Who Restarts Violent Conflict? Post-Conflict Government Policy and Two Types of Conflict Recurrence

Abstract

ABSTRACT Some internal armed conflicts recur between the same organizations, while, in others, the participating rebel groups vary with each recurrence, (i.e. they are ‘recast’). The two types of conflict recurrence (‘repeated conflicts’ and ‘recast conflicts’) should follow distinct logic because the participating rebel organizations qualitatively differ. I propose and test a game theoretic model explaining the two paths, where the government should contain former and potential rebels at the same time to prevent another war. The key feature I identify as fundamental in post-conflict settings is that former rebels are stronger but susceptible to private rewards while potential ones are weaker but difficult to buy off. Consistent with the model, my empirical analysis shows that the number of rebel factions, conflict stake, and the difference in capability between the former rebels and potential ones have differentiating effects on two distinct types of conflict recurrence.