Fair-Weather Abusers? Civil War Dynamics and the Onset of State-Sponsored Violence.

The article investigates how battlefield dynamics influence the use of government one-sided violence—defined as state-perpetrated violence targeting civilians—in intrastate armed conflicts from 1992 to 2010. It argues that while governments may order repression in areas with marginalized ethnic groups perceived as disloyal, soldiers' willingness to carry out such violence decreases when rebels make significant gains or approach the capital, due to fears of post-war accountability. Empirical analysis using subnational data shows that government violence against civilians is more likely in locations with excluded groups but low rebel activity, and less likely where rebel attacks intensify or advance rapidly toward the capital. These findings highlight the complex interplay between elite threat perception, principal–agent dilemmas within armed forces, and shifting battlefield conditions in shaping patterns of state violence against civilians during civil wars.