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.