The Pieces of Peacemaking: Understanding Implementation of Civil War Settlements

Abstract

This article seeks to engage scholars in a richer understanding of post-civil war settlement implementation. It examines why some parties execute the provisions of these agreements fairly extensively, whereas others abide by few, if any, dimensions. We explore four peace settlements, developing a new measure that gauges various aspects of implementation. We examine how two factors in particular affect the degree to which parties abide by their commitments. First, we find that implementation is more likely as international support increases. This occurs through three chief mechanisms: mitigating commitment problems, generating audience costs, and the contingency of aid on implementation. Second, the balance of capabilities is a significant domestic influence on implementation. Parties are most prone to abide when the government is militarily superior, but the former rebels are powerful enough to meaningfully check government action. Implementation is less successful when government capabilities far exceed those of the rebels or when the rebels are particularly strong.

Notes

 1. We follow the definition of Stephen John Stedman, Donald Rothchild and Elizabeth Cousens (eds), Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2002).

 2. A far greater number of observations would be necessary. However, the measures developed here could serve as a template for future research.

 3. Barbara Walter, ‘Designing Transitions from Civil War: Demobilization, Democratization, and Commitments to Peace’, International Security 24/4 (1999) pp.127–55.

 4. This is consistent with research emphasising that mutual vulnerability can promote implementation. Dorina Bekoe, ‘Mutual Vulnerability and the Implementation of Peace Agreements’, International Journal of Peace Studies 10/2 (2005) pp.43–68.

 5. This raises an additional question: is it implementation per se that matters, or the signal that is sent when former adversaries sign the peace accord? Though beyond the scope of this article, this question deserves attention in future research.

 6. Barbara Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 2002).

 7. Anna Jarstad and Desirée Nilsson, ‘From Words to Deeds: The Implementation of Power-Sharing Pacts in Peace Accords’, Conflict Management and Peace Science 25/3 (2008) pp.206–33 and Stedman et al. (note 1).

 8. Walter (note 3).

 9. Michael Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 2006).

10. Bekoe (note 4), Matthew Hoddie and Caroline Hartzell, ‘Civil War Settlements and the Implementation of Military Power-Sharing Arrangements’, Journal of Peace Research 40/3 (2003) pp.303–20, and Jarstad and Nilsson (note 7) are exceptions. Bekoe argues that steps that produce ‘mutual vulnerability’ are more likely to be implemented; this explanation focuses on military measures like demobilisation and disarmament but offers few implications for other provisions. Hoddie and Hartzell and Jarstad and Nilsson focus on implementation, but as an independent variable influencing long-term stability.

11. For ease of discussion, we employ the terms ‘UN involvement’ and ‘implementation’, but we draw from all three literatures mentioned above; the mechanisms also pertain to other international actors and to their impact on democratic transition and on recovery after interstate or civil war.

12. Fen Osler Hampson, Nurturing Peace: Why Peace Settlements Succeed or Fail (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace 1996); Susan Hyde, ‘The Observer Effect in International Politics: Evidence from a Natural Experiment’, World Politics 60/1 (2007) pp.37–63.

13. Doyle and Sambanis (note 9); Virginia Page Fortna, ‘Interstate Peacekeeping: Causal Mechanisms and Empirical Effects’, World Politics 56/July (2004) pp.481–519.

14. Walter (note 3).

15. Stedman et al. (note 1).

16. Fortna (note 13).

17. The literature has not always found a positive relationship between international involvement and post-war recovery, perhaps because the UN is more prone to involve itself in more protracted conflicts (Virginia Page Fortna, ‘Inside and Out: Peacekeeping and the Duration of Peace after Civil and Interstate Wars’, International Studies Review 5/4 (2003) pp.97–114). Because we compare conflicts of similar intensity, this is not as likely to be a problem here.

18. Domestic interest groups and institutions are often also found to be important. We focus on the former belligerents' balance of power because these actors are tasked with implementing the agreements.

19. Dankwart Rustow, ‘Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model’, Comparative Politics 2/3 (1970) pp.337–63.

20. See also Gillermo O'Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP 1986).

21. Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reform in Eastern Europe and Latin America (New York: Cambridge UP 1991).

22. Bekoe (note 4).

23. This is true if both sides are implementing steps that leave them vulnerable.

24. David Siroky, ‘Theory of Secessionist Conflict’ in Nations, States, and Violent Conflict, PhD Thesis, Duke University (2008) Chapter 3.

25. See also AFK Organski, ‘The Power Transition’ in James Rosenau (ed.) International Politics and Foreign Policy (New York: Free Press of Glencoe 1961).

26. This concern is particularly legitimate in the context of this article: in most civil wars, one side controls the state apparatus and thus is stronger (Ibrahim Eldabawi and Nicholas Sambanis, External Interventions and the Duration of Civil War, Paper presented at the World Bank Conference on the Economics and Politics of Civil Conflicts, Princeton University, March 2000; John Sislin and Frederic Pearson, Arms and Ethnic Conflict (New York: Rowman and Littlefield 2001).

27. On power-sharing institutions, see for example Caroline Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie, ‘Institutionalizing Peace: Power Sharing and Post-Civil War Conflict Management’, American Journal of Political Science 47/2 (2003) pp.318–32; Hoddie and Hartzell (note 10); Matthew Hoddie and Caroline Hartzell, ‘Signals of Reconciliation: Institution-Building and the Resolution of Civil Wars’, International Studies Review 7/1 (2005) pp.21–40; Bumba Mukherjee, ‘Why Political Power-Sharing Agreements Lead to Enduring Peaceful Resolution of Some Civil Wars, but Not Others’, International Studies Quarterly 50/2 (2006) pp.479–504; Walter (note 3); and Leonard Wantchekon, ‘Credible Power-Sharing Agreements’, Constitutional Political Economy 11/4 (2000) pp.329–52. On military and territorial concessions, see Hoddie and Hartzell, ‘Signals of Reconciliation’ (note 27) and Jarstad and Nilsson (note 7). See also Virginia Page Fortna, ‘Scraps of Paper? Agreements and the Durability of Peace’, International Organization 57/2 (2003) pp.227–72; Marek Kaminski, Monika Nalepa and Barry O'Neill, ‘Transitional Justice’, special issue of The Journal of Conflict Resolution 50/3 (2006) pp.295–302; and Suzanne Werner and Amy Yuen, ‘Making and Keeping Peace’, International Organization 59/2 (2005) pp.261–92.

28. Nicholas Sambanis, ‘Using Case Studies to Expand Economic Models of Civil War’, Perspectives on Politics 2/2 (2004) pp.259–79.

29. Alexander George, ‘Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison’ in Paul Gordon Lauren (ed.) Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy (New York: Free Press 1979) pp.43–67.

30. Arend Lijphart, ‘Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method’, American Political Science Review 65/3 (1971) pp.682–93.

31. David Collier, ‘The Comparative Method: Two Decades of Change’ in Dankwart Rustow and Kenneth Paul Erikson (eds) Comparative Political Dynamics: Global Research Perspectives (New York: Harper Collins 1991) pp.7–31; and Alexander George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2004).

32. George (note 29).

33. Walter (note 6).

34. Angola signed a subsequent agreement (after renewed fighting) in 1994. Because our unit of analysis is the settlement agreement rather than the country, we focus on the first agreement here.

35. Angola signed a subsequent agreement (after renewed fighting) in 1994. Because our unit of analysis is the settlement agreement rather than the country, we focus on the first agreement here

36. The conflict intensities (deaths per year) were 9.2 in Guatemala and 8.6 in El Salvador. Data from James Fearon, ‘Why Do Some Civil Wars Last So Much Longer than Others?’, Journal of Peace Research 41/3 (2004) pp.275–301.

37. Conflict intensity was 10.1 in both conflicts. Fearon (note 36).

38. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, The United Nations and El Salvador, 1990–1995 (New York: United Nations 1995).

39. Centro Internacional para Investigaciones en Derechos Humanos, Draining the Sea: An Analysis of Terror in Three Rural Communities in Guatemala (Guatemala: Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo 1996).

40. William Stanley and David Holiday, ‘Broad Participation, Diffuse Responsibility: Peace Implementation in Guatemala’ in Stedman et al. (note 1).

41. Greater detail is available upon request. The research assistant received no instructions on which provisions to look for.

42. Keesing's Record of World Events, 1993, 1994 (London: Longman).

43. The scores do not necessarily correlate with more commonly used measures of national outcomes such as personal integrity scores, school enrolment, or GINI coefficients. This is because we are interested in adherence to agreement provisions, which may or may not correspond to national trends. For instance, the prevalence of specific human rights abuses in El Salvador does not necessarily reflect whether the mandated Truth Commission was formed or its recommendations implemented.

44. Other forms of international aid and pressure accompanied UN efforts; however, these were comparable to the scope of the UN involvement.

45. Figures weighted by territory (available upon request) display an even more systematic, positive, relationship between international involvement and implementation.

46. Thomas Flores and Irfan Nooruddin, ‘Financing the Peace: Evaluating World Bank Post-Conflict Assistance Programs’, Review of International Organizations 4/1 (2008) pp.1–27; Clark Gibson, Elinor Olstrom, Krister Andersson and Sujai Shivakumar, The Samaritan's Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid (Oxford: Oxford UP 2005).

47. Doyle and Sambanis (note 9) and Hampson (note 12).

48. For instance, one side may have better trained troops or more effective weaponry.

49. Roy Licklider, ‘How Civil Wars End: Questions and Methods’ in Roy Licklider (ed.) Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End (New York: New York UP 1993) pp.3–19; Barbara Walter, ‘Does Conflict Beget Conflict? Explaining Recurring Civil War’, Journal of Peace Research 41/3 (2004) pp.371–88. We are unaware of data on troop morale or quality in civil wars comparable to those available for interstate conflicts (e.g. Dan Reiter and Allan Stam, Democracies at War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 2002)).

50. The converse would be true if we omit Guatemala, but we do not have a strong theoretical case for this expectation.

51. Charles Call, ‘Assessing El Salvador's Transition from Civil War to Peace’ in Stedman et al. (note 1).

52. Charles Call, ‘Assessing El Salvador's Transition from Civil War to Peace’ in Stedman et al. (note 1)

53. Susanne Jonas, Of Centaurs and Doves: Guatemala's Peace Process (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 2000); Stanley and Holiday (note 40).

54. Moisés Venâncio and Stephen Chan, ‘Towards Elections’ in Stephen Chan and Moisés Venâncio (eds) War and Peace in Mozambique (New York: St. Martin's Press 1998); Eric Berman, Managing Arms in Peace Processes: Mozambique (New York: United Nations 1996).

55. Aldo Ajello, ‘Mozambique: Implementation of the 1992 Peace Agreement’ in Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall (eds) Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press 1999) pp.615–42; Hampson (note 12); Berman (note 54); Cameron Hume, Ending Mozambique's War: The Role of Mediation and Good Offices (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace 1994).

56. Berman (note 54).

57. Mark Malan, ‘Peacebuilding in Southern Africa: Police Reform in Mozambique and South Africa’, International Peacekeeping 6/4 (1999) pp.171–90; James Woods, ‘Mozambique: The CIVPOL Operation’ in Robert Oakley, Michael Dziedzic and Eliot Goldberg (eds) Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security (Washington, DC: National Defense UP 1998).

58. Margaret Anstee, Orphan of the Cold War: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Angolan Peace Process, 1992–93 (London: Macmillan Press 1996).

59. Paulo Wrobel, Managing Arms in Peace Processes: Nicaragua and El Salvador (New York: United Nations 1997).

60. Berman (note 54); Martinho Chachiua and Mark Malan, ‘Anomalies and Acquiescence: The Mozambican Peace Process Revisited’, African Security Review 7/4 (1998).

61. Carrie Manning, The Politics of Peace in Mozambique: Post Conflict Democratization, 1992–2000 (Westport, CT: Praeger 2002); UN Department of Public Information, The United Nations and the Situation in Angola, May 1991–February 1995 (New York: United Nations 1995).

62. Margaret Popkin, Peace without Justice: Obstacles to Building the Rule of Law in El Salvador (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP 2000).

63. The report was sponsored by the Catholic Church and was not part of the peace Accords. Those behind the assassination have never been charged.

64. Jonas (note 53).

65. Human Rights Watch, Annual Reports, 1991–2005, online at < www.hrw.org> accessed 5 Aug. 2009.

66. Human Rights Watch, Annual Reports, 1991–2005, online at < http://hrw.org> accessed

67. Call (note 51).

68. Stanley and Holiday (note 40).

69. Leonard Wantchekon and Zvika Neeman, ‘A Theory of Post-Civil War Democratization’, Journal of Theoretical Politics 14/4 (2002) pp.439–64.

70. Manning (note 61).

71. Anstee (note 58).

72. Many blame the UN for failing to enforce the Accords, but the parties' flagging commitment to the peace process undoubtedly complicated the effort. Moreover, the UN had little input into the Accords themselves, and several provisions probably placed unreasonable expectations on the organisation. UNAVEM II also was under-staffed and under-funded. See Anstee (note 58).

73. Because the Guatemalan government so overwhelmingly dominated the former rebels, commitment problems were not central in the implementation process. Hence, we are doubtful that MINUGUA would have played a central role, even if its budget had been large. For this reason, we exclude Guatemala from the discussion of international involvement and commitment problems.

74. Ajello (note 55); Richard Jackson, ‘Internal War, International Mediation, and Non-Official Diplomacy: Lessons from Mozambique’, Journal of Conflict Studies 25/1 (2005) pp.153–76.

75. Call (note 51).

76. Of course, more UN condemnation could have pushed key sources of foreign aid, such as the US, to make funding contingent on better implementation. We consider this mechanism below.

77. Inter Press Service, ‘El Salvador: Cristiani Purge Plan Unacceptable to U.S. Congress’, 5 Jan. 1993; William Stanley and Robert Loosle, ‘El Salvador: The Civilian Police Component of Peace Operations’, in Robert Oakley et al. (note 57) pp.103–42.

78. Keesing's Record of World Events (note 42)

79. Stanley and Holiday (note 40).

80. Suzanne Daley, ‘Ink Long Dry on Angola Pact, but Peace Hasn't Set’, New York Times 24 May 1998.

81. Stanley and Holiday (note 40).

82. This is consistent with the evidence in Bekoe (note 4).

83. Walter (note 6); Andrew H. Kydd, ‘When Can Mediators Build Trust?’, American Political Science Review 100/3 (2006) pp.449–62.

84. Call (note 51).

85. Because of the uncertainty of the Mozambican troop estimates, the ratio could range from 2.9:1 to 9:1. Since the lower and upper bounds of the estimates do not coincide with the Angolan or Guatemalan ratios, we consider Mozambique as more similar to El Salvador.

86. From Chachiua and Malan (note 60) and Bill Keller, ‘Mozambique's New Army is United Old Enemies’, New York Times 5 Feb. 2002.

87. Stephen Rosen, ‘War Power and the Willingness to Suffer’, in Bruce Russett (ed.) Peace, War and Numbers (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage 1972) pp.167–83.

88. Doyle and Sambanis (note 9); Caroline Hartzell and Donald Rothchild, ‘Stabilizing the Peace after Civil War: An Investigation of Some Key Variables’, International Organization 55/4 (2001) pp.183–208.

89. This contrasts with some of the findings of large-N research on peace. Walter (note 49) and Michael J. Quinn, T. David Mason and Mehmet Gurses, ‘Sustaining the Peace: Determinants of Civil War Recurrence’, International Interactions 33/2 (2007) pp.167–93 find that longer wars lead to more sustainable peace. However, their results with regard to the relationship between casualties and peace duration diverge.

90. While we consider development of such a metric a very worthy task, there are certainly challenges. Settlements differ not only in the issue-areas covered, but also in their degree of precision about how the parties will carry out the terms. This raises questions about comparability from one settlement to the next. We are for the most part able to avoid this problem by considering similar cases with similar agreements, but a large-N approach would need to consider this potential challenge in depth.

91. Jarstad and Nilsson (note 7).

92. Although the empirical record does not offer clear illustrations, it is certainly theoretically possible for conflict to resume despite relatively good implementation on most dimensions. This might occur if parties carry out most terms but falter on a critical component, or if splinter groups form and do not consider themselves bound by the initial accord.

93. For example, Joanna Spear, ‘Ending Civil Wars’ in Stedman et al. (note 1).

94. Katherine Glassmyer and Nicholas Sambanis, ‘Rebel-Military Integration and Civil War Termination’, Journal of Peace Research 45/3 (2008) pp.365–84; Hartzell and Hoddie (note 27) pp.21–40; Jarstad and Nilsson (note 7); Walter (note 3).

95. Stuart Kaufman, ‘Escaping the Symbolic Politics Trap: Reconciliation Initiatives and Conflict Resolution in Ethnic Wars’, Journal of Peace Research 43/2 (2006) pp.201–18; Katherine Sikkink and Carrie Booth Walling, ‘The Impact of Human Rights Trials in Latin America’, Journal of Peace Research 44/4 (2007) pp.427–45.