When Peace Fails: Conditions for Recurrence of Civil Wars

• In Event: 053 - Regular Session. Ethnic Conflict

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that two sets of conditions affect the duration of peace after civil wars: structural and agency conditions. The extent to which the outcome of the previous civil war preserved a condition of structural challenge and the extent to which the post-civil war environment creates incentives for dissident groups to resort to violence rather than sustain the peace have an impact on the recurrence of civil wars. Hazard models suggest that the outcome of the previous conflict does affect the duration of the peace, and this effect varies across time. Peacekeeping forces have a substantial positive effect on peace duration. I also find evidence of a inverted-U relationship between ethnic fractionalization and post-civil war peace duration.

Author

• Mehri Ghazanjani, McGill University