Barbara F. Walter

According to the V-Dem Institute, another research institute dedicated to tracking global democracy,[*] twenty-five countries are now severely affected by a wave of international autocratization, including Brazil, India, and the United States.

They persuade citizens that democracy as it has existed will lead to more corruption, more lies, and greater bungling of economic and social policy.

Within two years, a once-united Yugoslavia would violently disintegrate, and
the world would come to know the term “ethnic cleansing.”

Two variables—anocracy and factionalism—predicted better than anything else where civil wars were likely to break out.

Factionalism, experts have found, tends to emerge in a predictable way. Elites and supporters of a particular group sense an opportunity—perhaps a moment of weakness in the regime, or a demographic change that heightens their sense of grievance or vulnerability. They then encourage loyalty, not by rallying people around policy issues but by using words and symbols related to identity—religious phrases, historical rallying cries, visual images.

The rhetoric gradually reinforces the group’s separateness, creating tension in society, and if the faction is in power, it will often use its position to suppress rival factions: eroding due process and encouraging open militancy. This increases fear and distrust among rival groups, which further escalates tensions, leading groups to consider force to resolve differences.

WAR IS EVEN more likely, the experts found, if at least one faction in a country becomes a superfaction: a group whose members share not only the same ethnic or racial identity but also the same religion, class, and geographic location.

Experts have found that the most volatile countries are the ones whose societies are divided into two dominant
groups. Often, at least one of these groups is large enough to represent between 40

and 60 percent of the population. This kind of ratio is more likely to lead to armed conflict.

And yet Milošević would not have succeeded in
convincing the Serbs living in Krajina—particularly in peaceful, multiethnic cities like Vukovar—to fight for him had Tudjman not helped confirm their worst fears