Unpacking Transition: Opening the Black Box of Civil War Endings

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Transitions from conflict resist neat categories of peace or war, democracy or dictatorship, consolidated control or contested sovereignty. This makes war-to-peace transitions uncodable in most conflict datasets: they appear as a stream of -99s for country-years, which scholars omit from analyses for the sake of parsimony. Yet the content of these transitions---these -99 periods---have disproportionate influence on long-term political outcomes. This panel examines the -99s as situations of important institutional and political change, rather than as an interregnum period. Paper presenters will direct light into the black box of these transitions from diverse vantage points. The panel will showcase new theories about how civil wars serve as critical junctures where rebel organizations re-purpose themselves as civil wars end; discuss how rebels-cum-politicians broker political coalitions; draw connections between gender and successful rebel-to-party transformation; and illustrate how peace processes represent a special category of political transition that reshapes patterns of violence against civilians. Papers will advance and test these theories using primary data from Ethiopia and South Sudan, as well as cross-country data. The hope is to advance a research agenda about how political scientists can theorize the dynamics and implications of transition when countries find themselves between war and peace.

Sub Unit

• Division 21: Conflict Processes

Individual Presentations

• Civil Wars as Critical Junctures: Theory and Empirics - Kai Massey Thaler, University of California, Santa Barbara

• Civilian Targeting During Peace Negotiations - Sophia Dawkins, Yale University

Chair

• Nelson Kasfir

Discussant

• Terrence Lyons George Mason University