Join author Philip Roessler for a talk on his book, Ethnic Politics and State Power in Africa: The Logic of the Coup-Civil War Trap (Cambridge University Press, 2016), with Sir Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, as Discussant.

Why are some weak states trapped in vicious cycles of ethnic exclusion and civil war, while others experience relative peace? In his book, Ethnic Politics and State Power in Africa: The Logic of the Coup-Civil War Trap, Philip Roessler, Visiting Fellow of Practice at the Blavatnik School of Government and Associate Professor of the College of William and Mary, addresses this question. Drawing on years of field research on the causes of civil war in Sudan and Democratic Republic of the Congo combined with statistical analyses of power sharing, coups and civil war across the region, Roessler models weak states as caught in a coup-civil war trap and explains how this framework helps to account for war and peace across countries in Africa as well as to Syria, Iraq and other ethnically divided states.

About the author

Philip Roessler is Visiting Fellow of Practice at the Blavatnik School of Government and Associate Professor and Director of the Center for African Development at the College of William and Mary. He is an expert on conflict, state building, and development in sub-Saharan Africa with extensive field experience across the region. He is the author of Ethnic Politics and State Power in Africa: The Logic of the Coup-Civil War Trap (Cambridge University Press) and co-author with Harry Verhoeven of Why Comrades Go to War: Liberation Politics and the Outbreak of Africa’s Deadliest Conflict (Hurst Publishers/Oxford University Press).