Chasing the Key Player: a Network Approach to Myanmar Civil War Preliminary and Incomplete: Do not cite or circulate without permission

This work studies the last twenty-six years of civil war in Myanmar. Since the country bears several correlates of war such as poor economic performance, rugged terrain, lack of inclusive institutions, ethnic heterogeneity and richness in natural resources, it represents an ideal ground for understanding their interplay in conflict outbreaks. While empirical and theoretical research on civil conflict have run along independent paths, I use a model to drive the empirical analysis. Namely, I investigate the determinants of conflict occurrences between the Myanmar army and several armed groups over time and space using a game over network approach in the spirit of [Ballester, Calvó-Armengol & Zenou, 2006]. The model yields predictions on which armed group the Myanmar army wishes to remove from the network of alliances and enmities in order to reduce the overall fighting ability of all armed groups in the network. This framework sheds light on why certain armed groups survive over time and why the Myanmar army is unable to commit to maintaining long-lasting ceasefire agreements with others. The empirical analysis follows a two-step procedure. In the first step, I parametrize the model in order to derive predictions. In the second step, I test them using georeferenced dyadic information on violence outbreaks over time. JEL-Classification: D74,F54,P48,O10,O13, Q34.