IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/compsc/v32y2015i3p269-288.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The conditional impact of military intervention on internal armed conflict outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Patricia L. Sullivan

    (University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, USA)

  • Johannes Karreth

    (University at Albany, SUNY, USA)

Abstract

Previous studies of internal armed conflict outcomes have found evidence that rebel-biased military intervention increases the likelihood of rebel victory, but little indication that pro-government interventions improve the odds of government victory. Our argument, grounded in a theory of the utility and limitations of military force in civil wars, anticipates that armed intervention increases the probability of victory for the supported side only when that belligerent’s primary challenge is a lack of conventional war-fighting capacity. Empirical analyses of internal armed conflicts from 1945 to 2010 support these expectations. Direct interventions in support of opposition movements have substantively large, robust effects on conflict outcomes. In contrast, government-biased interventions are only effective in increasing the odds of an outcome favorable to the government when the fighting capacity of rebel forces matches or exceeds that of the state.

Suggested Citation

  • Patricia L. Sullivan & Johannes Karreth, 2015. "The conditional impact of military intervention on internal armed conflict outcomes," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(3), pages 269-288, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:compsc:v:32:y:2015:i:3:p:269-288
    DOI: 10.1177/0738894214526540
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0738894214526540
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0738894214526540?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. Laia Balcells, 2011. "Continuation of Politics by Two Means: Direct and Indirect Violence in Civil War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 55(3), pages 397-422, June.
    2. Seden Akcinaroglu & Elizabeth Radziszewski, 2005. "Expectations, Rivalries, and Civil War Duration," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(4), pages 349-374, October.
    3. 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.
    4. Salehyan, Idean & Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede & Cunningham, David E., 2011. "Explaining External Support for Insurgent Groups," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(4), pages 709-744, October.
    5. Lyall, Jason & Wilson, Isaiah, 2009. "Rage Against the Machines: Explaining Outcomes in Counterinsurgency Wars," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 67-106, January.
    6. Kalyvas, Stathis N. & Balcells, Laia, 2010. "International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(3), pages 415-429, August.
    7. Elbadawi, Ibrahim A. & Sambanis, Nicholas, 2000. "External interventions and the duration of civil wars," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2433, The World Bank.
    8. Patrick Brandt & T. David Mason & Mehmet Gurses & Nicolai Petrovsky & Dagmar Radin, 2008. "When And How The Fighting Stops: Explaining The Duration And Outcome Of Civil Wars," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(6), pages 415-434.
    9. Tomz, Michael & Wittenberg, Jason & King, Gary, 2003. "Clarify: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 8(i01).
    10. Cunningham, David E. & Lemke, Douglas, 2013. "Combining Civil and Interstate Wars," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(3), pages 609-627, July.
    11. Christopher Butler & Scott Gates, 2009. "Asymmetry, Parity, and (Civil) War: Can International Theories of Power Help Us Understand Civil War?," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 330-340, August.
    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. Yuri M. Zhukov, 2014. "Theory of Indiscriminate Violence," Working Paper 365551, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    2. Agustín Goenaga & Oriol Sabaté & Jan Teorell, 2023. "The state does not live by warfare alone: War and revenue in the long nineteenth century," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 393-418, April.
    3. Helge Holtermann, 2012. "Explaining the Development–Civil War Relationship," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 29(1), pages 56-78, February.
    4. Sebastian Schutte, 2017. "Geographic determinants of indiscriminate violence in civil wars," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 34(4), pages 380-405, July.
    5. Reed M. Wood, 2014. "Opportunities to kill or incentives for restraint? Rebel capabilities, the origins of support, and civilian victimization in civil war," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(5), pages 461-480, November.
    6. Martínez, Luis R., 2017. "Transnational insurgents: Evidence from Colombia's FARC at the border with Chávez's Venezuela," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 138-153.
    7. Jaime A Jackson & Belgin San-Akca & Zeev Maoz, 2020. "International support networks and the calculus of uprising," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(5), pages 632-647, September.
    8. Michael G. Findley & Josiah F. Marineau, 2015. "Lootable resources and third-party intervention into civil wars," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(5), pages 465-486, November.
    9. Alex Weisiger, 2014. "Victory without peace: Conquest, insurgency, and war termination," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(4), pages 357-382, September.
    10. Helge Holtermann, 2011. "Explaining the Development-Civil War Relationship," LIS Working papers 566, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    11. Hanne Fjelde & Desirée Nilsson, 2018. "The rise of rebel contenders," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(5), pages 551-565, September.
    12. Mueller, Hannes & Rauh, Christopher, 2018. "Reading Between the Lines: Prediction of Political Violence Using Newspaper Text," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 112(2), pages 358-375, May.
    13. Rob Williams, 2022. "Turning the lights on to keep them in the fold: How governments preempt secession attempts," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(4), pages 422-446, July.
    14. Laia Balcells, 2012. "Violence and displacement. Evidence from the Spanish civil war (1936-1939)," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 896.12, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    15. 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.
    16. Daniel Krcmaric, 2018. "Varieties of civil war and mass killing," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(1), pages 18-31, January.
    17. Faisal Z. Ahmed, 2022. "From grievances to civil war: The impact of geopolitics," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 427-451, July.
    18. Clionadh Raleigh & rew Linke & HÃ¥vard Hegre & Joakim Karlsen, 2010. "Introducing ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 47(5), pages 651-660, September.
    19. Matthew R DiGiuseppe & Colin M Barry & Richard W Frank, 2012. "Good for the money," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 49(3), pages 391-405, May.
    20. Theodore McLauchlin & Lee JM Seymour & Simon Pierre Boulanger Martel, 2022. "Tracking the rise of United States foreign military training: IMTAD-USA, a new dataset and research agenda," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 59(2), pages 286-296, March.

    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:32:y:2015:i:3:p:269-288. 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.