Government ideology and the implementation of civil war peace agreements

Abstract

ABSTRACT How does government ideology, measured by the ideology of the chief executive and the ideology of the largest government party, influence the implementation of civil war peace agreements? In this study, I address this research question by analysing the Peace Accords Matrix (PAM) dataset that covers 34 comprehensive peace agreements of 31 countries from 1989 to 2015. The results of feasible generalised least squares (FGLS) regressions demonstrate that the likelihood of implementing peace agreements increases when chief executives and the largest government parties of the left-wing are in office. In contrast, the likelihood of implementing peace agreements decreases when chief executives and the largest government parties of the right-wing stay in power. Consistent with the party-policy literature and the hawkish-dovish assumptions, I find that left-wing governments positively impact the implementation of peace agreements more than right-wing governments, indicating the statistically significant relationship between the government ideology and the implementation of peace agreements.