Insurgency vs. Civil War

[Rex Brynen]

The current literature would also support some concept of scale. According to COW (Correlates of War) University of Michigan, political violence must incur at least 1,000 deaths to be considered a civil war. There is also a necessity for a minimum number of casualties incurred by the incumbent forces in order to achieve civil war status.

I've never understood why CoW uses an absolute threshold, and not a relative one. 100 dead in Tuvalu would be a civil war. 100 dead in DR Congo is a bad morning.

Yes, I mean to say civil war is a subset of insurgency. Insurgency is simply violence against established authority. Civil wars are always large insurgencies (hence the "war").

But, to reiterate what several have now said--it all depends on why you're slotting things in conceptual boxes.

[Entropy]

Yes, I mean to say civil war is a subset of insurgency. Insurgency is simply violence against established authority. Civil wars are always large insurgencies (hence the "war").

Not sure I agree with that. How do you define "established authority?" Who, for example, was the established authority in the Russian civil war? What about cases where the insurgency gains the upper hand and becomes "established" but elements of the old regime remain and continue to fight? At what point to they change from being the "established authority" to the insurgent?