IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/compsc/v26y2009i4p347-365.html

Settling Civil Wars

Author

Listed:
  • Caroline A. Hartzell

    (Political Science Department, Gettysburg College, USA)

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Caroline A. Hartzell, 2009. "Settling Civil Wars," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 26(4), pages 347-365, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:compsc:v:26:y:2009:i:4:p:347-365
    DOI: 10.1177/0738894209106480
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0738894209106480
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0738894209106480?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Collier & V. L. Elliott & Håvard Hegre & Anke Hoeffler & Marta Reynal-Querol & Nicholas Sambanis, 2003. "Breaking the Conflict Trap : Civil War and Development Policy," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13938, April.
    2. Walter, Barbara F., 1997. "The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(3), pages 335-364, July.
    3. Werner, Suzanne & Yuen, Amy, 2005. "Making and Keeping Peace," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 59(2), pages 261-292, April.
    4. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    5. Fearon, James D., 1995. "Rationalist explanations for war," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 379-414, July.
    6. de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno & Siverson, Randolph M., 1995. "War and the Survival of Political Leaders: A Comparative Study of Regime Types and Political Accountability," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(4), pages 841-855, December.
    7. J. Michael Quinn & T. David Mason & Mehmet Gurses, 2007. "Sustaining the Peace: Determinants of Civil War Recurrence," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 167-193, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Clayton L. Thyne, 2006. "Cheap Signals with Costly Consequences," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(6), pages 937-961, December.
    2. Dominic Rohner, 2018. "Success Factors for Peace Treaties: A Review of Theory and Evidence," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 18.08, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    3. David Quinn & Jonathan Wilkenfeld & Pelin Eralp & Victor Asal & Theodore Mclauchlin, 2013. "Crisis managers but not conflict resolvers: Mediating ethnic intrastate conflict in Africa," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 30(4), pages 387-406, September.
    4. Yuri M. Zhukov, 2014. "Theory of Indiscriminate Violence," Working Paper 365551, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    5. Michaela Mattes & Burcu Savun, 2010. "Information, Agreement Design, and the Durability of Civil War Settlements," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 511-524, April.
    6. Elisa D’Amico & Santiago Sosa & Molly M Melin, 2025. "Private goods for peace: Economic provisions of peace agreements and the durability of peace," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 62(6), pages 2001-2019, November.
    7. Magnus Lundgren, 2017. "Which type of international organizations can settle civil wars?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 613-641, December.
    8. Flores Thomas Edward, 2014. "Vertical Inequality, Land Reform, and Insurgency in Colombia," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 5-31, January.
    9. Matthew Fuhrmann & Jaroslav Tir, 2009. "Territorial Dimensions of Enduring Internal Rivalries," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 26(4), pages 307-329, September.
    10. Idean Salehyan, 2008. "The Externalities of Civil Strife: Refugees as a Source of International Conflict," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(4), pages 787-801, October.
    11. Michael McBride & Stergios Skaperdas, 2005. "Explaining Conflict in Low-Income Countries: Incomplete Contracting in the Shadow of the Future," CESifo Working Paper Series 1636, CESifo.
    12. Lisa Hultman & Jacob D. Kathman & Megan Shannon, 2016. "United Nations peacekeeping dynamics and the duration of post-civil conflict peace," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 33(3), pages 231-249, July.
    13. Joseph M Cox, 2020. "Negotiating justice: Ceasefires, peace agreements, and post-conflict justice," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(3), pages 466-481, May.
    14. Nathan Fiala & Stergios Skaperdas, 2011. "Economic Perspectives on Civil Wars," Chapters, in: Christopher J. Coyne & Rachel L. Mathers (ed.), The Handbook on the Political Economy of War, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Govinda Clayton & Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, 2014. "Will we see helping hands? Predicting civil war mediation and likely success," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(3), pages 265-284, July.
    16. Kristian Skrede Gleditsch & Kyle Beardsley, 2004. "Nosy Neighbors," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 48(3), pages 379-402, June.
    17. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    18. David E. Cunningham & Kristian Skrede Gleditsch & Idean Salehyan, 2009. "It Takes Two," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 53(4), pages 570-597, August.
    19. Natalia Garbiras-Díaz & Miguel García-Sánchez & Aila M Matanock, 2024. "Political elite cues and attitude formation in post-conflict contexts," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 61(5), pages 874-890, September.
    20. Thomas Edward Flores & Irfan Nooruddin, 2009. "Democracy under the Gun Understanding Postconflict Economic Recovery," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 53(1), pages 3-29, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:compsc:v:26:y:2009:i:4:p:347-365. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    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.