Civil wars have become the dominant form of armed conflict in recent decades. This paper describes how some of the factors fueling these conflicts have changed over time and how economic policies are increasingly important in preventing them. The importance of economic policy, for example in ameliorating socio-economic disparities among different groups, has grown as a result of some recent developments, including the end of the Cold War (reducing the number of external interventions for geo-political reasons in wars); a trend towards democratization (allowing discord to rise into the open); economic reforms that have led to large distributional shifts (while leaving these equity issues to be solved by the political process); and the globalization of the world economy (increasing vulnerability and creating the potential for large distributional effects on an economy). With these developments, it has become more important that socio-economic factors do not become a reason for different groups—whether associated by region, religion, race, or roots—to revolt and that Governments continually address the impact of economic policies and economic developments on different groups.

23 p. : chart, tables

Includes bibliographical references.