This study analyzes economic and governmental factors in political violence, using both a cross-national quantitative analysis and an historical case study of El Salvador. Since at least the time of Aristotle, political violence has been a concern of social philosophers and social scientists. While it has often been seen primarily as revolutionary, political violence can be reconceptualized to include violent acts for political purposes carried out by an established regime as well as by its opponents. Such a broadening of the concepts facilitates neutral measurements of political violence, such as by death rate per population from domestic political conflict. For convenience, useful theories of political violence may be broken down into two main types. The first type, which may be called inequality theory, postulates some type of inequality, generally economic inequality, as a major cause of political violence. The second type of theory, which may be referred to as collective action theory, generally emphasizes the influence of the political interaction of competing actors. Other theories stress factors such as land inequality and population density. The cross-national analysis of this study found that income inequality and government sanctions were two of the more robust independent variables contributing to political violence. Similarly, the historical case study of El Salvador, particularly a comparison of the outbreaks of political violence occurring in 1932 and in 1979-84, suggests an important role in political violence was played by both income inequality and government sanctions. The findings that both of these variables contribute significantly and simultaneously to political violence implies that inequality theory and collective action theory may be partly compatible with each other. Also, the relationship between income inequality and political violence was found to be much stronger than the relationship between land inequality and political violence. This finding suggests that attempts to prevent political violence solely by addressing land inequality, as in many government land reform programs, will likely fall as long as they do not address the more fundamental factor of income inequality.

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Under what circumstances does foreign donor assistance during war-to-peace transitions contribute to the strengthening of civil society and the deepening of democracy? I answer this question through a comparative study of civil society development in the Palestinian territories and El Salvador, where I conducted 130 interviews with directors of donor agencies, grassroots activists, and directors of NGOs. Divergent civil society developments in the Palestinian territories and El Salvador after the signing of peace accords in the early 1990s present a real puzzle given the pre-accord similarities in civil society organization between the two cases. Both the Palestinian territories and El Salvador had a legacy of rich, vibrant grassroots organization and civil society activity during their protracted conflicts. In both settings, grassroots organizations have played central roles in non-violent resistance, consciousness-raising, and the provision of community services. Moreover, after the initiation of the peace processes in both the Palestinian territories and El Salvador, foreign donors provided substantial assistance to civil society groups. However, their civil society developmental paths diverged sharply during the war-to-peace transition. In the Palestinian territories, existing civil society organizations have engaged less actively with their previous grassroots constituencies since the start of the war-to-peace transition, and the number of grassroots-based civil society organizations has decreased. Moreover, many of these organizations have been limited in their access to institutions that engage the state. In El Salvador, the re-constitution of civil society has led to its broad access to institutions that engage the state and to higher levels of grassroots inclusion in the political transformation process. / I argue that these divergent outcomes in the Palestinian territories and El Salvador reflect the differential effects that foreign assistance has on civil society after more or less inclusive political settlements. I find that in cases like the Palestinian territories, where the political settlement excludes important socio-political groups, foreign donor assistance is less likely to contribute to the strengthening of civil society or the deepening of democracy. Rather, foreign donor assistance to civil society is more likely to exacerbate political polarization and weaken civil society by further privileging those select groups already favored by the terms of the non-inclusive settlement. Conversely, after more inclusive political settlements like in El Salvador, foreign donor assistance can play a more constructive role in developing civil society and contributing to the deepening of democracy by encouraging grassroots organization, and expanding access to political institutions that engage the state.