Is Civil War Focal? Expectations about Major Power Intervention

• In Event: International Economics and War

Abstract

What is the effect of major-power intervention on the likelihood of civil war? To answer this question, we argue that scholars must simultaneously examine the interdependence of major-power intervention decisions and how focal points arise among potential interveners. We develop a unified theoretical and empirical model of civil war onset and subsequent major-power intervention that allows for spillovers among interveners, which can give rise to multiple rationalizable outcomes. After illustrating serious challenges to inference that emerge when studying these questions in isolation, we fit our model to civil war and intervention data from the second half of the twentieth century. We find that major-power intervention is primarily characterized by strong bandwagoning, rather than free-riding, incentives. Through a series of counterfactual experiments, we quantify the importance of focal points and show that uni- or multilateral commitment to increased intervention would deter civil war onset worldwide.

Authors

• Michael Gibilisco, California Institute of Technology

• Sergio Montero, University of Rochester