Civil wars show substantial variation in where they are fought. One dimension of this variation is the proximity of fighting to the capital city. While some wars are fought in the periphery, others devastate capital cities, often for months, or years, on end. What explains this? This article approaches the puzzle from a bargaining perspective and argues that wars with evenly balanced belligerents (bipolar conflicts) should be less likely to see fighting in the capital while wars with multiple, evenly matched belligerents (multipolar conflicts) should be more likely to do so. Empirical analysis of new conflict-year data on the location of fighting in civil war and measures of conflict actor ‘fractionalization’ and ‘polarization’ from 1975 to 2011 support these claims. Highly asymmetric conflicts are fought furthest from the capital city. Bipolar conflicts are fought closer to the capital, but only modestly so. The transition from a bipolar to a multipolar conflict sharply increases the risk of fighting within 10 km of the capital and decreases the expected distance of conflict from the capital. In general, this article points to the utility of bargaining theory to help explain spatial patterns in violent conflict, in addition to questions of onset, duration, and termination, to which this theory has been traditionally applied.
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