Outsiders and Civil Wars: From Outbreak to Settlement

Abstract

How International Relations Affect Civil Conflict: Cheap Signals, Costly Consequences. By Clayton L. Thyne Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009. 237 pp., $70.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-3456-4). Clayton Thyne has written a very ambitious book that largely delivers on its promise. He starts by breaking with much of the literature and looking for explanations of civil wars not in domestic factors, but rather the role of outside states. Moreover, rather than looking at outbreak, duration, and settlement as separate phenomena, he links them together with the general notion of rational actors responding to expectations of success or failure. His initial assumption is that there are often dissatisfied groups in countries which would like to initiate a civil war if they thought they could win, reflecting the common argument that grievances are widespread and perceived opportunities explain why war breaks out in some particular countries at some particular times and not at others. His second assumption is that expectations about the behavior of outside states have a major impact on both governments and potential rebels. This suggests that states with high levels of dissatisfaction (often based on inequality) presumably do not break down into civil war because the government and potential rebels both expect that the government will win any such conflict because of a shared assumption about some kind of outside action (diplomacy, sanctions, interventions, etc.), which will make this result more likely. Thyne's initial argument is that war will come only when these expectations change. This in turn produces an intriguing paradox—strong signals, even when aimed at avoiding war and costly to the sender, usually do not have much impact on the targets because they confirm pre-existing expectations. Thyne argues that cheap signals that signal a possible policy change are likely to change expectations …