Democratization after Civil War: A Brush-Clearing Exercise1

Abstract

Why do some states emerging from civil war take significant strides toward democracy while others do not? The existing literature comes to contradictory and puzzling findings, many of which, we argue, are driven by methodological problems. We examine the determinants of democratization in the short, medium, and long term after civil wars ending between 1945 and 1999. Other than a short-term effect of negotiated settlements, we find little support for the prominent claim that the outcome of the war shapes the prospects for postwar democratization. Neither does peacekeeping foster democratization. Meanwhile, consistent with the more general democratization literature, we find that economic development aids democratization while oil wealth hinders it. In short, we find the determinants of democratization to be much the same for post-civil war societies as for other societies. Why do some states emerging from internal conflict take significant strides toward democracy, while others do not? Why, for example, did Mozambique, Nicaragua, and Peru become more democratic after their civil wars ended, while Angola and Sri Lanka did not? The few extant studies that address this question come to a number of contradictory and puzzling findings. This paper attempts to clear the considerably tangled brush on the subject of democratization after civil war. The aim is empirical: rather than present a novel theory, it improves on existing research methods to examine the determinants of democratization for all countries emerging from civil wars ending between 1945 and 1999. 2 We use the term democratization to refer to moves along a continuum toward democracy, not necessarily to convey the crossing of a threshold to democracy. Our findings are rather striking with respect to existing studies on regime change after intrastate conflict: correcting for several methodological issues that we believe contribute to some of the contradictory findings in the literature, we find little support for the prominent notions that the war’s outcome, its death toll, or the presence of peacekeepers affects the prospects for democracy. Rather, democratization in societies emerging from civil war is shaped by much the same factors thought to affect democratization in other societies. Patterns of democratization after civil war are not so puzzling after all.