From grievances to civil war: The impact of geopolitics

I revisit claims that the Cold War had no meaningful effect on civil war after 1990 by probing its empirical veracity. I argue and employ a Bartik-style difference-in-differences identification strategy to show that countries with greater political grievances during the Cold War were more likely to experience civil war after the Cold War. I provide evidence suggesting that changes in the credibility of external support to both governments and rebels affected this uptick in conflict onset in aggrieved countries. These findings suggest the confluence of geopolitics and preexisting grievances played a causal role in civil war after the Cold War.