Civil War Termination Research Articles

Choices of Justice: Effects of Civil War Termination on Postconflict Justice Mechanisms Implemented by the State

Choices of Justice: Effects of Civil War Termination on Postconflict Justice Mechanisms Implemented by the State

Erratum to: Drivers of Durable Peace: The Role of Justice in Negotiating Civil War Termination

In the original publication of the article, the reference “Fortna (2004)” is cited incorrectly both in the text and in the reference list. In section 2, entitled “Constructing a Durable Peace Index”, in the second paragraph, Fortuna (2004) should be changed to Fortna (2004). And in the reference list, Fortuna VP (2004) should be changed to Fortna VP (2004).

Organized Violence after Civil War: The Geography of Recruitment in Latin America. By Sarah Zukerman Daly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

<i>Organized Violence after Civil War: The Geography of Recruitment in Latin America</i>. By Sarah Zukerman Daly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Drivers of Durable Peace: The Role of Justice in Negotiating Civil War Termination

Attaining durable peace after a civil war has become a major challenge, as many negotiated settlements relapse into violence. How can civil war negotiations be conducted and peace agreements formulated so as to contribute to lasting, durable peace? Previous research has focused on the durability of peace agreements, measured as the absence of violence. This study develops an index to measure durable peace for a period of 8 years after the agreement had been reached, and evaluates the new measure using an existing data set. We ask whether impacts on durable peace are similar or different to those found for the durability of agreements. This question suggests a number of hypotheses that are evaluated with 16 cases of peace agreements. Stable agreements are shown to mediate the relationship between equality provisions in peace agreements and durable peace, and to also mediate the relationship between procedural justice and the reconciliation component of durable peace. Interestingly, economic stability is not a dividend of peace agreements.

Lost in Transitions: Civil War Termination in Sub-Saharan Africa

Lost in Transitions: Civil War Termination in Sub-Saharan Africa

The Role of External Support in Civil War Termination

Many studies highlight the role that international intervention can play in prolonging civil wars. Yet, direct military intervention is just one way that external actors become involved in civil conflicts. In this article, a model is developed and analyzed that shows that when the government is unsure about how external support to the rebels will help rebel war-making capacity, it is the government that will continue fighting rather than settle the dispute. Different types of external support to rebels influence their fighting capacity differently, and some types of support create uncertainty about how new resources will translate into war-making ability. Specifically, more fungible sources of support (such as direct financial support) generate the most uncertainty for states as they attempt to estimate the effect of support to rebels on the conflict. Increased uncertainty inhibits bargained settlement, and disputes characterized by fungible external support are less likely to end than those where rebels receive different kinds of support. Empirical analyses demonstrate strong support for this argument; rebels that receive highly fungible external support (money and guns) are less likely to see conflict termination than rebels that do not.

Power and Civil War Termination Bargaining

Traditional bargaining theory predicts that groups will demand and concede as much as their relative power allows. However, scholars who study bargaining in the civil war context suggest that governments often overcompensate a rebel group to reach an agreement because the rebel group typically feels insecure. This paper argues that depending on the relative power distribution between groups, either a rebel group or government involved in a civil war can feel insecure at the bargaining table. The weaker bargaining participant, whether government or rebel, is expected to feel insecure and thus demand more political power in a postwar state than its power share predicts, while the stronger group is expected to be willing to overcompensate the weaker group to assuage its security concerns. Using a new data set on political power-sharing bargaining during civil war, my analysis supports this expectation.

The Art of the Possible: Power Sharing and Post—Civil War Democracy

Although there is now a wealth of scholarship concerning the onset, duration, and termination of civil wars, there is not nearly as much empirical research by political scientists on the potential for postconflict democratization in countries that have been the site of civil wars. This relative scholarly neglect of post–civil war democratization stands in contrast to the efforts and resources that other actors—foreign ministries, international and nongovernmental organizations, and members of civil society—have invested in attempting to help construct democracy in postconflict states such as Indonesia, Liberia, and Uganda.

Information, rebel organization and civil war escalation: The case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

Current literature on civil war is well aware of the importance of defection by rebel members for civil war dynamics, including that of ethnic defection. However, scholars have not closely examined the effects of defection on civil war. In this article, I argue that rebel members’ defection and resultant information leaks to the state increase the likelihood of the state’s military escalation through their effects on three aspects of conflict: the efficiency of the state’s offensives against the rebel group; the efficiency of the state’s defenses against rebel group’s offensives; and the level of uncertainty for the state in war. These effects of defection, however, are conditional on the credibility and consequentiality of the information from the defectors. The utilities of the alternative courses of action for the state also matters. The theory is applied to the case of civil war in Sri Lanka to explain the state’s initiation of Eelam War IV, which ended with a swift and thorough state victory. An implication of the theory is that the experience in Sri Lanka is not easily replicable elsewhere. The findings have implications to the studies of the duration and termination of civil war as well as to the studies of the use of violence against civilians.

Setting the agenda for evidence-based research on ending mass atrocities

The question of how mass atrocities end has been dominated by a normative approach regarding how they ought to end. Arguing that an evidence-based approach to terminate mass atrocities might offer profound insights into theories of mass atrocities as well as policies designed to prevent or end their occurrence, this article outlines the key questions and approaches needed for an evidence-based study of atrocity endings. It draws on theories of genocide, political violence and civil war termination, and presents initial insights from case studies, including the killing of civilians in colonial German Southwest Africa, the Soviet Union, the Nigerian civil war, the Guatemalan civil war, the Nuba Mountains of Sudan and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Inclusive institutions and stability of transition toward democracy in post-civil war states

This article attempts to bring together research on democratization and democratic consolidation with research on civil war termination. The post-civil war environment is contentious and the transition toward democracy achieved after a civil war is susceptible to failure. The side that wins the democratic elections in a post-war state may use its democratically won power to dismantle the institutions of democracy and repress the opposition. The fear of constant marginalization in the political processes as well as the fear of being repressed might create incentives for the defeated party to return to civil war. By utilizing the expected utility framework, this article suggests that former rivals would support democratic transition if they were confident that inclusive institutions ensured that they could achieve their political interests through the democratic processes. After analysing the data on post-civil war transitions toward democracy (TTD) from 1946–2005, I found that the proportional representation system and the parliamentary system are the most important institutions that help sustain the post-civil war TTD.

Armed Conflict Termination in Sri Lanka: An Opportunity to End Displaced Life and Renew Tamil-Muslim Relations

The 30 years of local armed conflict in Sri Lanka that broke out between the state security forces and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) in early 1980s came to an end after Sri Lankan government demolished the LTTE in 2009. A termination of such civil war was highly hoped by the people displaced by the same armed conflict, mainly Tamils and Muslims, to be an opportunity to return to their homes ending their protracted displaced live. The termination was also widely interpreted by Tamil and Muslim communities as an opportunity to renew their onetime ethnic relations, which today remained vulnerably damaged after this armed conflict. The return and the renewal of Tamil-Muslim relations have been two most notable aspects that have received a dominant position in social development programme and Tamil-Muslim public discourse of the post-conflict Sri Lanka. This paper is an attempt to examine if the Sri Lanka’s conflict termination has really served to end the displaced life and to bring Tamil-Muslim relations back. The paper focuses only on Muslims. This is a qualitative study. 11 Muslims, five from north and six from east, were recruited with purposive sample. The data was collected by one-on-one interviews with respondents and analysed with a descriptive method. The findings suggested that the conflict termination has hardly satisfied people’s hope to end their displaced live and renew their former ethnic relations. The paper, therefore, proposed some recommendations that need to be effectively advanced by government, civil communities and even non-governmental actors.

Private Military Companies, Opportunities, and Termination of Civil Wars in Africa

The article analyzes the impact of private military companies (PMCs) on the duration of civil wars in Africa from 1990 to 2008. We develop an “opportunity structure” theory to argue that while PMCs are profit-oriented entities, the prevalent opportunities in conflicts will determine how they behave in war zones. Empirical findings for civil wars with at least 1,000 battle deaths show that as level of competition among government-hired PMCs increases, they are more likely to deliver optimal services and help bring an end to violence. In the absence of competition, the prevalent structure creates opportunities for PMCs to underperform in order to maximize profits by staying in conflicts longer. The authors also show that swift cessation of hostilities could benefit those profit-seeking PMCs that are compensated with contracts to extract natural resources because resource extraction generates more wealth in peace time. In such cases, the prevalent opportunities in conflict create an incentive for companies to deliver optimal service and terminate hostilities.

Ending the War in Iraq: The Third Option

Since the war in Iraq began in 2003, public debate over the war has centered on two options: either increase the number of US troops to defeat the insurgency, or withdraw US forces to reduce US losses. Empirical research on civil war termination suggests that neither of these two options is likely to produce a favorable outcome for the US or the Iraqi government. That same research points to the third option – negotiated settlement – that has been the most frequent manner in which civil wars have terminated in the post-Cold War era. I analyze what existing research on civil war termination suggests about how the civil war in Iraq can be brought to an end. Military victory over the insurgents is unlikely, but withdrawal increases the risk of state failure. A negotiated settlement would require a credible third-party mediator to broker an agreement between the government, Sunni insurgents, and Shiite militias, thereby isolating foreign jihadists to spoiler status. Implementation of the settlement and the durability of the peace would be enhanced by multinational peacekeeping forces.

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.

Private Military Companies, Opportunities, and Termination of Civil Wars in Africa

Private Military Companies, Opportunities, and Termination of Civil Wars in Africa

Introduction: The SRSGs and the Management of Civil Wars

This article argues that mediation by special representatives of the Secretary-General (SRSGs) in civil wars involves a distinctly clear strategic purpose: by conducting international mediation and managing international assistance, SRSGs structure the incentives for parties in conflict to exchange the battlefield with a reformed, renewed, or created state. The article offers a substantive introduction to a special-focus section of this issue of Global Governance on the role of the SRSGs in mitigating civil wars. The introduction describes the often conflicted and multilayered role that these individuals play in managing the mediation process, serving as the principal for large-scale UN peacekeeping or political missions, in navigating within the Secretariat and in relation to the Security Council, and in coordinating on-the-ground a panoply of international organizations, regional organizations, donor agencies, and humanitarian or other nongovernmental organizations. The article concludes with three principal issues that consideration of SRSG roles in civil war termination raises: choice, context, and conduct In sum, for more effective leadership management of efforts to end civil wars, the roles and functions of the SRSGs need to become more institutionalized. KEYWORDS: civil wars, mediation. United Nations, peace negotiations. ********** THREE CRITICAL, POLICY-RELEVANT FINDINGS EMERGE FROM THE LITERATURE on sustainable war termination in civil wars. First, the parties cannot do it on their own: protagonists in civil wars need reassurances throughout the transition from war to peace, and they are more likely to succeed if a robust third-party force helps consolidate the peace. (1) The second finding is that mediation must continue well into the postconflict phase, as countries emerging from war are deeply vulnerable to recurring conflict, or new crises and disputes that threaten the peace. (2) The third finding is that the process involves close, careful, and sometimes coercive stewardship of the political process by a third-party mediator to carefully design ongoing negotiation through often violent transitional moments and years beyond a peace settlement. (3) The continuity between the war termination phase, or peacemaking, and the postsettlement agreement phase, or peacebuilding, means that international mediation is inherently long-term engagement and that context-specific leadership from the highest levels of the United Nations--typically by a special representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) (4)--is essential for bringing today's civil wars to an end. Moreover, it is clear that the choice, preparation, conduct, and efficacy of the SRSG are deeply complex processes and issues, often involving negotiation of interest-based preferences from key member states and other disruptions from below. Surprisingly, the academic literature on SRSGs as such is relatively thin, despite the critical role these individuals play in the global management of civil wars, arguably the most directly injurious security threat the world faces. These special focus articles present research conducted under the auspices of the Sustainable Peacebuilding Project, a joint endeavor of the Center for Sustainable Development and International Peace at the Josef Korbel School of the University of Denver and Center for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa. The project was sponsored by the Program in International Peace and Security of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The research was the subject of collective consideration at a seminar in New York on 19 February 2009. The project addressed three critical questions on the roles and challenges of the SRSGs, with the aim of bridging the gap between research and policy in this critical area. One conclusion emerged strongly that finds its way throughout the essays that follow. SRSG mediation in civil wars involves a distinctly clear strategic purpose: by harnessing international mediation and managing international assistance, SRSGs provide the opportunity, and structure the incentives, for parties in conflict to exchange the uncertainty and cost of the battlefield and to reach an agreement by which the conflict on the battlefield is arbitrated in a reformed, renewed, or created state. …

Securing the peace: the durable settlement of civil wars

List of Tables and Illustrations ix Preface xi Chapter 1. Introduction: Civil War Termination in Historical and Theoretical Context 1 Chapter 2. Civil War Termination in Perspective 19 Chapter 3. Securing the Peace: Mutual Benefi t, Mutual Harm 39 Chapter 4. Statistical Analysis of War Recurrence and Longer- Term Outcomes 53 Chapter 5. El Salvador: A Successful Negotiated Settlement 70 Chapter 6. Uganda: Rebel Victory Begets Stability 96 Chapter 7. The Republic of Sudan: A Collapsed Negotiated Settlement 116 Chapter 8. The Republic of Sudan: Prospects for Peace 130 Chapter 9. Conclusion 150 Appendix 163 Notes 175 Bibliography 207 Index 223

Ending Civil Wars: A Case for Rebel Victory?

Since 1990, negotiated settlements have become the preferred means for settling civil wars. Historically, however, these types of settlements have proven largely ineffective: civil wars ended by negotiated settlement are more likely to recur than those ending in victory by one side or the other. A theoretical and statistical analysis of how civil wars end reveals that the type of ending influences the prospects for longer-term outcomes. An examination of all civil war endings since 1940 finds that rebel victories are more likely to secure the peace than are negotiated settlements. A statistical analysis of civil wars from 1940 to 2002 and the case of Uganda illustrate why rebel victories result in more stable outcomes. Expanding scholarly and policy analysis of civil war termination types beyond the current default of negotiated settlement to include victories provides a much larger set of cases and variables to draw upon to enhance understanding of the conditions most likely to support long-term stability, democracy, and prosperity.

Settling Civil Wars

Two different positions regarding the impact the fate of factions has on the duration of the peace appear in theories of civil war termination. One holds that the peace will be long-lived when the organizational structures of all but one of the factions that compete in a war are destroyed or dismantled at the conflict’s end.The other position maintains that the peace can best be preserved when rival groups agree to share state power at the war’s end. I examine the evidence for these competing arguments, drawing on a new dataset on the fate of factions that participated in civil wars between 1945 and 1999.The results of this analysis indicate that although destroying opposing groups’ organizations has little effect on the duration of the peace, an agreement among rivals to share power can help to prolong the peace.