Competitive Intervention, Protracted Conflict, and the Global Prevalence of Civil War

Abstract

AbstractThis article develops a theory of competitive intervention in civil war to explain variation in the global prevalence of intrastate conflict. I describe the distortionary effects competitive interventions have on domestic bargaining processes and explain the unique strategic dilemmas they entail for third-party interveners. The theory uncovers the conditional nature of intervention under the shadow of inadvertent escalation and moves beyond popular anecdotes about “proxy wars” by deriving theoretically grounded propositions about the strategic logics motivating intervener behaviors. I then link temporal variation in patterns of competitive intervention to recent decreases in the prevalence and average duration of internal conflicts. The theory is tested with a quantitative analysis of all civil wars fought between 1975 and 2009 and a qualitative case study of the Angolan civil war (1975–1991). My results underscore the importance of a generalizable account of competitive intervention that not only explains past conflicts, but also informs contemporary policy.