The Universality of Civil War Definitions: A Study of How Regional Considerations Impact Civil War in Somalia, Colombia, and Angola

Civil war is a socially intimate phenomenon. The viability of the conflict hinges on recruitment for the cause, military strategy, community support, and a variety of other conditional factors. Despite this dependence on local society, many researchers approach civil war from a global perspective, attempting to discover universal truths about this kind of conflict. This capstone project focuses on restricting the operating parameters of civil war research projects to the span of a single continent, hoping to achieve deeper insight by focusing the research using a more culturally sensitive set of parameters. By using cultural data to guide civil war research, conflict indicators can tailor conflict prevention to escalating violent scenarios.