Governmental repression and likelihood of civil war onset: World analysis, 1981-1997

The purpose of this paper is to investigate governmental repression combined with the type of regime that might determine a civil war. As a rule, scholars have not considered both variables in one quantitative model, in a systematic fashion. No empirical work employing political philosophy approaches can be found among the current quantitative literature on civil war. Therefore, this paper fills the gap, by grounding our work on a more robust theory, complementing the originally data-driven pieces. Three different hypotheses are tested and the findings indicate that poor countries with hybrid regimes and a high level of governmental repression are more likely to become involved in civil wars than countries with democratic or autocratic regimes. This paper can work as a contribution to the failed states discussion.