How are civil wars different from riots and intercommunal violence?

In political science, a civil war is defined specifically as a violent conflict between a state and one or more organized, cohesive non-state actors operating within that state's territory.1

This definition distinguishes civil wars from other forms of violence in several key ways:

• State Involvement: Unlike riots or intercommunal violence, which are often characterized as conflicts not involving the state, a civil war requires the state to be a primary belligerent.1
• Organization: Civil wars involve organized non-state actors. This differentiates them from state repression against unorganized individuals or groups, as well as from spontaneous riots or uncoordinated violence.1
• Nature of Conflict: While intercommunal violence typically involves groups fighting one another, civil war is defined by the challenge posed to the state's authority, whether the goal is to control the central government or to achieve territorial secession.1

By these criteria, acts such as terrorism, violent crime, or general civil unrest that lack the organized, state-facing structure of an insurgency are categorized separately from civil war.1