Author Archive

David E. Cunningham

David E. Cunningham is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego and is an affiliate of the Centre for the Study of Civil War at the Peace Research Institute Oslo. His research focuses on civil war, conflict bargaining, and international security. He is the author of 'Barriers to Peace in Civil Wars', which was published by Cambridge University Press, as well as articles in the American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Journal of Peace Research.

There is a tendency, even among scholars, to view civil wars as involving two actors—the “government” and “rebels.” This presumption likely arises because historical civil wars that have received the most attention—such as the American and Chinese civil wars—were generally fought between two recognized, organized combatants. Yet, many civil wars (both historical and modern) involve more than two actors. Take the current civil war in Syria. The Syrian government battles a series of rebel groups that generate a large number of acronyms—ISIS, SLA, SIF, and so on—and that frequently fight amongst themselves. These groups often seek to form coalitions to coordinate their opposition, but the coalitions are unstable and have difficulty controlling their constituent parts. The Syrian conflict also has a large level of external involvement, with the government receiving direct military support from Iran and Hezbollah plus a large number of additional external states and non-state actors seeking to turn the course of the war. The Syrian opposition’s fragmentation is extreme, but the multiparty nature of the conflict is by no means unique. In fact, many of the wars that have received the most international attention in recent decades—such as in Afghanistan, Columbia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, the Palestinian conflict in Israel, the Darfuri war in Sudan, and Somalia—have involved several rebel groups and significant external involvement.