindhis against the Mohajirs around Karachi in Pakistan,
Bougainvilleans in Papua New Guinea,
West Papuans and Achenese in Indonesia,
Tuaregs in Mali.
Joolas in Casamanse, Senegal
What Explains Sons-of-Soil Wars?
• (1) Territorial Imperative – a branch of a clash of
civilization argument
– Can’t explain failure of most tribals to mount a civil war in the
face of settlement by dominant group (Bushmen; Native
Americans; Chota Nagpur)
• (2) Most sons-of-soil wars are in Asia, where population
density is greatest of all regions, suggesting that the
origins of the conflict concern scarce land – favoring a
grievance story.
• (3) Regional concentration as a form of “rough terrain” –
a branch of the conditions that favor insurgency
argument
The Sri Lankan Model
• Sinhala Only Act (1956) as “predictor” of
civil war?
– War doesn’t begin till 1983
– Indian Tamils in Kandy highlands remain
quiescent
– Language oppression in general is not
associated with violent conflict
• Land Settlement Schemes in NE as an
alternative explanation
Sri Lanka
From Gal Oya to Civil War
• 1949 -- Gal Oya Development Board helps poor
Sinhalese to settle in newly irrigated homesteads in the
NE
• 1956 – Violence escalates faster in NE than in Colombo,
and mostly rural locals vs. settlers, with settlers unable to
get good police protection
• 1960s – SLG builds army and naval bases in the NE, in
part as a show of state power in support of settlers
• Late 1970s – Massive new migration plans, attempts to
conjoin Jaffna with the Northeast administratively
• 1980s – Army convoys “sitting ducks” for emerging Tamil
guerrilla bands; attacks were followed by generalized
reprisals, further aiding LTTE recruitment. This is where
civil war threshold was met.
The Sons-of-the-Soil Dynamic
State
Induce Migration
Autochthonous
Prevent
Migration
Challenge
Police
Profit from chaos
State
Support
immigrants
Accept
Support
autochthonous
Autochthonous
Create Order
Immigrants
Fight
Accept
Exit
Pogroms
Strategic queries about this model (1)
• Why would the state support immigrants if
they can get peace by siding with the
autochthonous?
– Immigrants are the government’s support
base
• Or why would the state allow for this kind
of migration in the first place?
– Nation-building
– Development
Strategic queries about this model (2)
• If the state does support the right of
migrants to settle in the autochthonous
region, why can’t the state and the
autochthonous population agree to a
bargain (e.g. how much migration will be
permitted) that will have lower costs than
an ethnic war?
– State has a commitment problem
Strategic queries about this model (3)
• If the state and the autochthonous group
cannot reach an agreement concerning
limits to migration, why can’t the state
compensate the autochthonous group for
the costs it will pay for the migration?
– Difficult for poor states to pay
– Endogenous emergence of “losers”
(demanding compensation) or “rebels” (who
are informed of state guilt by virtue of the
policy)
Strategic queries about this model (4)
• Why is this mechanism unleashed by migrants
and not in any case of mixed population rural
areas?
– Historically mixed populations in rural areas develop
institutions to regulate violence (“in-group policing”
e.g.)
– When this breaks down (several groups in central and
western Kenya, the Xhosas and Zulus in South Africa,
and the Catholics and Protestants in Northern
Ireland), we call this communal conflict, with the state
standing by as a third party.
Theoretical Implication of Model
• Sons-of-the-soil movements are a reflection of a
grievance in which the cultural dominance of
regionally based groups is threatened; cultural
difference is insufficient to explain the violence
• Civil wars are more likely to emerge from this
grievance due to the “rough terrain” encountered
by state armies in seeking to protect settlers of
the dominant societal group against harassment
by the autochthonous – giving credence to the
“insurgency” model of civil war onsets