Regional Violence, Balance of Power Politics, and Peacebuilding

• In Event: Statebuilding

Abstract

Why do some efforts to promote peace work, while others fail? This paper demonstrates that particular regional contexts affect the prospects of peace in consistent ways across a variety of policy tools. In particular, in regions of endemic violence, local balance of power systems emerge as local actors, including state leaders, local power brokers, rebel groups, and outside interveners jockey to protect their interests. These balance of power systems then complicate efforts to resolve ongoing conflicts: because any settlement entails political defeat for some subset of local actors, those actors are likely to cooperate to undermine it. These obstacles to peace do not apply to conflicts outside regions of endemic violence, as political losers are unable to construct an effective coalition to undermine peace efforts. To test this argument, I first generate a measure of endemic regional violence, which brings together both interstate and intrastate violence within a geographically constrained region, and demonstrate qualitatively that local balance of power systems tend to emerge in regions experiencing high levels of endemic violence. I then show that United Nations peacekeeping and external mediation are both substantially less likely to produce peace in regions experiencing high levels of endemic violence. Similarly, foreign-imposed regime change is particularly unlikely to produce beneficial policy change (from the perspective of the foreign power) in the target state. This article thus helps to unpack the political circumstances that make peacebuilding more or less difficult.

Author

• Alex Weisiger, University of Pennsylvania