Does Peacekeeping Keep Peace? International Intervention and the Duration of Peace After Civil War

This article examines international interventions in the aftermath of civil wars to see whether peace lasts longer when peacekeepers are present than when they are absent. Because peacekeeping is not applied to cases at random, I first address the question of where international personnel tend to be deployed. I then attempt to control for factors that might affect both the likelihood of peacekeepers being sent and the ease or difficulty of maintaining peace so as to avoid spurious findings. I find, in a nutshell, that peacekeeping after civil wars does indeed make an important contribution to the stability of peace.     

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.     

Built-in Safeguards and the Implementation of Civil War Peace Accords

This article contributes to analyses of peace agreement implementation by focusing on the role of built-in safeguards as procedural mechanisms within peace agreements. Recent empirical studies suggest that negotiated peace agreements are a frequent mode of armed conflict termination and implementation of those agreements to be the primary predictor of enduring peace and the quality of that peace. However, in many instances implementation takes years or even decades and is subject to breakdown before achieving the key implementation objectives. In this article, we identify and theorize three key safeguards in peace accords: transitional power-sharing, dispute resolution, and verification mechanisms. We argue that these safeguards lead to higher implementation of provisions negotiated in peace agreements by addressing mutual suspicion and by facilitating more constructive working relationships among former rivals. To test our arguments, we analyze implementation of comprehensive peace agreements negotiated between 1989 and 2012 from the Peace Accords Matrix Implementation Data (PAM_ID). We find that the built-in safeguards that we have identified significantly explain variations in levels of peace agreement implementation.     

The Loyalty Trap: Regime Ethnic Exclusion,Commitment Problems,and Civil War Duration in Syria and Beyond

This article examines the impact of the ethnic exclusiveness of regimes on commitment problems and hence on civil conflict duration. It argues that members of privileged in-groups in highly exclusive regimes can be trapped into compliance with the regime. Ethnic exclusion helps to construct privileged-group members as regime loyalists. They therefore fear rebel reprisals even if they surrender or defect and consequently persist in fighting. The article finds in particular that, in ethnically exclusive regimes, privileged-group members mistrust even rebels who mobilize on a nonethnic agenda and regard rebel reassurances, including nonethnic aims, as suspect. Exclusion therefore induces privileged-group cohesion, an effect more resistant to rebel reassurances than previously recognized. A case study of the Syrian civil war shows this dynamic at a micro level, and a cross-national statistical analysis gives partial evidence that it lengthens civil conflicts on a larg`e scale.     

From Media Attention to Negotiated Peace: Human Rights Reporting and Civil War Duration

Violations of human rights in the context of a conflict have in recent years received an increasing amount of attention from the international media. Yet how such media attention influences conflict remains understudied and, a priori, uncertain. On the one hand, media coverage of human rights abuses may constitute “naming and shaming” that might temper hostilities. On the other hand, such coverage might spark intransigence and complicate negotiations among conflicting parties, thereby hindering rather than hastening peace. This article tries to adjudicate among these and other possibilities by exploring how media reporting on human rights abuses influences the development of conflicts. The analysis reveals that such reporting is associated with shorter conflicts and negotiated agreements between fighting parties.     

Lost in Translation: The Problem of Perceptual Limitations in Civil War Peace Negotiation

This article examines the negative role that actors' perceptual limitations play in civil war peace negotiation by reviewing the Sino-Khmer Rouge interplay during the Cambodian peace negotiations (1987–1993). The study contends that China continually failed to challenge the Khmer Rouge's negotiation strategies, which were founded on the faction's flawed understanding of its situation. Moreover, the inadequate communication between China and its client faction and the Khmer Rouge's lack of institutions for obtaining and analyzing information are identified as the two main reasons for the failure of Chinese intervention.     

Anchoring the Peace: Civil Society Actors in Peace Accords and Durable Peace

Is peace more likely to prevail when the peace accord includes civil society actors such as religious groups, women's organizations, and human rights groups? This is the first statistical study that explores this issue. The article develops key claims in previous research regarding the role of civil society actors and durable peace, and proposes a set of hypotheses that focus on legitimacy in this process. The hypotheses are examined by employing unique data on the inclusion of civil society actors in all peace agreements in the post–Cold War period. The statistical analysis shows that inclusion of civil society actors in the peace settlement increases the durability of peace. The results further demonstrate that peace accords with involvement from civil society actors and political parties in combination are more likely to see peace prevail. The findings also suggest that inclusion of civil society has a particularly profound effect on the prospects for overall peace in nondemocratic societies.     

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.     

战争、和平与全球治理

战争与和平是人类社会面临的重大问题。战争的爆发与和平的实现既受国际政治经济因素的影响,也是国内政治力量相互作用的结果。裁军是决定战争与和平的重要因素,然而,当今国际社会在裁军方面的进展十分缓慢。随着全球化步伐的加快,尤其进入21世纪以来,国际安全形势令人担忧。大规模杀伤性武器的有增无减以及恐怖主义的蔓延继续威胁着国际社会,原先的国际治理逻辑已不再适用。为消除战争、增进和平,重塑全球治理机制的呼声愈加高涨。为此,国际社会需要引入新的治理机制,对影响国际安全的因素加以管理。世界各国日益加深的相互依赖意味着以议题关联为核心的治理手段能够发挥更大作用。为提升和改进全球治理的效果,国际社会必须引入具有动机的激励机制,建立起可信和可核查的制度,对违反协议的国家实施惩罚和制裁,这不仅是国际协议和国际行动成功的关键,也是确保全球治理有效性的不二选择。     

Military Mobilization and Commitment Problems

Because of its costliness, military mobilization is generally seen as a mechanism by which high-resolve leaders can credibly signal their high resolve in international crises, thereby possibly overcoming informational asymmetries that can lead to costly and inefficient war. I examine how power-shifts caused by mobilization within a crisis can lead to commitment-problem wars. In a simple ultimatum-offer crisis bargaining model of complete information, war occurs if and only if the power-shift caused by mobilization exceeds the bargaining surplus, which is Powell's (2004 Powell, Robert. 2004. The Inefficient Use of Power. American Political Science Review, 98 May: 231–241. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2006 Powell, Robert. 2006. War as a Commitment Problem. International Organization, 60(1): 169–203. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) general inefficiency condition for commitment-problem wars. When private information is added, and hence mobilization potentially has a stabilizing signaling role, under certain conditions the commitment problem overwhelms the signaling role and mobilization leads to certain war. Finally, I analyze an infinite-horizon model that captures the reality that mobilizing takes time, and find that commitment-problem wars occur under broader conditions than the general inefficiency condition implies.     

胡佛战争、革命与和平研究所

斯坦福大学胡佛战争、革命与和平研究所(TheHoover Institution on War,Revolution and Peace,简称胡佛研究所)是保守派思想库,素有“右翼思潮的思想库”之称。该所在对共产主义及社会主义国家的研究方面独树一帜,此外还侧重于研究世界上文明冲突对政治经济造成的影响。具有鲜明的反共立场,而且这种立场有着深厚的历史渊源。小布什、里根、尼克松等共和党人竞选总统时,都有胡佛研究所     

War and Peace in Space and Time: The Role of Democratization

Democratization reduces the risk of war, but uneven transitions toward democracy can increase the probability of war. Using country-level data on democratization and international war from the period 1875–1996, we develop a general additive statistical model reassessing this claim in light of temporal and spatial dependence. We also develop a new geopolitical database of contiguities and demonstrate new statistical techniques for probing the extent of spatial clustering and its impact on the relationship between democratization and war. Our findings reaffirm that democratization generally does reduce the risk of war, but that large swings back and forth between democracy and autocracy can increase war proneness. We show that the historical context of peace diminishes the risk of war, while a regional context plagued by conflict greatly magnifies it.     

Preventing War Through Nation-Building: A Self-Interested Approach to Peace

The author, in this adaptation of his talk at the Hewlett Centers meeting, reflects on the post-September 11 world and the critical need to develop peacemaking processes in the 21st Century. One key area that needs attention is nation-building, or sharing the knowledge, skills, and democratic resources of the well-developed countries with less-developed nations. Such development activity is not only morally and ethically correct; it is in our own nation's self-interest as a security measure. Other important post-9/11 considerations include paying attention to what our critics are saying; understanding the media's pivotal role; working with NGOs; and encouraging conflict resolution education.     

Long Peace or Long War: A Conflict Resolution Perspective

Since the end of the 1980s, both the incidence and severity of violent conflicts and of domestic and international wars have declined globally. These declines are attributable to the convergence of many developments that help prevent, limit, and stop large-scale violence, and the author suggests that those developments persist. Consequently, he suggests that the recent U.S. engagement in wars and recent surges in terrorist attacks are limited spikes in violence that can be overcome. The author discusses how the current violent events may be in part a consequence of behaviors of the U.S. government and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations that are contrary to the major developments that contribute to global peace and cooperation. Governments and peoples acting in concert with those ongoing changes can help reduce the current mass violence.     

Civil Society and Peace Negotiations: Beyond the Inclusion–Exclusion Dichotomy

Civil society is generally seen as an important actor in peace processes. But when it comes to reaching an agreement during peace negotiations, much of the current debate is centered on the question of including or excluding civil society. Although most researchers argue that civil society participation makes the process more sustainable and democratic, most practitioners emphasize that enhanced civil society participation makes it more difficult to reach a peace agreement. I argue that practitioners and theorists must both move beyond this dichotomy and, instead, focus on the variety of ways in which civil society actors can be included in a given negotiation process. To this end, I present in this article a comprehensive overview of nine models of inclusion, from most to least direct involvement of civil society, supported by illustrative case studies. Analysis of these models suggests that it will be possible to broaden the participation of civil society in peace negotiations without decreasing the negotiations' effectiveness.     

WarViews: Visualizing and Animating Geographic Data on Civil War

In the recent years, the field of conflict research has produced new findings on the relation between conflict and geography. In doing so, new data sets have been created with the help of GIS software. These data sets include variables relevant for the study of conflict with a spatial component. However, the use of geographic data requires specialized software and substantial training and therefore involves high entry costs for researchers and practitioners. This paper introduces the WarViews project whose aim is to create an easy-to-use front end for the exploration of GIS data on conflict. It takes advantage of the recent proliferation of Internet-based geographic software and makes geographic data on conflict available for these tools. With WarViews, geographic data on conflict can be accessed, browsed, and time-animated in a few mouse clicks, using only standard software. As a result, a wider audience can take advantage of the valuable data contained in these databases, for example, as supplementary data for conflict case studies or for classroom demonstrations. We present two versions of WarViews. The static version runs in a web browser and allows the user to switch between different data sets. The dynamic version is based on Google Earth and can time-animate geographic data such that the development over time can be monitored. The WarViews website can be freely accessed at http://www.icr.ethz.ch/research/warviews .