Civil War Settlements Research Articles

Book Review: Hartzell, C., & Hoddie, M. (2007). Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press

Book Review: Hartzell, C., & Hoddie, M. (2007). Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press

Rethinking Models of Civil War Settlement

The current study is a replication and expansion of an earlier piece by Hartzell, Hoddie, and Rothchild (2001) exploring civil war settlement characteristics and stability. Their research focused on the importance of territorial autonomy provisions and the role of third party guarantors in predicting settlement success and stability. They employed a model that controlled for such conflict characteristics as international system structure, nature of the previous regime, conflict duration, conflict issue, and conflict intensity. Our study replicates Hartzell et al. using the Regan (2001) civil war dataset, employing a broader definition of conflict and a more stringent definition of when a conflict has ended. The results presented here differ from the previous study to have find that the importance of territorial autonomy provisions as a predictor of settlement stability is greatly diluted when one examines only those conflict settlements that have lasted for six months or longer without reciprocated violence. Third-party guarantors, however, remain a strong factor determining conflict settlement stability in the revised dataset. We also expand the previous work by including cases where the conflict ended through military victories, as well as by adding a dimension to the negotiated settlement variable that separates settlements that were coerced due to external military presence from those that were not coerced.

DRACUNCULIASIS ERADICATION: THE FINAL INCH

This report summarizes the status of the Dracunculiasis Eradication Program as of early 2005. Nine of the 20 countries that were endemic for this disease when the program began have already interrupted transmission, Asia is free of Guinea worm, and five of the remaining disease-endemic countries reported less than 50 cases each in 2004. Ghana and Sudan each reported 45% of the 16,026 cases in 2004. Except for Sudan, whose reports are delayed, cases in the remaining disease-endemic countries were reduced by 61% during the first quarter of 2005 compared with the same period of 2004. With accelerating momentum towards zero cases in all countries, the recent settlement of Sudan's north-south civil war, and a new challenge grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the way now seems clear to finish eradicating dracunculiasis by 2009 in Sudan and earlier elsewhere. "The rule of the final inch... The work has been almost completed, the goal almost attained... In that moment of fatigue and self-satisfaction it is especially tempting to leave the work without having attained the apex of quality... In fact, the rule of the Final Inch consists in this: not to shirk this crucial work. Not to postpone it... And not to mind the time spent on it, knowing that one's purpose lies... in the attainment of perfection."--Alexander Solzhenitzyn, The First Circle.

Rational Choice and Progress in the Study of Ethnic Conflict: A Review Essay

Through an analysis of eight recent books and a number of articles and papers, this article evaluates recent progress in the study of ethnic conflict, including large scale conflicts and episodic riots. Four main approaches have been applied to the study of ethnic conflict: rational choice, constructivism, essentialism, and structuralism (or realism). This evaluation of recent work includes that rational choice has been the least successful of the approaches; its focus on individuals' pursuit of (mainly) material benefits makes it difficult to recognize or to admit the explanatory power of nationalist feelings that do not depend on the prospect of material benefits. Constructivism has been the most influential approach over the past few decades but until recently has suffered from methodological weaknesses that have hindered testing. Essentialism has been out favor for as long as constructivism has been in, but recent methodological improvements have produced strong work that has resurrected this approach. Structuralism is the youngest approach; it is still immature but has already yielded important new insights. Some eclectic approaches are emerging that combine strengths of the latter three approaches; it remains to be seen whether comparable eclecticism will combine rational choice with one or more of the others. Daniel L. Byman, Keeping the Peace: Lasting Solutions to Ethnic Conflicts (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002). Donald L. Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Stuart J. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001). Roger D. Petersen, Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Monica Duffy Toft, The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). Barbara F. Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). Steven I. Wilkinson, Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Chaim Kaufmann is associate professor of international relations at Lehigh University.

Civil War Settlements and the Implementation of Military Power-Sharing Arrangements

This article considers the role that the implementation of peace agreements has on the prospects for fostering a durable peace following the negotiated resolution of civil wars. Focusing on the 16 peace agreements between 1980 and 1996 that have included provisions for the sharing or dividing of military power among former combatants, the authors find that the complete implementation of this aspect of settlements significantly improves the prospects for maintaining peace. They suggest that this proves to be the case because of the important and credible signals of conciliatory intent among former enemies that are made through the process of implementation. They find that implementation serves as a concrete signal of a genuine commitment to peace as signatories to an agreement prove willing to endure the costs associated with both compromising their original war aims and withstanding potential challenges from within their own groups. Based on these results, the authors offer policy recommendations focusing on the role that third-party actors and aid donors might play in facilitating the successful implementation of negotiated peace agreements.

Institutionalizing Peace: Power Sharing and Post‐Civil War Conflict Management

This article examines how power‐sharing institutions might best be designed to stabilize the transition to enduring peace among former adversaries following the negotiated settlement of civil wars. We identify four different forms of power sharing based on whether the intent of the policy is to share or divide power among rivals along its political, territorial, military, or economic dimension. Employing the statistical methodology of survival analysis to examine the 38 civil wars resolved via the process of negotiations between 1945 and 1998, we find that the more dimensions of power sharing among former combatants specified in a peace agreement the higher is the likelihood that peace will endure. We suggest that this relationship obtains because of the unique capacity of power‐sharing institutions to foster a sense of security among former enemies and encourage conditions conducive to a self‐enforcing peace.

Committing to peace: the successful settlement of civil wars

Committing to peace: the successful settlement of civil wars

Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars

List of Figures ix List of Tables xi Acknowledgments xiii PART ONE: THEORY 1 1. Introduction 3 2. Theory and Hypotheses 19 PART TWO: DATA AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS 45 3. Measuring the Variables 47 4. Quantitative Tests 70 5. A Closer Look at the Findings 92 PART THREE: CASE STUDIES 109 6. Negotiating for Security Guarantees: The Civil War in Zimbabwe 113 7. The Breakdown of Rwanda's Peace Process 143 8. Explaining the Resolution of Civil Wars 160 Appendix 1 169 Appendix 2 171 Bibliography 177 Index 193

Protecting the People: Public Security Choices After Civil Wars

Analysts of civil war settlements have devoted significant attention to how the security of warring parties can be enhanced to reduce their mutual vulnerabilities and foster peace. Less work has been done, however, on another serious challenge of postwar settings: the security of the general population. Once safe from the crossfire of warring armies, civilians often face new threats from violent criminals, excombatants, rioters, vigilantes, or members of other ethnic groups with whom they are to cohabit under a peace agreement. In the aftermath of virtually all the civil wars of the 1980s and 1990s, civilians perceived greater insecurity, often as a result of documented increases in violent crime. Ironically, in places like El Salvador and South Africa, civilians faced greater risk of violent death or serious injury after the end of the conflict than during it. [1] Even in cases where the end of civil wars has incontrovertibly reduced the dangers to civilians, postwar crime waves have been common, as have civil disturbances of various kinds. postwar public security situation is not entirely bleak: some aspects of peace settlements foster perceived and real improvements for the security of the general population. These include enhanced human rights protections, punishment for past human rights violations, and provisions to disarm combatants and civilians after wars. As compared to these various measures, reform of security institutions may have somewhat less impact on societies like Rwanda, where large portions of the populace are implicated in ethnic hatred and violence. Nevertheless, security reforms remain one of the most important mechanisms for preventing political violence and common crime in many postwar settings. As police scholar David Bayley puts it, The police are to government as the edge is to the knife. [2] Where police are repressive or politically biased, formal democratic rules and equality before the law can mean little in practice. Where the police are dominated by one ethnic group, members of excluded groups will likely turn to alternative, ethnically based mechanisms to provide security. And where no public security provisions are made, organized crime can assume such proportions as to produce corrupt mafia states, possibly with the complicity of international actors. Conversely, police who are effective in protecting individuals from criminal threats, who respect individuals' rights, and who protect vulnerable groups regardless of ethnicity or political orientation can create a positive climate even when broader political arrangements are uncertain or less than democratic. [3] Despite the myriad dangers for public security after conflict, relatively few civil war settlements explicitly set forth a road map for restructuring security forces in ways that reorient public safety toward protecting citizens rather than the regime. Of eighteen recent cases, minimal police reforms were included in twelve agreements (see Table 1). In most of these cases, few specifics were stipulated beyond the inclusion of former enemies into police forces and brief commitments to human rights standards and professionalization. general neglect of public security provisions in peace accords reflects the logic of peacemaking; the parties, and outside mediators, tend to focus on the post-settlement security of the civil war adversaries themselves, since this is what will make or break a peace process in the short run. Indeed, inattention to public security issues has seldom, if ever, caused renewed civil war. It has, however, contributed to extreme hardships and undermined longer-term prospects for both peace and democracy. Most civil war peace accords in the post-Cold War period have depended to some extent on liberal political institutions, including elections with at least two competing parties, constitutional systems with checks and balances, and minimum political and civic rights. …

Stabilizing the Peace After Civil War: An Investigation of Some Key Variables

In the wake of negotiated settlements to civil wars, one critical problem involves reassuring people who have been killing one another that conflict is not about to break out again, endangering people's lives. Those concerned with the success of negotiated settlements have debated how best to enhance the prospects of a stable peace. We address this question by exploring variables that may explain the longevity of negotiated peace settlements. These variables are divided into two categories—one tapping into the potential effects of the environment in which settlements are negotiated and another focusing on the impact of settlement arrangements. On the basis of our analysis of thirty-eight civil war settlements negotiated between 1945 and 1998 we identify the environmental factors and institutional choices that affect the short-term stability of the peace following civil war.

Arms control, civil war and peace settlements

Arms control has undoubtedly a role to play in conflict resolution. It can enhance stability through deterrence in the case of settlements based on partition, or it can support the military transformation process for national reconciliation. The problem with arms control in conflict resolution is that there neither exists conceptual clarity‐especially in relation to classical arms control‐nor has norm‐building in this area been very successful. Moreover, the short life cycles of most post‐conflict arms control arrangements raise questions about sustainability. This study argues that these deficiencies could be effectively addressed by embracing ‘generic best practices’ and by strengthening the interface of peace implementation with multilateral frameworks of politico‐military cooperation.

The outbreak and settlement of civil war: Neorealism and the case of Tajikistan

This study applies neorealist insights to an analysis of the Tajik Civil War. Pointing to the collapse of central authority as the permissive cause of the conflict, it argues that the concept of the offence‐defence balance can successfully be employed to explain why in the spring of 1992 fighting broke out between government supporters and the opposition. On this background, it then offers a discussion of how civil wars can be ended and it demonstrates how in Tajikistan external involvement in particular was central to the settlement in 1997 of the conflict.

Conflict among Former Allies after Civil War Settlement: Sudan, Zimbabwe, Chad, and Lebanon

The interesting theoretical question about civil war in general is not why it begins (the possible reasons are surely too many to enumerate) or why it stops (all sorts of contingent explanations from simple fatigue to outside force may apply) but why it so often does not resume when it might. We need to comprehend this process of conflict transformation, whereby the conflict either becomes less important or is pursued without using mass violence. Understandably, most analyses and prescriptions for peacemakers focus on relationships between former enemies and attempts to reduce incentives for them to take up arms again. However, a recent analysis of four negotiated settlements of civil wars (Sudan in 1972, Zimbabwe in 1980, Chad in 1987, and Lebanon in 1989) reveals that in all four cases the critical conflict was actually between former allies. The compromises required in negotiated settlements, combined with the other problems of post-civil war societies, make such conflicts likely. In some cases they led to violence; in Zimbabwe and Lebanon conflict again reached the level of civil war. However, the ironic results was that the countries that had experienced the most violence subsequently produced new settlements which essentially confirmed the original ones and appear to be holding. In Sudan, interallied violence was quite low, but the result was that the government changed its policy, the first settlement was undermined, and the original civil war began again. Outsiders should not assume either that wartime cooperation will continue in peace or that `normal' peacetime behavior will naturally appear of its own accord. Indeed, they should probably anticipate that ad hoc wartime alliances are likely to dissolve with the risk of renewed civil violence.

The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement

Unlike interstate wars, civil wars rarely end in negotiated settlements. Between 1940 and 1990 55 percent of interstate wars were resolved at the bargaining table, whereas only 20 percent of civil wars reached similar solutions. Instead, most internal wars ended with the extermination, expulsion, or capitulation of the losing side. In fact, groups fighting civil wars almost always chose to fight to the finish unless an outside power stepped in to guarantee a peace agreement. If a third party agreed to enforce the terms of a peace treaty, negotiations always succeeded regardless of the initial goals, ideology, or ethnicity of the participants. If a third party did not intervene, these talks usually failed.

The Consequences of Negotiated Settlements in Civil Wars, 1945–1993

We know very little about how civil wars end. Harrison Wagner has argued that negotiated settlements of civil wars are likely to break down because segments of power-sharing governments retain the capacity for resorting to civil war while victory destroys the losers' organization, making it very difficult to resume the war. An analysis of a data set of 91 post-1945 civil wars generally supports this hypothesis but only in wars over identity issues. Moreover, while military victories may be less likely to break down than negotiated settlements of identity civil wars, they are also more likely to be followed by acts of genocide. Outsiders concerned with minimizing violence thus face a dilemma.