Ceasefires and Shifting Power: Revisiting the Commitment Problem and Third-Party Intervention in Civil Conflict

Abstract

In the post-cold war era, third-party attempts to compel an end to humanitarian crises without resort to force have almost uniformly failed. In this paper, I demonstrate the existence of a distinct form of the commitment problem that has largely been overlooked in the literature on humanitarian intervention. I show that third-party demands for a ceasefire and the provision of humanitarian aid often result in a shift in the local distribution of power in favor of local rebel groups at the expense of incumbent regimes. Rebels have incentives to exploit this shift in power, and neither rebels nor third parties have the means to guarantee their future restraint. This inability provides incentives for the regime to resist third-party demands for a ceasefire and to fight to forestall an adverse shift in the local distribution of power. While credible third parties have often been hailed as a solution to commitment problems that prevent the peaceful resolution of civil conflicts, there has been little recognition of the role third parties may play in producing commitment problems in the course of bargaining. The model provides a novel account for coercion failure in the case of NATO’s 1999 intervention in Kosovo.