From anarchy to security: Comparing theoretical approaches to the process of disarmament following civil war

Abstract

This essay offers a critical evaluation of two contending theoretical approaches to achieving disarmament and an enduring peace following the negotiated resolution of civil war. The neorealist approach is associated with the work of Barbara Walter and suggests that third party enforcement of the terms of the peace is critical to fostering the confidence necessary for rival groups to lay down their arms and renew the process of intrastate cooperation. In contrast, we identify an alternative neoliberal approach, one that does not depend entirely on the unreliable goodwill of the international community. We suggest that former enemies have the opportunity autonomously to build the trust necessary to achieve disarmament through an agreement to create a network of power sharing and power dividing institutions.

Notes

1. Barbara Walter, ‘The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlements’, International Organization, Vol.51, No.3 (1997), pp.353–364; Barbara Walter, ‘Designing Transitions from Civil War’, in Barbara Walter and Jack Snyder (eds.), Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Barbara Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).

2. Caroline Hartzell, ‘Explaining the Stability of Negotiated Settlements to Civil Wars’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol.43, No.1 (1999), pp.3–22.

3. Caroline Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie, ‘Institutionalizing Peace: Power Sharing and Post-Civil War Conflict Management’, American Journal of Political Science, Vol.47, No.2 (2003), pp.318–322; Matthew Hoddie and Caroline Hartzell, ‘Civil War Settlements and the Implementation of Military Power-Sharing Arrangements’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol.40, No.3 (2003), pp.303–320; Matthew Hoddie and Caroline Hartzell, ‘Signals of Reconciliation: Institution-Building and the Resolution of Civil Wars’, International Studies Review, Vol.7, No.1 (2005), pp.21–40.

4. We focus on disarmament following the negotiated settlement of civil wars as these agreements have become the most frequent means of civil war resolution since the end of the Cold War.

5. As the moniker suggests, neorealism builds on many of the concepts associated with the realist tradition. Hans Morgenthau's Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: McGraw Hill, 1948 1993) is the most frequently-cited realist text.

6. John Herz, ‘Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma’, World Politics, Vol.2, No.2 (1950), p.157. See also Robert Jervis, ‘Cooperation under the Security Dilemma’, World Politics, Vol.30, No.2 (1978), pp.167–214; Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980); and Joanna Spear, ‘Disarmament and Demobilization’, in Stephen John Stedman, Donald Rothchild and Elizabeth M. Cousens (eds.), Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002).

7. Jayantha Dhanapala, ‘Multilateral Cooperation on Small Arms and Light Weapons: From Crisis to Collective Response’, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol.9, No.1 (2002), pp.163–171.

8. Stephen John Stedman, ‘Negotiation and Mediation in Internal Conflict’, in Michael E. Brown (ed.), The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996); Walter, ‘The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlements’; Walter, Committing to Peace; and Hartzell, ‘Explaining the Stability of Negotiated Settlements to Civil Wars’.

9. Spear, ‘Disarmament and Demobilization’, suggests that a limited degree of deception regarding disarmament may actually serve to stabilize a negotiated settlement if it helps to reduce factions' sense of vulnerability. This is not always the case. Cheating on disarmament runs the risk of becoming less an antidote to a sense of vulnerability than a maneuver by parties seeking tactical advantage. The end result (such as is apparent with the failed Angolan agreement) has often been a return to war.

10. Walter, Committing to Peace, p.5.

11. Ibid., p.20.

12. See, for example, Virginia Page Fortna, ‘Achieving Durable Peace after Civil War’, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, MA, 1998; Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, ‘International Peacebuilding: A Theoretical and Quantitative Analysis’, American Political Science Review, Vol.94, No.4 (2000), pp.779–801; Caroline Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie and Donald Rothchild, ‘Stabilizing the Peace After Civil War: An Investigation of Some Key Variables’, International Organization, Vol.55, No.1 (2001), pp.183–208; and Hartzell and Hoddie, ‘Institutionalizing Peace’.

13. Hartzell, ‘Explaining the Stability of Negotiated Settlements to Civil Wars’.

14. Ibid.; Hartzell and Hoddie, ‘Institutionalizing Peace’.

15. Spear, ‘Disarmament and Demobilization’, p.151.

16. Fred Tanner, ‘Arms Control, Civil War and Peace Settlements’, Civil Wars, Vol.3, No.4 (2000), pp.49–63.

17. Hoddie and Hartzell, ‘Signals of Reconciliation’.

18. See, for example, Robert O. Keohane and Lisa L. Martin, ‘The Promise of Institutionalist Theory’, International Security, Vol.2, No.1 (1995), pp.39–51.

19. Walter, Committing to Peace, p.30.

20. Ibid., p.86.

21. Hoddie and Hartzell, ‘Signals of Reconciliation’, p.316.

22. These parallel the views of neorealists and neoliberals about the international system and the factors contributing to either conflict or cooperation. See, for example, Kenneth A. Oye, ‘Explaining Cooperation under Anarchy’, in Kenneth A. Oye (ed.), Cooperation under Anarchy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), and Keohane and Martin, ‘The Promise of Institutionalist Theory’.

23. Abdel-Fatau Musah, ‘Small Arms: A Time Bomb Under West Africa's Democratization Process’, The Brown Journal of World Affair, Vol.9, No.1 (2002), pp.239–249.

24. Virginia Page Fortna, ‘Does Peacekeeping Keep Peace? International Intervention and the Duration of Peace After Civil War’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol.48, No.2 (2004), pp.269–292.

25. This order took the form of Presidential Directive 25. Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

26. A larger UN force was introduced into the state after most of the killings associated with the genocide already had taken place.

27. Mats Berdal, Disarmament and Demobilization after Civil Wars: Arms, Soldiers and the Termination of Armed Conflicts (New York: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Oxford University Press, 1996), p.21.

28. Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’, World Bank Policy Research Paper 2355 (May 2000).

29. Dhanapala, ‘Multilateral Cooperation on Small Arms and Light Weapons’.

30. Aaron Karp, ‘Small Arms: Back to the Future’, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol.9, No.1 (2002), p.189.

31. James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, ‘Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War’, American Political Science Review, Vol.97, No.1 (2003), pp.75–90.

32. Jeffrey Herbst describes this dynamic in the following terms: ‘as states have atrophied, those who wish to challenge a government have been able to arm, helped by the weapons spillovers from conflicts throughout the continent and the cheap price of armaments after the Cold War’. Herbst, ‘Responding to State Failure in Africa’, International Security, Vol.21, No.3 (1996), pp.120–144.

33. A valuable first step in considering this topic was the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons held six years ago.