The global distribution of intrastate conflicts is not what it used to be. During the latter half of the 20th century, the states with the most youthful populations – a median age of 25.0 years or less – were consistently the most at risk of being engaged in a civil war or in an internal conflict, where either ethnic or religious factors, or both, came into play (an ethnoreligious conflict). However, the tight relationship between demography and intrastate conflict has loosened over the past decade. Ethnoreligious conflicts have gradually, though noticeably, increased among a group of states with a median age greater than 25.0 years, including Thailand, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Russia. The salient feature of these intrastate conflicts has been an armed struggle featuring a minority group that is age-structurally more youthful than the majority populace. The difference in age-structural maturity reflects a gap in fertility between the minority and majority, either in the present or in the recent past.
Article Source: The Stimson Center
Image Source: CharlesFred
Leave a Reply