ABSTRACT
Since 1989 the concept of ‘civil war’ has taken on new salience in international relations. Significant inquiries into inter-ethnic violence emphasising studies of political community, identity, sovereignty, and political organisation have dominated the study of civil war in the past decade. Processes of social denationalisation of national identity have become more prevalent in everyday politics. Following Charles Tilly, civil violence is the product of three main influencing factors: coercive, capitalist and capitalised coercive.1 Tilly implies that inter-communal wars within existing national-state structures challenge received wisdom on the ways in which social scientists understand and study community, identity, sovereignty and organisation. This introduction argues that the world has returned to a system of neomedievalism after the Cold War. Bull defines neo-medievalism as a system of ‘overlapping authorities and criss-crossing loyalties’ which eliminate the absolute authority claimed and exercised by sovereign states.2
