Civil War Recurrence Research Articles

Voting for peace, mobilizing for war: post-conflict voter turnout and civil war recurrence

ABSTRACTIn democratic elections around the world, high levels of voter turnout are frequently praised as a sign of democratic legitimacy and consolidation. However, while popular participation should be lauded in many circumstances, under certain conditions it can also have nefarious side effects. In post-conflict countries, high levels of voter turnout may make it easier for militants to return to arms because everyday people are invested in the political process and the electoral outcome. Through the use of survival modelling, this study finds that voter turnout is positively correlated with civil war recidivism in post-conflict first elections. Even when elections are not particularly contentious or when structural factors (such as level of development) are auspicious, voter turnout continues to have a positive and statistically significant relationship with recidivism.

The downstream effects of combatant fragmentation on civil war recurrence

We consider whether the fragmentation of combatants during civil war has downstream effects on the durability of peace following civil wars. We contend that the splintering of combatant groups, a primary manifestation of rebel group fragmentation, produces potential spoiler groups that are neither incidental nor unimportant in the process of civil war resolution. Making connections to the spoiling and credible commitment literatures, we hypothesize that rebel splintering hastens the recurrence of civil wars. Using event history modeling and propensity score matching to analyze two different civil war datasets, we examine whether the occurrence of fragmentation during a civil war influences the length of peace after the civil war. The empirical analysis of fragmentation events during civil wars since World War II offers support for the hypothesis that splintering decreases the duration of post-civil war peace. The results suggest the need to pay closer attention to the dynamics of fragmentation, and particularly how these dynamics lead to future consequences – even when those consequences take place after the war has concluded. For example, governments that attempt to splinter groups or to use existing fragmentations within rebel groups to end a civil war may encourage the unintended consequence of shorter peace duration.

United They Fall: Why the International Community Should Not Promote Military Integration after Civil War

Preventing the recurrence of civil war has become a critical problem for both scholarship and policy. Conventional wisdom urges the creation of capable, legitimate, and inclusive postwar states to reduce the risk of relapse into civil war, and international peacebuilders have often encouraged the formation of a new national army that would include members of the war's opposing sides. However, both the theoretical logics and the empirical record identifying military integration as a significant contributor to durable post–civil war peace are weak. An analysis of eleven cases finds little evidence that military integration played a substantial causal role in preventing the return to civil war. Military integration does not usually send a costly signal of the parties’ commitment to peace, provide communal security, employ many possible spoilers, or act as a powerful symbol of a unified nation. It is therefore both unwise and unethical for the international community to press military integration on reluctant local forces.

Competitive Alliances and Civil War Recurrence

Why do internal wars start anew after they apparently end? I argue that rebel arrangements made for strategic reasons during wars sometimes create provocative effects even after conflicts end; coalitions formed between opposing groups during conflicts often precipitate disruptive commitment problems at the end of wars. This competition can abet the conflict renewal process, especially after wars terminating in military outcomes. Using new data on competitive militant alliances in civil wars, this study probes how rebel rivalries impact peace duration after wars. The evidence indicates that rivalry within coalitions shortens the period of postconflict peace. Wars ending in military victories give way, as many scholars argue, to lengthier periods of peace. But this effect reverses in the context of conflicts characterized by competitive alliances. Indeed, the combination of competitive alliances and a military victory strongly precipitates a resumption of hostilities. This perpetuation of the “conflict trap” proves especially pronounced when rebels win wars. My study implies that peacekeeping or third party forces may find the least local consent for their presence precisely where they matter most in post-conflict environments. As former work has shown, victorious rebels, having wrested power by force from vanquished governments, have relatively little desire for outside interference.

Oil Wealth, Post-conflict Elections, and Postwar Peace Failure

New research has emerged that suggests there is a troubling relationship between elections and civil wars; primarily, elections increase the risk of civil war recurrence. I investigate this relationship further by examining the economic factors associated with the connection between postwar elections and peace failure. Specifically, how does the presence of oil wealth impact the risk posed by postwar elections. Drawing on previous findings in the democratization literature, I suggest the immobility of oil wealth dramatically increases the stakes associated with postwar elections. As postwar elites use irregular electioneering to consolidate their control of oil revenue, it increases the incentives for postwar opposition to use violence as a means to achieve their objectives. Using post-civil war data from 1945 to 2005, I demonstrate that postwar elections that occur in oil-rich economies dramatically decrease the durability of postwar peace. Once controlling for petro elections, though, I demonstrate that subsequent postwar elections actually increase the durability of postwar peace.

The Ongoing Process of Peace After Civil Wars

Strengthening Peace in Post-Civil War States: Transforming Spoilers into Stakeholders. Edited by Matthew Hoddie, Caroline A. Hartzell Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. 256 pp., $29.00 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-226-35125-4). Why Peace Fails: The Causes and Prevention of Civil War Recurrence. By Charles T. Call Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012. 315 pp., $32.95 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-1-58901-894-5). Barriers to Peace in Civil War. By David E. Cunningham New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 282 pp., $94.00 hardback (ISBN-13: 978-1-107-00759-8). One need hardly justify the relevance of scholarship on the resolution of civil wars. The contemporary geopolitical landscape is rife with prominent examples of costly ongoing civil wars and tenuous peace processes whose prospects remain unsettled and uncertain. The three works under consideration here undertake a critical examination of the elements essential to the sustainment of peace and build on a significant body of prior findings with regard to the causes of war and peace, peacekeeping, barriers to settlement, and civil war duration (Blainey 1988; Wagner 1993; Balch-Lindsay and Enterline 2000; Regan 2002; Reynal-Querol 2002; Fearon 2004; Fortna 2004). In so doing, they credibly establish a differentiation between ending the violence and maintaining the peace. Together they provide a timely and relevant addition to the growing subfield of civil war research in political science. In Strengthening Peace in Post-Civil War States, Hoddie and Hartzell draw together a diverse group of researchers to analyze the process of post-conflict state-building. In their introduction, Hoddie and Hartzell specifically target for critique the current focus on the role of military force via international peacekeeping and the accompanying emphasis on a rapid transition to liberal democratic and economic institutions. In their place, the authors advocate increased soft interventions to restructure institutions for a stable peace capable of accommodating fluctuations in power relations in the years after a civil war. The first two essays by Lake and Roeder establish the tenor of the volume with an excellent counterpoint on how best to achieve the goal of sustainable peace. Lake emphasizes the need for rebuilding support for the underlying social contract—“the interest of the ruled in social order” (p. 37)—and that only through this type of grass roots legitimacy, in contrast to legitimacy bestowed by the international community, can the social …

Power Sharing, Protection, and Peace

Power sharing is often purported to lead to civil peace, though its effects are disputed. We identify three types of power sharing—inclusive, dispersive, and constraining—and analyze their mechanisms of power allocation. We argue that constraining arrangements, which limit the power of a party or social group, are most likely to protect vulnerable groups. Constraining power-sharing institutions, such as guarantees of civil liberties and independent judiciaries to protect them, create checks against governmental repression of minority groups and ordinary citizens, whereas other types of power sharing focus on political elites. Constraining power-sharing institutions limit incentives for mass mobilization and raise the costs of conflict, thus reducing the probability of civil war. Drawing on a new global data set, we examine the effects of power sharing on the onset and recurrence of civil war. In contrast to prior findings, our results show that only constraining power-sharing institutions have a pacific effect.

The supply side of United Nations peacekeeping operations: Trade ties and United Nations-led deployments to civil war states

Peacekeeping operations have been identified as the most effective and efficient solution to the highly intractable problem of civil war recurrence; yet, only about 38% of civil wars receive peacekeeping assistance. To explain what determines whether an intrastate conflict receives a deployment of peacekeepers, we note that peacekeeping operations are costly endeavors requiring significant material investments. Focusing on the United Nations and its peacekeeping operations, we argue that because a relatively small group of states decides about (and funds) possible deployments, the supply of United Nations peacekeeping operations likely reflects the interests of these states. Specifically, we hypothesize that trade ties between the five permanent members of the Security Council and civil war states are among the factors that influence the decision to authorize United Nations peacekeeping operations. Testing the argument over the post-World War II and post-Cold War periods reveals that the economic interests of the permanent five members of the Security Council play a key role in explaining which civil wars receive United Nations peacekeepers.

The Dark Side of Power-Sharing: Middle Managers and Civil War Recurrence

The Dark Side of Power-Sharing: Middle Managers and Civil War Recurrence

Why Peace Fails: The causes and prevention of civil war recurrence

The aim of this book is to identify causal patterns which explain the recurrence of armed conflict after a civil war has come to an end. The importance of the work is irrefutable, as the latest coup in the Central African Republic and military intervention in Mali underline; this volume discusses earlier wars in both countries. Call finds that political exclusion is the key factor in explaining the recurrence of conflict. Using a multi-method approach, Call starts (after an introductory chapter) by using regression analysis to discern the variables thought to be significant in explaining worldwide war recurrence between 1946 and 2007. Unlike current policy thinking based on the work of scholars like Collier et al. (2003), the author finds that economic factors are not a predictor of war recurrence. Using Liberia as an illustrative case for considering the diverse arguments for civil war recurrence (Chapter 3), he pinpoints the role of political exclusion. The exclusionary behaviour of Charles Taylor played a primary role in causing the renewed outbreak of violence, the author asserts, more so than regional dynamics, international involvement, and the widely discussed theory of ‘greed’ – or economic opportunities (pp. 78–88). Call tests this hypothesis on fifteen cases of civil war recurrence, or ‘mini case-studies’, in the following chapters. He distinguishes between precipitating exclusionary behaviour (in nine cases) and chronic exclusionary behaviour (in two cases), as well as discussing four cases where his hypothesis on political exclusion does not work. In thirteen cases, post-war states engaged in exclusionary behaviour and in almost all of these cases – eleven, or 73 per cent – exclusion is the most important causal factor to explain war recurrence. Call then considers 27 cases of civil wars that did not recur, finding an important historical dimension: non-recurrence despite exclusionary behaviour only occurred prior to 1989. Call discusses the changing normative framework after the Cold War that put more emphasis on negotiations, after which ‘exclusion is no longer a viable path to negative peace’ (p. 201).

Why Bad Governance Leads to Repeat Civil War

Most contemporary civil wars are now recurrences of earlier civil wars. In contrast to classic theories of grievance and opportunity, this article advances a theory of civil war recurrence that highlights the critical role political and legal institutions play in constraining elites in post–civil war states. Such constraints serve as a check on executive power, help incumbent elites credibly commit to political reform, and create a situation where rebels need not maintain militias as a supplementary mechanism to hold political elites in line. All of this reduces the odds of repeat civil war. Using a statistical analysis of post-conflict years, this article demonstrates that strong political institutions are not only significantly and negatively related to repeat civil war but are the primary determinants of whether countries get caught in the conflict trap.

Why peace fails: The causes and prevention of civil war recurrence, by Charles T Call

Charles T Call Why peace fails: The causes and prevention of civil war recurrence Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012. 328 pp., $34.26 (paper) ISBN: 978-1-5890-1894-5Interstate war has been steadily declining over past few decades, while intrastate war has been on rise. Civil wars are now most common form of human armed conflict and account for an appalling number of deaths, injuries and forced displacements, especially in developing world. Charles T. Call aims to answer question of why, after a civil war has shown every sign of ending, some reignite while others stay stagnant. In order to address this puzzle, Call uses regression analysis techniques on a newly updated data set of civil wars, constructing a new variable based on wars that recur after at least 1 year of widespread peace. Along with his quantitative analysis, Call also presents an in-depth case study of civil war in Liberia, as well as 14 mini case studies of other countries in his data set that have experienced civil war recurrence. Moreover, he examines cases in which war did not recur to uncover decisive factors that might explain why peace endures in certain contexts.Call's central argument is based on notion of exclusion. Political exclusion denotes the perceived or actual deprivation of an expected opportunity for former warring parties, or social groups associated with them, to participate in state administration, through either appointed posts or elected office (4). Call explains that this factor plays a critical role in determining whether or not peace will be consolidated after civil war; he goes so far as to conclude that it acts as a trigger for war recurrence. On other hand, political inclusion, in form of power-sharing agreements, can act as a catalyst to bolster peace. Call presents a thorough and well-thought-out argument and uses a tried and true mixed-methods research strategy: quantitative statistical analysis buttressed and nuanced by contextually rich case studies. As both an academic and practitioner, Call is well positioned to contribute to debate on this important topic.While there has been a great deal of scholarship addressing causes of civil war, less attention has been focused on civil war recurrence. Previous research on recurrence has focused on structural factors rather than role of leadership and weight of key decisions leading to civil war recurrence. With this contribution to our understanding of civil war recurrence, Call has bridged that gap, as his argument addresses elite behaviour. He explains how leaders choose to include former enemies in key administrative and executive positions or merely pay lip service to idea while blocking any real form of power-sharing. Especially noteworthy is in-depth case study of Liberia, which illustrates mechanisms and causal relationships that are at play after a civil war comes to an end. The mini-case studies further nuance his argument, demonstrating that characteristics of civil war recurrence vary depending on whether conflict is a separatist war or not. Call also addresses several cases that defy his argument, and is careful throughout book not to overstate importance of a single variable.Perhaps Call is too modest in this respect. As I read through four case studies that he characterizes as defying argument I could not help but feel that author was not giving his own argument enough credit. …

Why Peace Fails—The Causes and Prevention of Civil War Recurrence by Charles T.Call. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012. 328 pp. $32.95 (paper).

Why Peace Fails—The Causes and Prevention of Civil War Recurrence by Charles T.Call. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012. 328 pp. $32.95 (paper).

Why Peace Fails: The Causes and Prevention of Civil War Recurrence by Charles T. Call.

Journal Article Why Peace Fails: The Causes and Prevention of Civil War Recurrence by Charles T. Call. Get access Why Peace Fails: The Causes and Prevention of Civil War Recurrence by Charles T. Call. Washington, DC, Georgetown University Press, 2012. 328 pp. $32.95. Andrew G. Reiter Andrew G. Reiter Mount Holyoke College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 127, Issue 4, Winter 2012, Pages 732–733, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2012.tb01161.x Published: 27 February 2013

Why peace fails: the causes and prevention of civil war recurrence

Introduction: The Tragedy of Civil War RecurrenceThe Importance of This BookThe Central ArgumentContributions to TheoryResearch Design and MethodologyOrganization of the BookNotes Part I: Why Peace Fails: Theory 1. What Do We Know about Why Peace Fails?What We Know about Civil Wars and Ethnic ConflictFour Approaches to PeacebuildingClarifying Concepts: Exclusion, Inclusion, and LegitimacyConclusionNotes 2. Is Civil War Recurrence Distinct from Its Onset?: A Quantitative Analysis and the Limits ThereofA Regression Analysis of Civil War RecurrenceThe Contributions and Limitations of Quantitative Methods for Studying Civil WarsConclusionNotes Part II: Examining the Cases 3. Liberia: Exclusion and Civil War Recurrence The First Civil WarThe Onset of PeaceThe Second Civil War: A Brief SummaryCharles Taylor's Exclusionary BehaviorAlternative ExplanationsInsights from Liberia's Second Postwar Peace ProcessConclusionNotes 4. Separatist Recurrences of Civil WarSudan: The Marginalization of the SouthChechnya: Reneging and ResistanceGeorgia and South Ossetia: Integration BackfiresChina and Tibet: Compelled from AutonomyAnalyzing Cases of Reneging on Territorial AutonomyNotes 5. Nonseparatist Recurrences of Civil WarPrecipitating Exclusionary BehaviorThe Central African Republic: Exclusion and State WeaknessHaiti: Political Exclusion and RecurrenceEast Timor: Liberation, Statehood, and ExclusionZimbabwe: Liberation, Statehood, and ExclusionBurundi and Rwanda: Chronic Exclusionary BehaviorAlternative Explanations and ConclusionsNotes 6. Recurrences That Defy the ArgumentLebanon: Failed PowersharingMali: Failed PowersharingNicaragua: Externally Driven Recurrence Peru: Exclusion, Coca, and Rebel ResurgenceConclusionNotes 7. Making Peace Stick: Inclusionary Politics and Twenty-Seven Nonrecurrent Civil WarsInclusion, Powersharing, and Peacebuilding SuccessPowersharing and Peace Consolidation: Examining the Pool of CasesBeyond Powersharing: Inclusionary Behavior and PeacePeace and Exclusionary Behavior?International Troops and 'Frozen' ConflictsNotes Part III: Implications for Theory and Practice 8. Conclusions for Theory: Legitimacy-Focused PeacebuildingThe Main Findings of the BookRethinking the Aims and Approaches of PeacebuildingAddressing LimitationsNotes 9. Conclusions for Policy and Practice: Can External Actors Build Legitimacy after War?Why Legitimacy-Building Is Exceptionally DifficultBeyond Blanket Inclusionary Formulas: Four 'Moments' for Key Choices and External StrategyConclusionNotes ReferencesIndex

Educational Access and Peace Duration in Post-Conflict Countries

Does increased access to education after the end of a civil war reduce or increase the risk of the resumption of civil war? As several scholars have argued, increased access to education is linked with the promotion of civil society, reduces economic inequality, and improves the livelihood of the population (Walter 2004). Moreover, by promoting education, the government signals to the population that it is concerned with the citizens of the country (Thyne 2006). Further, the opportunity for education increases the opportunity costs for rebels to fight the government, hence reducing the likelihood that former rebels will reinitiate a conflict (Collier and Hoeffler 2004; Walter 2002). On the other hand, others have pointed out that education may contribute to conflict particularly if employment opportunities do not keep pace with educational attainment (Buckland 2005; Degu 2005). Despite the claims of a theoretical linkage between access to education and peace duration, most empirical studies have examined the effects of civil war on education (Buckland 2005; Lai and Thyne 2007) as opposed to the effects of educational access on the recurrence of civil conflict or have focused largely on individual cases. In this article, using a stratified proportional hazard analysis, we empirically examine the relationship between increased education enrollments and the likelihood of civil war recurrence from 1990–2008.

Termination and Recurrence of Civil War: Which Outcomes Lead to Durable Peace after Civil War?

AbstractThis article attempts to answer why some countries experience the recurrence of civil war and others do not. One of the most significant differences between civil war onset and its recurrence is thatthe latter has once experienced termination of civil war,while the former has not. To find the cause of recurrence, this article examines how different war termination types influence the duration of post-civil war peace. Duration analysis of the civil wars between 1944 and 1999 shows that military victory, supported by peacekeeping operations or power-sharing arrangements, leads to the most durable peace in a post-civil war country. Contrary to the accepted wisdom, negotiated peace settlement, even when supported by peacekeeping operations or power-sharing arrangements, is not positively related to post-conflict peace.

Liberia's War Recurrence: Grievance over Greed

Scholars of peacebuilding are increasingly moving beyond questions of how to reach negotiated settlements to how an apparently stable postwar peace can be consolidated. Liberia offers a good case study, as its civil war of 1990–96 seemed to have concluded with an internationally supported election in 1997 and the withdrawal of international peacekeeping forces. Yet it experienced renewed warfare involving many of the same actors by 2000. What explains the failure of Liberia's peace? Recent research on civil wars has emphasized the causal role of poverty, natural resource dependency, and weak state institutions. Although Liberia reflects many of these factors, I argue here that grievance and exclusionary behavior underlie Liberia's civil war recurrence. These findings suggest that national actors and international peacebuilders should focus strategies on addressing postwar elected governments’ exclusionary conduct toward former enemies.

The Impact of International Tribunals and Domestic Trials on Peace and Human Rights After Civil War

We analyze whether international criminal tribunals and domestic human rights trials can play an important role in peacebuilding in post-conflict societies. Advocates and scholars argue that by providing justice and truth, helping to remove war criminals and peace spoilers from their societies, and by contributing to deterrence, these institutions contribute to improvements in human rights and the maintenance of peace. Other scholars assert that few such beneficial effects have occurred. We test the impact of international tribunals and domestic trials on the recurrence of civil war and human rights improvements in states that have emerged from civil war since 1982. The evidence regarding their beneficial impacts is fairly clear, however, and suggests that while domestic human rights trials and international tribunals do not exercise any negative effects, they do not appear to contribute to reducing the recurrence of civil war or improvements in human rights practices.

Information, Agreement Design, and the Durability of Civil War Settlements

Civil war is usually examined from the perspective of commitment problems. This approach provides considerable insight regarding which civil war agreement provisions reduce the chance of renewed fighting. Yet, additional insight can be gained by examining information asymmetries as a potential cause of civil war recurrence. We argue that significant uncertainty regarding military capabilities may persist after fighting ends and that this uncertainty may lead to the breakdown of peace. However, carefully designed peace agreements can guard against renewed civil war by calling for international monitoring, making the belligerents submit military information to third parties, and providing for verification of this information. Our empirical analysis of 51 civil war settlements between 1945 and 2005 shows that these provisions significantly reduce the risk of new civil war. Encouraging the adoption of these provisions may be a useful policy in the international community's effort to establish peace in civil‐war‐torn societies.