Conflicts are complex, dynamic processes wherein the frequency and intensity of violence changes throughout the contest. In this article, we explore the temporal dynamics of two long-term civil wars—DR-Congo and Sudan—to identify systematic and random conditions that lead to changes in civilian targeting. Violence committed by rival political actors, territorial exchange, and the number and addition of violent agents strongly shape the likelihood that civilian targeting events and casualties increase or decrease over time. General and country differences emerge from vector autoregression analysis to suggest that (1) three types of violent agents—rebels, militias, and the government—are locked in spirals of violence where violence against civilians by one actor leads to subsequent violence by another actor; (2) rebels and government forces respond to the other side’s acquisition of contested territory by increasing counterattacks on civilians, specifically in DR-Congo; and (3) increasing numbers of active nonstate agents lead to higher violence rates in the following months. Among these, civilian targeting by rival actors triggers the most follow-on violent events against civilians.

Our article analyzes how transitioning political institutions create incentives and disincentives for opposition groups to incite different forms of political violence. We argue that variation on two specific parameters of governance—checks and balances and political participation—compels states toward one of the three forms of conflict, including civil wars, political militia, and riots. Using disaggregated data on different types of political violence across Africa from 1997 to 2012, we analyzed two parameters of governance in both count and change models. We also identified high-risk conflict periods. Typical regime types (democracy, autocracy, anocracy) cannot explain manifestations of conflict, as violence occurs in regimes with varying levels of political openness and competition. Opposition groups actively respond to regime transitions, as changes in institutional parameters correlate with shifts into alternative forms of violence within states.