IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v64y2020i7-8p1307-1334.html

Civil–Military Relations and Civil War Recurrence: Security Forces in Postwar Politics

Author

Listed:
  • Louis-Alexandre Berg

Abstract

Does restructuring security forces reduce the risk of civil war recurrence? Prior research has examined effects of military integration in alleviating commitment problems, but the evidence has been inconclusive. Other aspects of civil–military relations have received less attention. This article examines the effects of civil–military relations in the context of postwar struggles to consolidate authority. It outlines three pathways through which security forces contribute to renewed civil war: by excluding rival factions and facilitating insurgent mobilization, by exploiting control over resources to challenge the regime, or by escalating incipient insurgency through repression. Analysis of original, cross-national data on postwar civil–military relations shows that reducing the potential for exclusion and exploitation through diverse officer appointments and robust civilian oversight lowers the risk of civil war. These findings emphasize the distributive effects of restructuring security forces and highlight the value of examining political contests around state institutions to understand why civil wars restart.

Suggested Citation

  • Louis-Alexandre Berg, 2020. "Civil–Military Relations and Civil War Recurrence: Security Forces in Postwar Politics," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 64(7-8), pages 1307-1334, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:64:y:2020:i:7-8:p:1307-1334
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002720903356
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002720903356
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002720903356?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. Girod, Desha, 2015. "Explaining Post-Conflict Reconstruction," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199387878.
    2. Oeindrila Dube & Suresh Naidu, 2010. "Bases, Bullets, and Ballots: The Effect of U.S. Military Aid on Political Conflict in Colombia," Working Papers 197, Center for Global Development.
    3. Weeks, Jessica L., 2012. "Strongmen and Straw Men: Authoritarian Regimes and the Initiation of International Conflict," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 326-347, May.
    4. Carter, David B. & Signorino, Curtis S., 2010. "Back to the Future: Modeling Time Dependence in Binary Data," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(3), pages 271-292, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Byung-Deuk Woo & Hoshik Nam, 2024. "Women and Peace Theory and Civil Conflict Intensity," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(2), pages 21582440241, May.

    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. Matthew Hauenstein, 2020. "The conditional effect of audiences on credibility," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(3), pages 422-436, May.
    2. Per F. Andersson, 2021. "Fiscal capacity in non-democratic states: the origins and expansion of income tax," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-176, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Bryan Rooney, 2019. "Emergency Powers in Democracies and International Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(3), pages 644-671, March.
    4. Varun Piplani & Caitlin Talmadge, 2016. "When War Helps Civil–military Relations," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 60(8), pages 1368-1394, December.
    5. Nam Kyu Kim, 2021. "Previous Military Rule and Democratic Survival," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 65(2-3), pages 534-562, February.
    6. Rizwan Asghar, 2025. "Nuclear weapons and interstate conflict behavior: The moderating influence of civil–military relations," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 42(2), pages 190-219, March.
    7. Patrick Gill-Tiney, 2022. "A Liberal Peace?: The Growth of Liberal Norms and the Decline of Interstate Violence," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 66(3), pages 413-442, April.
    8. Cathy Xuanxuan Wu & Scott Wolford, 2018. "Leaders, States, and Reputations," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 62(10), pages 2087-2117, November.
    9. Mahdi FAWAZ, 2020. "Ressources naturelles et guerres civiles au Moyen-Orient," Bordeaux Economics Working Papers 2020-09, Bordeaux School of Economics (BSE).
    10. Jansesberger, Viktoria, 2024. "Storms, floods, landslides and elections in India's growing metropolises: Hotbeds for political protest?," Working Papers 28, University of Konstanz, Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality. Perceptions, Participation and Policies".
    11. Austin L. Wright, 2016. "Economic Shocks and Rebel," HiCN Working Papers 232, Households in Conflict Network.
    12. Bellelli, Francesco S. & Scarpa, Riccardo & Aftab, Ashar, 2023. "An empirical analysis of participation in international environmental agreements," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    13. Julia C. Morse & Bridget Coggins, 2024. "Your silence speaks volumes: Weak states and strategic absence in the UN General Assembly," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 515-544, September.
    14. Katherine Sawyer & Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham & William Reed, 2017. "The Role of External Support in Civil War Termination," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 61(6), pages 1174-1202, July.
    15. Chong Chen & Kyle Beardsley & Nils B Weidmann, 2025. "The grass is always greener on the other side: Transnational ethnic inequality and ethno-nationalist conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 62(7), pages 2355-2370, 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. Evelyne Huber & Itay Machtei & John D. Stephens, 2023. "Testing Theories of Redistribution: Structure of Inequality, Electoral Institutions, and Partisan Politics," LIS Working papers 854, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    18. Solveig Hillesund, 2019. "Choosing Whom to Target: Horizontal Inequality and the Risk of Civil and Communal Violence," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(2), pages 528-554, February.
    19. Langlotz, Sarah & Potrafke, Niklas, 2019. "Does development aid increase military expenditure?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 735-757.
    20. Bodea, Cristina, 2015. "Fixed exchange rates with escape clauses: The political determinants of the European Monetary System realignments," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 25-40.

    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:jocore:v:64:y:2020:i:7-8:p:1307-1334. 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.