Lincoln's Gamble: Fear of Intervention and the Onset of the American Civil War

Few studies consider how civil war onset can be influenced by third parties and by the belligerents’ perceptions of third party actions. I show that the American Civil War, a war largely ignored by civil war scholars, sheds insights into how anticipation of third party intervention influences the decision-making process within the target state and how the possibility of third party intervention can influence the onset and escalation of civil war. The American Civil War is an especially interesting case for exploring the role of third parties in civil war initiation since, unlike most cases considered by the existing civil war literature, the American Civil War is an instance of nonintervention: the third parties (the European powers in this case) mattered despite staying out of the conflict. Specifically, I argue that fear of foreign recognition (particularly by the British) played an underappreciated (if not the decisive) role in the earliest stages of the American Civil War by influencing Lincoln's decision to authorize the first major battle of the war at Manassas Junction, Virginia.     

从社会运动到内战的演变机制 ——基于中东变局的考察

受到中东变局波及的中东国家,尽管结构背景大同小异,但各国爆发的社会运动带来的国内影响却截然不同,如突尼斯和埃及发生了较为平和的变革,而利比亚、叙利亚却爆发了内战。社会运动在不同的国家之所以产生不同的结果,原因在于抗议者能否形成跨阶层动员以及军队的立场选择。抗议者形成跨阶层动员,是社会运动得以持续并实现规模扩大的前提;在大规模社会运动面前,军队内部是否发生分裂,则决定该国是否爆发内战。就此而言,社会运动演变为内战需要两个条件,一个是形成跨阶层动员,一个是部分军队支持抗议活动或在抗议活动中保持中立。这一分析模式有助于研究者对社会运动是否会演变为内战进行预测。     

Resource Curse in Reverse: How Civil Wars Influence Natural Resource Production

Conflict scholars have argued that natural resources, such as oil, diamonds, and gemstones, may increase the chances for civil wars because rebels can sustain their organizations by looting resources and because certain types of resources, such as oil, create weaker state governments that are less capable of putting down insurgencies. Natural resources like oil also raise the value of capturing the state through war. However, empirical studies typically treat natural resources as exogenous variables, failing to consider the possibility that war alters the production levels of various natural resources. This endogenous relationship may help to explain the inconsistent empirical results linking natural resources and civil war onset. This article examines the two-way relationship between natural resources and civil war, focusing on oil, diamonds, and fisheries. The empirical findings suggest that most of the relationships run in the direction from war to resources, with no significant effects of resources on the onset of civil war. States with civil wars experience lower oil and diamond production, while marine fisheries production recovers in civil war–torn states.     

Does the IMF cause civil war? A comment

The global economic downturn has heightened concerns about intervention by global financial institutions and political stability. One prominently-published article purports to show that signing on to an IMF structural adjustment program (SAP) increases the risk of civil war, Hartzell et al. (International Organization 64:339–56, 2010). The authors claim that IMF SAPs push liberalization, which hurts people badly enough that they foment civil war. We advance the debate by critically examining their theoretical and empirical evidence, particularly questioning their crucial assumptions about the impact of IMF programs on the economic environment in terms of who actually wins and loses from liberalization and who might be in a position to rebel. Using their data, we find that signing on to an IMF program predicts the onset of a civil war negatively if one uses a lower threshold of 25 deaths when defining civil war. These results suggest that the operationalization of the IMF variable as well as the use of large-scale civil war (1,000 deaths and above) simply capture the effect of ongoing conflict rather than the effects of liberalization. After extending the time period under study and making only minor changes to operationalization, we find that at no time does IMF involvement successfully predict the onset of a civil war.     

Determinants of civil war in post-colonial Asia, 1950-1992: the role of trade openness and economic development

Although Asia has experienced civil war about as often as Sub-SaharanAfrica during the post-World War II era, there have been fewsystematic investigations into the determinants of civil warin Asia. This article examines the effects of trade opennessand economic development on the onset of civil war in post-colonialAsia, controlling for political, demographic, and geographicfactors. Analyzing data on post-colonial Asian states between1950 and 1992, we find that the onset of civil war is less likelywith increased trade openness. However, when taking into accountinteraction between trade openness and economic development,we discover that increased trade openness reduces the likelihoodof civil war onset significantly only in the context of higheconomic development. This result is robust with different modelspecifications.     

Civil War Settlements,Size of Governing Coalition,and Durability of Peace in Post–Civil War States

We examine the ways in which the size of the governing coalition in a post–civil war state affects the durability of the peace. Previous studies relate the durability of the peace to the outcome of the civil war, the extent and forms of power-sharing arrangements, and the role of third-party security guarantors. We argue that the way conflict terminates and the power-sharing agreements between former protagonists structure the composition of governing coalition in the post–civil war state. Any settlement to civil war that broadens the size of the governing coalition should increase actors' incentives to sustain the peace rather than renew the armed conflict. Peace is more likely to fail where the governing coalition is smaller because those excluded from the governing coalition have little to lose from resuming armed rebellion. To test these propositions, we analyze data on post–civil war peace spells from 1946–2005.     

State Capacity,Regime Type,and Sustaining the Peace after Civil War

About half of the nations that experience civil war eventually relapse into renewed conflict within a few years after the original war ends. This observation has motivated a stream of research into the factors that affect the risk of peace failure in the aftermath of civil war. While the outcome of the previous civil war—for example, military victory versus peace agreement—structures the post-war environment in ways that affect the risk of peace failure, the capacity of the post-war state to enact and implement policies that affect the incentives for and capacity of groups to undertake armed violence as a means of advancing their interests should also affect the risks of peace failure. Using Geddes’ categories of nondemocratic regime types, we will present a theory of how different regime types have varying capacities to repress and/or implement accommodative policies that affect the risk of peace failure. We test propositions derived from this theory with a series of event history models. Our findings suggest that while peace agreements significantly increase the duration of post-civil war peace, peace agreements involving some types of nondemocratic regimes actually increase the risk of post-civil war peace failure.     

Going on the Run: What Drives Military Desertion in Civil War?

Under which circumstances do soldiers and officers desert in a violent domestic conflict? This article studies individual military insubordination in the Syrian civil war, drawing on interviews with deserters from the Syrian army now based in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. A plausibility probe of existing explanations reveals that desertion opportunities originating in conflict events and the presence of safe-havens fail to explain individual deserters' decision making. Accounting for socio-psychological factors—moral grievances and fear—generates more promising results for an inquiry into the conditions under which military personnel desert. While moral concerns with continued military service contribute to accumulating grievances among military members engaged in the civil war, fear—that is, soldiers' concerns for their own safety—is a more effective triggering cause of desertion. The article presents a theory-generating case study on the causes of military insubordination and disintegration during violent conflict.     

“Any press is good press?” Rebel political wings,media freedom,and terrorism in civil wars

As part of a recent effort to bridge the studies of terrorism and civil war, new research has begun to emerge on the use of terrorism by rebel groups as a strategy of war. Building on these findings, we examine the role of affiliated political wings in shaping the use of terrorism by rebel groups during civil wars. We contend that the presence of an affiliated political wing during the civil war should increase the use of terrorism by rebel groups only in countries where there are relatively few restrictions on the freedom of the press. As political wings are often designed to engage with the civilian population through the dissemination of information, these apparatuses are in a key position to frame the use of terrorism as part of the rebel’s broader war effort. To test this proposition, we examine the use of terrorism by all rebel groups from 1970 to 2011. The results from the analysis provide strong support for our argument that political wings increase the use of terrorism by rebel groups only when the press is allowed to independently cover terrorist attacks.     

Killing Time: The World Politics of Civil War Duration, 1820–1992

Policymakers often trumpet the potential for third parties to stop the killing associated with civil wars, yet third parties as strategic actors also have incentives to encourage longer civil wars. We argue that in order to assess the influence of third parties on civil war duration, it is necessary to consider the interdependent nature of third party interventions as they are distributed across the set of civil war combatants. We also argue that it is important to consider the geopolitical context in which civil wars occur, rather than focusing solely on characteristics internal to these conflicts. To test our hypotheses about the impact of third parties and geopolitical factors on civil war duration, we rely on event history analysis and a sample of 152 civil wars for the period 1820–1992. We find empirical support for the idea that extremely long civil wars correspond to the equitable distribution of third party interventions—stalemates prolong wars. The analysis also indicates that separatist civil wars and ongoing civil wars in states proximate to the civil war state result in civil wars of longer duration. Finally, we find that when third parties raise the stakes of the conflict by engaging in the use of militarized force against the civil war state, the duration of these conflicts is reduced. In general, our analysis underscores the importance of modeling the interdependent and dynamic aspects of third party intervention as well as the world politics of civil wars when forecasting their duration and formulating policy.     

Sustaining the Peace: Determinants of Civil War Recurrence

Over half of all civil wars that began and ended between 1944 and 1997 were followed by at least one if not more episodes of civil war. We present a model to explain which characteristics of a civil war and the post-war environment make civil war more or less likely to recur. We test this model with data on civil wars that began and ended between 1944 and 1997. Findings suggest that civil wars are less likely to recur following rebel victories and peace agreements supported by peacekeeping forces. Post-war economic development also reduces the probability of civil war recurrence, and the longer the peace can be sustained, the less likely civil war is to recur. These effects hold regardless of whether the previous war was ethnically based or not, and whether it was secessionist or revolutionary.     

Fostering Peace After Civil War: Commitment Problems and Agreement Design

Lasting peace after civil war is difficult to establish. One promising way to ensure durable peace is by carefully designing civil war settlements. We use a single theoretical model to integrate existing work on civil war agreement design and to identify additional agreement provisions that should be particularly successful at bringing about enduring peace. We make use of the bargaining model of war which points to commitment problems as a central explanation for civil war. We argue that two types of provisions should mitigate commitment problems: fear-reducing and cost-increasing provisions. Fear-reducing provisions such as third-party guarantees and power-sharing alleviate the belligerents' concerns about opportunism by the other side. Provisions such as the separation of forces make the resumption of hostilities undesirable by increasing the costs of further fighting. Using newly expanded data on civil war agreements between 1945 and 2005, we demonstrate that cost-increasing provisions indeed reduce the chance of civil war recurrence. We also identify political power-sharing as the most promising fear-reducing provision.     

Rebellion without a shot—peaceful conflict management in Ecuador

Most conflict studies focus on the causes of war and violence. In contrast, this article on Ecuador explores the causes of peace in a country with strong conflict fault lines, a political army and several deep political crises during the last two decades. The article suggests that focusing on domestic capabilities for peaceful conflict management provides a new entry point to explaining why peace is sustained. An important aspect lies in the role of the armed forces and of civil society. Theories on civil-military relations provide an understanding of why armed forces intervene. However, there is less analysis of factors that influence political armies' behaviour in terms of the use or non-use of violence. This is the focus of this article. Furthermore, the article asks why actors in civil society opt for non-violent strategies. In summary, the article analyses the capabilities for peaceful conflict management of national actors—particularly of the armed forces and of civil society—through a focus on their behaviour in three recent political crises, and by tracking the influence of historical experiences, cultural context and the structural and institutional framework on their behaviour.     

Passenger or Driver? A Cross-National Examination of Media Coverage and Civil War Interventions

Existing research on civil war interventions provides contradicting evidence about the role that the media plays in affecting the likelihood of intervention. To date, studies often focus on specific cases (frequently by the United States) leaving it unclear whether the media's influence extends more broadly. In this article we examine this question cross-nationally and argue that we need to account for the possibility that interventions also lead to increases in media coverage. We test our hypotheses using cross-national data on civil war interventions and media coverage. These data include a new measure of media coverage of 73 countries experiencing civil wars between 1982 and 1999. These data allow us to determine whether media coverage is more likely to drive leaders’ decisions or follow them. Toward this end we employ a two-stage conditional maximum likelihood model to control for potential endogeneity between media attention and interventions. The results suggest a reciprocal positive relationship between media attention and civil conflict interventions. Specifically, an increase of one standard deviation in media coverage raises the probability of intervention 68%.     

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.     

Post-civil war democratization: promotion of democracy in post-civil war states, 1946–2005

Post-civil war democratization is a critical element of building sustainable peace in post-civil war states. Yet studies of democratic transition and survival suggest that the post-civil war environment is not hospitable to either the transition toward or the survival of democracy. This inhospitality may be due to the fact that post-civil war environments are contentious. After a civil war, the former protagonists fear for their security and also want to protect their political and economic interests. The central argument of this study is that former rivals can agree to a transition toward democracy to the extent that a stable balance of power exists between the government and rebel groups; a balance that eliminates the sort of security dilemma that would encourage one or both parties to resume armed conflict. Such a balance should ensure access to political power and economic resources. This study identifies factors that contribute to the establishment of a balance of power between former protagonists and factors that affect its stability. The presence of these factors should affect the decision of former protagonists on whether or not they can achieve their political and economic interests if they agree to a transition toward democracy once the civil war ends. Based on this theoretical argument, I have derived empirically testable hypotheses. In the survival analysis performed, I find support for the theoretical arguments. The findings of this study have some policy implications.     

Legitimate peace in post-civil war states: towards attaining the unattainable

Within the literature on conflict resolution and peace-building, there is a growing awareness about the need to move beyond ‘minimalist’ (absence of war) and ‘maximalist’ (absence of different types of structural violence) notions of peace. While the first concept is too narrow—it conceals much human suffering and does not take into account the root causes of armed conflict—the latter is too inclusive, open-ended and difficult to measure. There is, despite this growing consciousness, a lack of midterm definitions of peace that can help peacemakers assess whether a peace process is on the right track, say 10 or 15 years after a civil war has been terminated. In fact, when operationalising and empirically measuring how ‘peaceful’ post-civil war societies are, many scholars continue to employ indicators based on minimalist or maximalist visions of peace. In this article we introduce the concept of ‘legitimate peace’, which we argue can function as a midterm benchmark for peacemakers, and outline the benefits associated with its use.     

‘My heart was already cooked’: girl soldiers and situated moral agencies

Abstract

The number of studies on children in war has steadily increased in the fields of international relations, international law and moral philosophy in recent years. Most of this research has evolved around the legal and moral status of children in war. The status of girl soldiers is particularly intriguing, as it conflates common assumptions about both women and children as innocent victims of war. In this paper we look at narratives of children’s victimhood in the context of war by concentrating on girls who participated, in various forms, in the two Liberian civil wars from 1989 to 1997 and 2000 to 2003. Drawing on interviews conducted with women war veterans, we make the case that the study of child soldiers in general—and girl soldiers in particular—would benefit from a more contextually sensitive and empirically informed study of girls’ experiences, specifically regarding the possibilities and limitations of their capacity to be agents of war. We demonstrate how the agential capacities of children are case sensitive and argue that scholarship must better take into account the complex contextuality of childhood and agency in the study of children in war.     

Electoral Reforms and Peace Duration Following Negotiated Settlements

One of the most common features found within peace agreements is provisions that call for post-civil war elections. Unfortunately, the initial post-war elections often increase the risk of civil war recurrence. While past research has consistently confirmed this finding, it focuses only on one element of the democracy. Rather than focusing solely on elections, this article examines the laws surrounding the electoral process. Specifically, I examine how changes in electoral laws that are called for in peace agreements impacts the risk of renewed civil war. Building on research that examines the context of post-civil war elections, I argue that reforms to electoral laws that precede the initial post-war election substantially reduce the risks associated with that election. This proposition is supported with evidence from survival models of peace failures following the establishment of comprehensive peace agreements from 1989 to 2010, demonstrating that electoral reforms reduce the risk of civil war recurrence.     

External Interventions in Post-Cold War Africa, 1989–2010

The study of external interventions in conflict management is critical and has implications for international relations and conflict theory. Quantitative studies of the relationship between external interventions and civil war have been prone to some conceptual limitations (understudied lower-intensity periods) and data limitations (unavailability of event battle death data). This article presents a new external interventions data set covering the period between 1989 and 2010 for Africa, building on the Regan et al. (2009) data set, which covers the period between 1945 and 1999. Novel features of this new data set are: the recoding of the overlap period; a broader range of categories of intervention, including UN and non-UN missions; and wider temporal scope, by extending the period of analysis to 2010, by lowering the civil war threshold to 25 battle deaths, and by starting the conflict period from the date of the first battle death in each civil war (based on UCDP GED version-1.5-2011). The advantages of the data set are illustrated with an analysis of the different effects interventions have on high- and low-intensity conflict periods.