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Abstract:
In this paper we follow the definition of war adopted by the "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Kriegsursachenforschung", AKUF (Association for Research into the Causes of War) in Hamburg, according to which war is an armed mass conflict showing the following three characteristics: a) at least one of the groups involved in the armed encounters consits of government forces; b) the parties to the conflict show a minimum of organisation in their activities, even if this means no more than strategically planned raids; c) the armed encounters show a certain measure of continutiy and are not simply occasional confrontations - that is, both sides operate following a recognisable strategy (cf. Gantzel/Schwinghammer 1995.31ff.). - We are grateful to Dietrich Genschel and Philip Manow for critical commentaries on the opening section.