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Escalation to Civil War:A Quantitative Case Study of Cambodia 1980-2004Previous studies focus on the impact of national attributes on the likelihood and severity of civil war. Yet these attributes, such as geographic characteristics and poor economic performance, rarely, if ever, change. Consequently, they fail to explain the shift between low intensity conflict and full-fledged civil war. In this paper, we will explore the dynamic conflict processes taking place among rebel groups and the government that precede and comprise the escalation of armed conflict into civil war. To do so, we will analyze weekly internal conflict data for Cambodia (1980-2004) from Project Civil Strife to empirically test several escalation hypotheses put forth in the literature. The study explores how multi-group interactions among three primary rebel groups and the government in Cambodia escalate to civil war and deescalate over 1248 weeks between 1980 and 2004. This research will help to illuminate how low-intensity conflict among rebels and governments can intensify, increasing our ability to predict and prevent incidents of civil war. Authors: Andrew Reeves and Brandon Stewart ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]