ABSTRACT
In the twentieth century, ethnic civil wars – indeed, civil wars of all kinds – were more important than ever before. In fact, though they were overshadowed by the two World Wars and then the Cold War, civil wars were more common than international wars throughout the twentieth century. The disparity became particularly stark in the 1990s: one study identified over 50 armed civil conflicts ongoing in that decade, and only two international armed conflicts (Wallensteen and Sollenberg 1999). While classifications of these conflicts vary, about half of the civil wars and other internal armed conflicts were, to a large extent, ethnic conflicts. Ethnic conflict has long been one of the major sources of insecurity in the world, and it is becoming more so.
