IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/38r2h.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rebel Financing and the commitment problem in civil conflict: An Application to Northern Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Jennings, Colin
  • Sanchez-Pages, Santiago

Abstract

Why is a peace agreement acceptable at some point in time but not earlier? We argue that the commitment problem combined with the nature of rebel Financing can help explain this. Crucial to our argument is that the composition of financing between donations and self-generated funds through organised crime and local governance determine the size of anticipated shifts in the future power of rebel groups. When donations are the main source of funds, shifts in rebel strength will more likely be large and be preempted through conflict by the state. When rebels obtain mainly self-generated funds, shifts in power will more likely be small and allow for peace. We apply this theory to the Northern Ireland conflict and analyse why the 1998 Belfast Agreement was credible, but the very similar failed Sunningdale Agreement in 1973 was not. Our paper contributes to the literature on the boundary between political violence and organised crime.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennings, Colin & Sanchez-Pages, Santiago, 2024. "Rebel Financing and the commitment problem in civil conflict: An Application to Northern Ireland," SocArXiv 38r2h, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:38r2h
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/38r2h
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/662113fa716cb70380a4568e/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/38r2h?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:38r2h. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.