Civil Wars: What We Don’t Know

Abstract

with extensive third-party intervention, as in Colombia and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? Recent scholarly studies have identified important empirical regularities in the emergence, persistence, and negotiated resolution of civil wars. The marketing of war commodities such as diamonds and cocaine by parties to the conflict and by their regional allies contributes to the intractability of conflict. Third-party intervention sometimes contributes to a cessation of hostilities, par ticularly in the form of mediation services during the negotiation period or of security guarantees during the demobilization period. Ethnic polarization?especially where the parties perceive the stakes of war to be strictly indivisible?makes negotiated settlements difficult to reach. Ethnic violence (particularly in the form of ethnic cleansing), rhetorical manipulation of ethnic fears by political entrepreneurs, the ease of arms and cash flows in the increasingly globalized world economy (particularly where states are weak), and the all-too-often insufficient response of international and regional actors to initial violence also contribute to civil conflict and render peacebuilding difficult. Yet there is a lot we do not yet understand about civil war and there fore, I argue, about negotiated settlements and peacebuilding. In some contexts, elites succeed in polarizing communities along ethnic lines, but in others they fail. International aid sometimes serves as a carrot that can bring warring parties to the table; in other contexts, aid sustains conflict. Diplomatic intervention sometimes reinforces beliefs that the other party is serious this time about peace although they backtracked last time, but it can lead to the emergence of spoilers in other con texts. We know that efforts to negotiate an end to civil war more often fail than succeed. According to one estimate, the parties to civil war