Autonomy yet Civil War: Cases of Lebanon and Cambodia

Abstract

The purpose of the previous chapter was to test the hypotheses put forward in chapters 2 through 6 using two difficult cases. Opportunistic autonomous development seeking behavior functioned perfectly for Armenia and St. Kitts and Nevis. It helped these states survive given threats inherent to systemic vulnerability. For Lebanon and Cambodia, however, the same described behavior ended in (and may have caused) civil war. This is because the positions of these weak states were deemed vital to the goals of great powers. Unlike Armenia and St. Kitts and Nevis, great powers saw the position of Lebanon and Cambodia as essential to their security. Since this was the case, great powers, because of competition within the international system, acted through their proxies, providing the circumstances necessary for their importance. Therefore, in this chapter, we focus on variations in the dependent variable: weak state behavior resulting in civil war rather than survival.