Peacelords: Explaining Warlord Cooperation with Postwar State-Building

• In Event: Elections and Violence

Abstract

After civil wars, order is often secured through the co-optation of subnational strongmen, or warlords. Under what conditions will warlords choose to cooperate with postwar state-building projects? This paper develops a game-theoretic model of postwar state-building that aims to specify these conditions. The model’s key point of departure is that cooperating warlords cannot maintain bargaining power vis-à-vis the central government without control over a subset of civilians. Warlords face a dilemma: if they choose to participate in state-building, they must pay a coercion cost to maintain civilian control and secure their access to the rewards of state-building.

A formal model illustrates the warlord’s choice: participate in state-building and maintain (costly) civilian control, or defect and continue fighting. The model yields two distinct equilibria: state failure or a state-building equilibrium that incorporates some or all warlords. A substantive discussion indicates that the most likely parameter combinations are those which support a “partial” state-building equilibrium that incorporates some, but not all, warlords. The model is used to frame an analytic narrative of state-building in Afghanistan. The model’s propositions are consistent with the empirical record of warlord participation since the Bonn Agreement in 2001.

Author

• Jasmine Hope English, Massachusetts Institute of Technology