From Anarchy to Civil War: The Escalation of Violence in Iraq, 2003-2006

Civil wars are often the product of low-level political violence that escalates, rather than emerging ex nihilo from a peaceful society. Therefore, it is important to focus on what causes the initial pattern of violence and why it escalates. This essay integrates structural and strategic theories of political violence to develop an analytical framework of violence escalation. This framework allows us to identify critical junctures where intervention may limit or halt escalation. The framework is applied to Iraq, 2003–2006 to determine how and why violence escalated, culminating in widespread sectarian civil war in 2006.