James Fearon, CDDRL faculty affiliate, quoted in today's Washington Post

James Fearon, CDDRL faculty affiliate, is quoted in "Wariness, Not Hatred, Keeps Civil Wars Raging," by Shankar Vedantam, in today's Washington Post. Fearon says that a surge in U.S. troops in Iraq is unlikely to make a difference since both Sunnis and Shiites fear that their opponents will use force to grab power, and recognize that a power grab would win them all the spoils. "These fears and temptations are mutually reinforcing. If one militia fears that another will try to use force to grab control of the army, or a city, then it has a strong incentive to use force to prevent this. The other militia understands this incentive, which gives it a good reason to act exactly as the first militia feared."

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