So how would you attempt to define civil war? And perhaps what makes defining a conflict as a civil war so difficult?

Yeah.

Historians have, uh, struggled a little bit, uh, with the definitions of, uh, civil war, um, whereas political scientists have been, um, uh, much more at ease about defining it.

So essentially, uh, they would say that a civil war is a conflict between at least two, um, uh, groups, uh, two actors, uh, who at the beginning of the conflict, um, were part of the same sovereign state.

Um, that would be a, a definition offered by, um, distinguished political scientists like, um, Stathis Kalyvas, for example, and others.

But of course, it's a sort of ideal type that doesn't really exist in reality because very often you have, for example, more than two actors in a civil war.

Uh, very often, uh, these civil wars are highly internationalized, so they're not just fought between actors of the same nationality, but very often states or non-state actors, paramilitary actors, um, kind of get involved who are not part of that society.

With this research project, what would be your ultimate goal or your research outputs, what you're aiming to contribute to the scholarship of civil war in Europe with this project?