Cheap talk or costly commitment? Leader statements and the implementation of civil war peace agreements

2021 ◽  
pp. 002234332110371
Author(s):  
Alyssa K Prorok ◽  
Deniz Cil
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Cheap Talk ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Peace Agreements ◽  
Sustainable Peace

This article examines how leaders affect the implementation of peace agreements. It argues that implementation is more likely when leaders have publicly committed to peace because public commitments tie leaders’ hands, making it costly to back down from peaceful promises. This effect is hypothesized to hold even under conditions that make implementation costly: when implementing difficult provisions, when spoiler risk is high, and when implementation is unreciprocated. These expectations are tested using novel data from the IPAD dataset on the implementation of peace agreements between 1989 and 2014 and on public statements by state and rebel leaders. Results show that governments and rebel groups whose leaders have publicly committed to peace are significantly more likely to make progress toward implementation. This effect holds for difficult provisions, when spoiler risk is high, and when implementation is unreciprocated. These findings highlight the importance of leaders’ political will for successful implementation of peace agreements and sustainable peace.

scholarly journals Moving from Impunity to Accountability in Post-War Liberia: Possibilities, Cautions, and Challenges

2005 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rena L. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Failed State ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Sustainable Peace ◽  
Viable Solution ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
Governmental Functions ◽  
Post War

Liberia has become the quintessential example of an African failed state. Though Liberia's civil war is officially over, war criminals are free and some are even helping run the transitional government under the authority of Liberia's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). This peace agreement calls for the consideration of a general amnesty for those involved in the Liberian civil war alongside the parceling of governmental functions among members of various rebel groups. The drafters of the agreement claim that this was the only viable solution for sustainable peace in Liberia. Meanwhile, Charles Taylor relaxes in Nigeria's resort city of Calabar.

Stick Then Carrot: When Do Governments Give Amnesty during Civil War?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley-Ann Daniels
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Policy Choice ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
The Government

Abstract Governments grant amnesties to rebel groups during civil wars and this is a puzzle. Why would the government offer an amnesty, which can be interpreted as a signal of weakness? In certain circumstances, offering amnesty is a rational policy choice. Governments should give amnesties when they are winning: the risk of misinterpreted signals is lessened, costs are low, rebel groups are weakened, and so amnesty can be used instrumentally to encourage defection or division among foot soldiers or as an incentive to leaders. Therefore, the government capitalizes on its military advantage and offers amnesty in a “stick then carrot” tactic. Using a database of amnesties during conflicts from 1990 to 2011, the article shows that governments are more likely to give amnesties following high rebel deaths. The use of amnesty during conflict is nuanced and context is important when understanding strategic choices.

A Motion of No Confidence: Leadership and Rebel Fragmentation

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 598-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Austin C Doctor
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Proportional Hazards ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Cox Proportional Hazards ◽  
Stage I ◽  
Logistic Regression Models ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Cox Proportional Hazards Models ◽  
War Experiences

Abstract Why do rebel organizations splinter into competing factions during civil war? To explain this outcome, I leverage variation in rebel leadership. I argue that rebel leaders draw on their pre-war experiences—i.e., their military and political experiences—to manage their organizations during conflict. These experiences bear unique patterns of rebel management and, thus, corresponding risks of fragmentation. Empirical evidence comes from a two-stage research design and original data featuring over 200 rebel leaders from 1989 to 2014. In the first stage, I estimate the probability of group fragmentation with a series of logistic regression models. In the second stage, I use Cox proportional-hazards models to estimate leadership effects on the rate of group fragmentation. Results indicate that variation in rebel leadership corresponds with unique risks of fragmentation. In particular, the results suggest that leaders with real military experience are best equipped to maintain group cohesion. This study offers insight into the processes by which rebel groups splinter into armed factions. In addition, it makes an important contribution to the broader discussion on the roles of structure and agency in shaping the dynamics of civil war.

Introducing a new dataset on leadership change in rebel groups, 1946–2010

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmela Lutmar ◽  
Lesley G Terris
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Leadership Change ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Interstate Disputes ◽  
Leadership Changes ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Qualitative Literature

Leaders and leadership changes are found to influence states’ foreign policy decisions, in particular with respect to war and peace between states. Although this issue is also addressed in the qualitative literature on intrastate wars, the influence of leadership turnovers in civil war has received limited systematic attention. One reason for this is the scarcity of quantitative data on rebel group leaderships. To fill this gap, we present a comprehensive dataset on leadership changes in rebel groups, 1946–2010, organized by rebel-month. The effects of leadership changes among parties engaged in civil war are argued to be more complex than those found in interstate disputes. In this article we present our theoretical argument followed by presentation of the variables in the dataset and descriptive statistics. To demonstrate the potential research value of the dataset we examine the impact of leader shifts on civil war settlement in Africa. We conclude with avenues for future research which might benefit from this dataset.

scholarly journals Coup-Proofing and Civil War

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Koga Sudduth
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
The Future ◽  
Face Threats ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Political leaders face threats to their power from within and outside the regime. Leaders can be removed via a coup d’état undertaken by militaries that are part of the state apparatus. At the same time, leaders can lose power when they confront excluded opposition groups in civil wars. The difficulty for leaders, though, is that efforts to address one threat might leave them vulnerable to the other threat due to the role of the military as an institution of violence capable of exercising coercive power. On one hand, leaders need to protect their regimes from rebels by maintaining strong militaries. Yet, militaries that are strong enough to prevail against rebel forces are also strong enough to execute a coup successfully. On the other hand, leaders who cope with coup threats by weakening their militaries’ capabilities to organize a coup also diminish the very capabilities that they need to defeat their rebel challengers. This unfortunate trade-off between protection by the military and protection from the military has been the long-standing theme in studies of civil-military relations and coup-proofing. Though most research on this subject has focused primarily on rulers’ maneuvers to balance the threats posed by the military and the threats coming from foreign adversaries, more recent scholarship has begun to explore how leaders’ efforts to cope with coup threats will influence the regime’s abilities to address the domestic threats coming from rebel groups, and vice versa. This new wave of research focuses on two related vectors. First, scholars address whether leaders who pursue coup-proofing strategies that weaken their militaries’ capabilities also increase the regime’s vulnerability to rebel threats and the future probability of civil war. Second, scholars examine how the magnitude of threats posed by rebel groups will determine leaders’ strategies toward the militaries, and how these strategies affect both the militaries’ influence over government policy and the future probability of coup onsets. These lines of research contribute to the conflict literature by examining the causal mechanisms through which civil conflict influences coup propensity and vice versa. The literatures on civil war and coups have developed independently without much consideration of each other, and systematic analyses of the linkage between them have only just began.

scholarly journals Do Terrorists Win? Rebels' Use of Terrorism and Civil War Outcomes

2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia Page Fortna
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
War Outcomes ◽  
Better Than

AbstractHow effective is terrorism? This question has generated lively scholarly debate and is of obvious importance to policy-makers. However, most existing studies of terrorism are not well equipped to answer this question because they lack an appropriate comparison. This article compares the outcomes of civil wars to assess whether rebel groups that use terrorism fare better than those who eschew this tactic. I evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of terrorism relative to other tactics used in civil war. Because terrorism is not a tactic employed at random, I first briefly explore empirically which groups use terrorism. Controlling for factors that may affect both the use of terrorism and war outcomes, I find that although civil wars involving terrorism last longer than other wars, terrorist rebel groups are generally less likely to achieve their larger political objectives than are nonterrorist groups. Terrorism may be less ineffective against democracies, but even in this context, terrorists do not win.

scholarly journals Weakened by the storm

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Walch
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Opportunity Cost ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Tropical Storms ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Group Recruitment ◽  
Rebel Group

How do natural disasters affect rebel group recruitment? Some influential research to date suggests that natural disasters – by lowering the opportunity cost of joining an armed movement – are likely to facilitate rebel group recruitment. In contrast, this study argues that natural disasters can negatively affect rebel organization and their recruitment efforts. It posits that natural disasters may weaken rebel groups in two main interrelated ways: (1) by leading to acute scarcity for rebel combatants and supporters, weakening the rebel group’s organizational structure and supply lines, and (2) by increasing government and international presence in areas where the insurgents operate. Empirically, this article explores these suggested mechanisms in two cases of natural disasters in the Philippines (typhoons Bopha in 2012 and Haiyan in 2013), which affected regions partially controlled by the communist rebel group, the New People’s Army (NPA). Based on data from extensive fieldwork, there is no evidence suggesting a boom in rebel recruitment in the wake of the typhoons. Rather, the NPA was temporarily weakened following the tropical storms, significantly impacting the civil war dynamics in the Philippines.

International Recognition, Compliance Costs, and the Formalities of War

Wars of Law ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 38-71
Author(s):  
Tanisha M. Fazal
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
International Community ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Compliance Costs ◽  
Interstate War ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
International Recognition ◽  
Peace Treaties

This chapter develops the main arguments of the book, focusing on how belligerents in interstate and civil war have reacted to the development of the laws of war detailed in Chapter 2. States involved in interstate war are perversely incentivized to evade the laws of war as these laws have proliferated. Thus, they are decreasingly likely to engage the formalities of war, specifically declarations of war and peace treaties. Secessionist rebel groups fighting civil wars aim to please the international community, and therefore are decreasingly likely to declare independence formally, generally likely to avoid targeting civilians, and increasingly likely to conclude peace treaties.

scholarly journals Fueling rebellion: Maritime piracy and the duration of civil war

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-147
Author(s):  
Brandon Prins ◽  
Anup Phayal ◽  
Ursula E Daxecker
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Causal Process ◽  
Maritime Piracy ◽  
Fighting Ability ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Conflict Duration ◽  
Resource Wealth

Extant research shows that the presence of natural resources can prolong civil wars. But research also indicates that as rebel groups become stronger, conflicts tend to shorten. These studies suggest an unclear association among the three variables—resources, rebel strength, and conflict duration. If resources increase the fighting ability of rebels, then why do they not shorten conflicts? To understand this relationship, we examine incidents of maritime piracy, which unlike other resources are more clearly exploited by rebel groups rather than states and offer new insight on how this might affect the persistence of civil war. The findings suggest that the use of piracy by weaker rebel groups shortens conflict but prolongs it when exploited by stronger rebel groups. We think our conditional analyses allow us to discern insurgencies driven at least in part by greedy rebels and therefore better illuminate the causal process by which resource wealth prolongs civil war.

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