Third-party Intervention in Civil Wars and the Prospects for Postwar Development

Abstract

How does third-party intervention in civil war influence citizens’ physical quality of life (QOL) after civil war? I find that the effects of intervention on postwar QOL depend on its type, unilateral intervention, and United Nations (UN) intervention. Unilateral interveners seeking self-interest tend to impede the improvement in postwar QOL particularly in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality rate. They are likely to do so through producing their protégé’s military victory or negotiated settlement, expanding their influence on postwar government, and resultingly forming a government less responsive to citizens’ hardship and reducing resources available for welfare. UN intervention on humanitarian grounds tends to promote postwar social development particularly in the fields of public health, although it has no significant effect on literacy rate. It is likely to do so by increasing resources available for postwar reconstruction, even though it goes where postwar social development is relatively difficult.

Keywords

civil war third-party intervention physical quality of life postwar reconstruction postwar development

Civil war impoverishes citizens’ lives. It does not only produce a large number of casualties, wounded, and refugees but also destroys institutions and infrastructures for the provision of basic public goods, such as public health and elementary education (Ghobarah, Huth, and Russett 2003; Lai and Thyne 2007; Hoddie and Smith 2009; Iqbal 2010). While civil war is a process of destruction, “the aftermath of war is a period of recovery” (Chen, Loayza, and Reynal-Querol 2008, 82). Despite devastated conditions, citizens’ quality of life (QOL) tends to gradually improve after the end of war (Chen, Loayza, and Reynal-Querol 2008). However, the degree of improvement differs by country. We can see the differences by observing the infant mortality (IM) rates of postwar states. While IM in Mozambique markedly decreased from 137 per 1,000 live births to 111 during the ten years after civil war (1993–2003), Chad’s IM rate only slightly decreased from 109 to 102 during a postwar decade (1995–2005). Zimbabwe’s IM rate even increased from 50 to 70 in the decade after it experienced civil war (1988–1998).¹

Why do some countries succeed in improving physical QOL after civil war, but others do not? What explains the differences in postwar social development? Several intrinsic characteristics of civil war or civil war states, such as war costs, population, and ethnic fractionalization, can influence postwar physical well-being (Ghobarah, Huth, and Russett 2003; Lai and Thyne 2007), but I propose that third-party involvement in civil war can also make differences in postwar well-being. Previous studies of civil war intervention show that foreign interveners significantly affect postwar stability and governmental policy (Paris 2004; Pugh 2004; Doyle and Sambanis 2006; Bueno de Mesquita and Downs 2006; Fortna 2008; Howard 2008; Gent 2008). Even though the literature suggests an important relationship between intervention and postwar development, relatively little research has paid attention to the relationship. I extend the literature by investigating how civil war intervention influences postwar development.

I also extend understanding of postwar development by focusing on physical QOL as a broader concept of development.² Prior studies of postconflict development have mainly used gross domestic product (GDP) or GDP per capita as an indicator of development (e.g., Collier 1999; Kang and Meernik 2005), but doing so narrows the broader concept of development to economic production or growth (Morris 1979; Emizet 2000). A widely recognized concept of development “consists of growth plus gradual and sustained improvements in the social system” (Pourgerami 1992, 365). This definition implies that development needs to be understood in terms of citizens’ social well-being, and it should cover the progress of institutional arrangement and distribution of goods and services as well as economic growth (Morris 1979; Pourgerami 1992).

Exploration of the effects of external intervention on postwar QOL has important implications for the possibility of international state-building in fragile states. Some scholars and practitioners argue that foreign authorities including the United Nations (UN) should play a role in the reconstruction of war-torn states (e.g., Krasner 2004; Doyle and Sambanis 2006), others present skeptical views on the possibility that interveners can make a positive contribution (e.g., Pugh 2004; Bueno de Mesquita and Downs 2006). When a state cannot provide basic public services related to citizens’ QOL, it loses its legitimacy and faces the risk of recurring conflict and state failure (Walter 2004; Bates 2008). This study can therefore provide implications for policy makers involved in postconflict state-building.

In the following sections, I propose that the effects of intervention on postwar QOL depend on its type, unilateral intervention referring to a state’s intervention without UN authorization and UN intervention. This proposition is based on a causal explanation that by reflecting interveners’ motives, self-interest or humanitarian concerns, intervention methods make differences in governmental accountability and available resources of postwar states, thereby affecting postwar social development. I first explain the motives of unilateral intervention and UN intervention, and then reason how the two intervention types affect postwar QOL to establish testable hypotheses.

Next, I test my hypotheses against data for postwar QOL of states that have experienced civil war since World War II. The test results show that while unilateral intervention tends to impede the improvement in postwar QOL, UN intervention tends to promote the progress of QOL, particularly in the fields associated with public health. The UN does so, although it tends to go to harder cases where postwar social development is relatively difficult. I also find that the effects of unilateral intervention vary with war outcomes. I conclude this article with policy implications related to post-civil war development.

The Motives and Types of Intervention

Civil war intervention can be motivated by interveners’ own interests (Lemke and Regan 2004; Findley and Teo 2006; Gent 2007) or humanitarian concerns (Western 2002; Finnemore 2003; Barnett and Weiss 2008). We can speculate that humanitarian intervention, if unintended results do not take place, is better able to promote postwar well-being than self-interested intervention. While it is not easy to penetrate interveners’ sincere motives, fortunately we can gain leverage on their motives by observing intervention types: unilateral intervention and UN intervention.

Intervention, from the period of ancient Greece, has been an important foreign policy tool to protect or expand states’ national interests (Morgenthau 1967). Since World War II, despite the existence of the UN as an international conflict manager, states have frequently intervened in civil wars without UN authorization. Lemke and Regan (2004) argue that by intervening in civil wars, third-party states have strong motives to expand their influence, manipulate postwar government policy, and increase their future interests. Prior empirical research supports this argument by demonstrating that third parties tend to undertake unilateral intervention in states that are strategically important and where they can expect future benefits (e.g., former colonies, military allies, and resource-abundant states) (Lemke and Regan 2004; Ross 2004; Findley and Teo 2006; Gent 2007). Finnemore (2003, 73) contends that “humanitarian intervention must be multilateral to be legitimate; without multilateralism (that requires UN authorization), claims of humanitarian motivation and justification are suspect.” This reading of previous work suggests that unilateral intervention is hard to be justified as humanitarian intervention and its main goal is the expansion of influence for self-interest. Viewing unilateral intervention as self-serving behavior, we can reason how it affects postwar social development, which will be discussed in the next section.

Finnemore’s argument above suggests that UN intervention may have different motivation from unilateral intervention. A primary motive of UN intervention may be humanitarian concerns shared among the international community (Western 2002; Finnemore 2003). The UN Charter emphasizes norms to protect human rights and its organizational structures (e.g., Department of Peacekeeping Operations) reflect the norms. Humanitarian disasters caused by civil war can promote an international consensus for UN intervention, often bringing about the “CNN effect” that broadcast images of the people suffering from war lead to the public and policy makers’ moral outrage (e.g., civil wars in Somalia and Sierra Leone) (Jakobsen 1996; Fortna 2008). Gilligan and Stedman (2003) find that a large number of deaths motivate the UN to intervene in civil war, whereas natural resource wealth of target states is not a significant factor in UN intervention decisions.

Of course, there is an argument that UN intervention reflects realpolitik interests of major powers who have decisive power in the Security Council (e.g., de Jonge Oudraat 1996; Gibbs 1997). However, when a major power pursues its own interests, it is not easy to make a consensus in the Security Council. The conventional wisdom about relative gains implies that one major power’s benefit yields others’ relative loss (Mearsheimer 1994). Also, UN authorization requires compromise among major powers, thereby at least partly sacrificing their policy goals (Voeten 2001). Hence, UN intervention may not be an effective option for major powers seeking strategic interests. Supporting this argument, Fortna (2008) finds that the UN is less likely to intervene in civil war states that are former colonies of major powers or contiguous to them. As a result, the literature suggests that UN intervention is more likely to be motivated by humanitarian concerns than self-interest.

Unilateral Intervention and Post-civil War Quality of Life

Realist theories about state action reinforce that the purpose of unilateral intervention is the preservation or expansion of influence for self-interest. They argue that international relations are fundamentally competitive and states “behave purposively in the pursuit of power and material well-being” (Mastanduno, Lake, and Ikenberry 1989, 459). Seeking survival under international anarchy, states accumulate power and wealth through internal mobilization and external extraction, which requires influencing other countries and having access to their resources (Lake 1988; Mastanduno, Lake, and Ikenberry 1989). Waltz (1979) argues that states have motives to enlarge the scope of their control beyond their territories for greater self-sufficiency and security.

States’ expansionist foreign policy reflects domestic political and economic needs as well. Levi (1981) demonstrates that states try to expand their boundaries when they expect to achieve additional wealth and power. Gaining foreign resources, rulers can reduce the transaction costs of extracting revenue from their disgruntled masses, provide more services in return for taxes, and offer direct rewards for their supporters (Levi 1981). In this way, external predation benefits rulers, their domestic supporters, and the subject population. The benefits from imperialistic extraction help a ruler unite their citizens under his or her control (Levi 1981; Mastanduno, Lake, and Ikenberry 1989). Bueno de Mesquita and his colleagues (2003) similarly argue that political leaders motivated to maximize their chances of political survival tend to engage in national building processes in other countries and attempt to control the targets’ policy. By expanding the sphere of control or influence, the leaders can provide their domestic supporters and significant parts of the population with more public or private goods, such as national security, access to natural resources, and the expansion of markets (Bueno de Mesquita and Downs 2006). Therefore, it can be said that interveners intend to gain their domestic political and economic benefits as well as survival or security as an international goal. Whether states are democracies or autocracies, they seek to achieve power and wealth through the expansion of influence on other countries (Lake 1992).

Civil war is an important intervention opportunity for foreign powers to maintain or expand their influence (Lemke and Regan 2004). The expected benefits of intervention depend on the future behavior or postwar policy of target states, which is determined by political leadership and political/economic systems that appear after war. Therefore, interveners aim at the preservation or change of a target state’s authority structures so that they can influence the target’s postwar policy and gain more power and wealth (Gent 2008, 2010).

Unilateral intervention in which states pursue the expansion of influence and external extraction can lead to two consequences that account for its negative effects on QOL in postwar states: a less responsive government and limitation of available resources. After civil war, interveners attempt to gain benefits through expanding their influence, which is the main purpose of intervention. Viewing a target state’s governmental structure as an instrument, interveners try to reshape it to make it more favorable to their own interests (Bueno de Mesquita and Downs 2006). For example, interveners can create puppets by changing the target state’s leader to fulfill their goals and include proxies in the cabinet or government staff in the target state (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003). By affecting government authority structures, interveners can influence and even control a target state’s policy including the budget, domestic economic policy, trade policy, and natural resource policy. The inherent conflict of interests among countries implies that when a postconflict government responds to their populations, the benefits that interveners can obtain reduce (Bueno de Mesquita and Downs 2006). Hence, when an external intervention is undertaken by a state seeking its self-interest, it tends to yield a government that is less responsive to its population (Bueno de Mesquita and Downs 2006).

This less responsive government means a government which is more responsive to foreign interveners’ demands than to domestic citizens. This postwar government is less likely to adopt social policies that improve its citizens’ QOL but do not benefit interveners.³ Citizens on war-torn soil severely suffer from poverty, disease, and the lack of educational institutions, and thus they have strong demands for welfare policies that facilitate the provision of public services, such as public health and elementary education (Lai and Thyne 2007; Iqbal 2010). However, self-serving interveners are not interested in social well-being in a target state because it does not increase their own benefits. Welfare policy is therefore not a priority for a postwar government under the influence of interveners. Instead, the government does what interveners want or seeks shared interests between ruling elites and foreign interveners first (e.g., the opening of market, protection of investors, and access to natural resources), anticipating that if it does not do so, it will be punished for disobedience. Enterline and Greig (2008) show that polities imposed by foreign powers are less likely to be stable because they are less likely to respond to the populations’ demands and are less capable of delivering public goods. Therefore, unilateral intervention seeking self-interest is likely to impede the improvement in postconflict QOL by making a postwar government less accountable to its citizens.⁴

The Nicaraguan case illustrates how unilateral intervention has negative impacts on postwar well-being. Intervening in the civil war (1982–1990), the United States imposed economic sanctions against the Sandinista government, and trained and financially supported the Contra rebels, to secure its influence on the country and the region and remove a threat from its rival, the Soviet Union (Gent 2010). The United States failed to gain its most preferred outcome, a decisive victory by the Contras, and promoted a negotiated settlement. After the war, the new government was led by conservative elites in favor of the United States who attempted to reform economic and political systems. The government accepted the United States’ demands that included the opening of market, the protection of foreign investors, and the extension of private sectors (Robinson 1996). The results of these reforms were an increase in unemployment and poverty and the reduction in social service (Robinson 1996). Nicaragua’s GDP per capita decreased from US$997 in 1988 to US$870 in 1993, its annual per capita government investment in public health dramatically dropped from US$57.1 to only US$16.92 for the same five years, and its public expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP also decreased from 5.4 percent in 1987 to 3.0 percent in 1992 (and 2.2 percent in 1998).⁵ The postwar Nicaraguan government did not only fail in economic development but also neglected the basic needs of its citizens. The formation of a less responsive government following the US unilateral intervention helps explain this indifference to citizens’ hardship.

Civil war intervention by self-interested third parties is likely to decrease resources available for the improvement in QOL. Tax revenues are a primary resource for a government to recover its functions and carry out social policy after war. Studies of state-building emphasize that extraction (i.e., taxation) is a central task for state makers (Levi 1981; Tilly 1985; Thies 2007). Without taxation, a state cannot perform any other tasks and even exist (Thies 2007). The political capacity to mobilize taxes needs legitimacy of a government which is explained by the degree of compliance of the ruled with a ruler (Jackman 1993; Thies and Sobek 2010). However, when a government does not respond to its populations but to foreign interveners, it loses its legitimacy (Enterline and Greig 2008). Therefore, a less responsive government as a product of unilateral intervention is likely to have difficulty collecting taxes and in turn is less likely to be capable of providing public goods for well-being.

Another resource available for postwar social wellness is natural resources that can be managed by state-owned companies. Civil war weakens a government’s ability to extract tax (Thies 2006). Thus, nontax revenue from natural resources becomes a more valuable resource for a postwar state. This revenue enables a government to reduce burdens of relatively richer taxpayers and increase social spending on poorer citizens (Morrison 2009). Therefore, natural resources can positively contribute to the well-being of significant parts of the populations of postwar states.⁶

This positive contribution of natural resources, however, is likely to decrease in states targeted by self-interested interveners. Recall that an important reason for civil war intervention is to extract natural resources. Interveners are unlikely to allow state-owned companies in target states to monopolize natural resources. Perhaps, the result is division of the profits from natural resources between interveners and target states and in turn the decrease in nontax revenue of the target states. As a result, unilateral intervention seeking self-interest is likely to reduce both tax and nontax revenues of target states. The reduction in revenues makes it hard for a government to allocate financial resources to the amelioration of institutions and infrastructures for social wellness (Ghobarah, Huth, and Russett 2003; Lai and Thyne 2007).

Unilateral interveners can provide a postwar government with material rewards, another potential source of nontax revenue, on condition that it complies with their policy demands. This aid further weakens governmental accountability by strengthening reliance on foreign aid instead of taxes from citizens (Brautigam 1992; Knack 2001), and it is unlikely to positively contribute to postwar QOL. Burnside and Dollar (2000) found that the impact of foreign aid on economic growth is conditional on the same institutions and policies that affect economic growth directly. This finding implies that foreign material assistance can help improve postwar QOL only if a government adopts policies for citizens’ welfare. Yet, as has been argued previously, such policies are not the main concerns of a less responsive government. Therefore, it is unlikely that aid from unilateral interveners will function as nontax revenue to improve postwar QOL. The reasoning about the formation of a less responsive government and limitation of available resources yields the following hypothesis:

H_Uni: Unilateral intervention is likely to impede the improvement in quality of life after civil war.

This hypothesis is mainly based on the logic that unilateral interveners often have influence over postwar governance and policy for their self-interest. This logic needs us to additionally take into account war outcomes that unilateral intervention produces. The interveners can easily exert influence on postwar government through contributing to their protégé’s military victory (Gent 2008). They can also do so by promoting a negotiated settlement, as seen in the Nicaraguan case, although their influence may be relatively weak because the opposing side can be involved in postwar policy as well. Previous studies’ findings that third-party support tends to yield the supported side’s victory or a negotiated settlement (e.g., Balch-Lindsay, Enterline, and Joyce 2008) justify the underlying logic of H_Uni about the general effects of unilateral intervention. However, if the side supported by interveners loses war, the interveners have difficulties exerting influence over postwar government (Gent 2008). In this case, the intervening power will likely have little effects on postwar social development. Furthermore, war outcomes themselves can affect postwar well-being, and the effects of unilateral intervention may vary depending on war outcomes (i.e., interaction effects). As a result, I will test not only H_Uni but also the interaction effects between unilateral intervention and war outcomes.

UN Intervention and Post-civil War Quality of Life

UN intervention is likely to have humanitarian motivation, which means that the main purpose of intervention is to relieve human suffering and save lives rather than to seek self-interest (Barnett and Weiss 2008). This motivation leads us to expect that UN intervention is likely to increase resources available for the improvement in physical well-being in war-torn states. First, UN intervention can do so by facilitating disarmament and demobilization. Due to the moral authority and legitimacy of the UN, it can induce belligerent groups to cooperate for disarmament and demobilization by affecting soldiers’ morale, focusing international attention on noncooperative groups, and providing direct benefits for cooperation (Fortna 2008; Doyle and Sambanis 2006). Disarmament and demobilization enable a postwar state to divert material and human resources allocated to military uses to urgent social programs, such as education and public health policy. Therefore, UN intervention can increase resources available for postwar welfare by helping resource diversion.

Second, given their humanitarian purposes, humanitarian or development aid frequently accompanies UN intervention, which can directly increase resources for postwar reconstruction. The assistance can cover refugee resettlement projects, demining programs, the rehabilitation of roads, schools, and health facilities, food aid, and fund-raising for development (Doyle and Sambanis 2006; Howard 2008), all of which help promote citizens’ well-being. The UN undertakes these activities through its local office or in coordination with its suborganizations and affiliates like UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), World Food Programme, World Health Organization, and UN Development Programme (Paris 2004; Doyle and Sambanis 2006; Howard 2008). Such UN-led missions can be effective instruments to reduce human hardship in war-torn states.

The UN also often attempts to change the political and economic systems of postwar states, as mainly viewed in its post-Cold War peacebuilding operations (e.g., political democratization, economic liberalization, and reform of police systems) (Paris 2004; Doyle and Sambanis 2006). This ambitious humanitarian project toward sustainable peace, along with development aid that reduces government reliance on tax revenues, might bring about unintended consequences. In other words, the UN’s efforts may weaken governmental legitimacy and make the government less accountable to its citizens and thus negatively affect the improvement in postwar QOL, just as unilateral intervention does so. However, Doyle and Sambanis (2000, 2006) contend that it is necessary for the international community to be involved in institutional building because war-torn states usually do not have the capabilities to foster democracy and economic growth, which are crucial conditions for lasting peace. Paris (2004, 6–7, 187–88) argues that even though UN peace operations have often caused political and social instability by promoting hasty democratization and marketization, “their desire to turn war-torn states into stable market democracies was not the problem,” and international peace builders should first concentrate on constructing effective administration, which can manage the shock of liberalization.

The humanitarianism promoted by the UN yields a proposition that international assistance matters more than a target state’s accountability for the improvement in postwar QOL. That is, foreign authorities can play a significant role in saving lives on behalf of weak governments in war-torn states. They offer material and human resources and build institutional foundations to provide public services, at least temporarily. The risk that UN intervention on humanitarian grounds forms a less responsive government may be low because it is unlikely to intend to do so. Even if international involvement in transitional administration and development aid somewhat weakens governmental accountability, the impacts of increased resources available for the construction of institutions and infrastructure are likely to be still robust (Economides, Kalyvitis, and Philippopoulos 2008). Therefore, the advantages of increased resources may outweigh the disadvantages of weakened governmental legitimacy. UN intervention motivated by humanitarian concerns is likely to have positive effects on postwar well-being, which exceed its negative impacts. As a result, I present the following hypothesis:

H_UN: UN intervention is likely to promote the improvement in quality of life after civil war.

While humanitarian motivation of UN intervention underlies this hypothesis, there is an opposite view that major powers’ self-interest drives UN intervention. If this opposite argument is true, the consequences of UN intervention should be similar to those of unilateral intervention. A less responsive government formed by self-interested intervention does not put priority on citizens’ well-being in its policy and has a limited ability to collect tax. Resource extraction by foreign powers further reduces governmental revenues to invest in public services. Even if additional resources from disarmament and demobilization are available, they are likely to be at best marginally diverted to social programs that are not related to interveners’ benefits. The effect of development aid is also not promising. Although self-serving interveners allocate aid to projects that benefit their domestic enterprises (tax payers), they are indifferent to the basic welfare of target states (Chesterman 2004).

The realpolitik argument about UN intervention suggests that the intervention negatively affect postwar social development, but I argue that the positive effects of UN intervention are likely to outweigh its negative effects, as presented through H_UN, relying on the previous finding that the main motive of UN intervention is humanitarian concerns (e.g., Gilligan and Stedman 2003; Fortna 2008).⁷ By testing this hypothesis, I will clarify whether UN intervention positively contributes to postwar well-being.

Research Design

My hypotheses specify how third-party intervention influences post-civil war QOL. However, postwar social development can also be associated with political, economic, and social conditions of a state and characteristics of civil war (e.g., democracy, natural resources, and war costs). These circumstances can make QOL improvement easier or harder. They also might influence foreign powers’ decision making on intervention, thereby producing selection effects. Hence, valid empirical tests require controlling for alternative variables that influence postwar QOL. First, I evaluate the baseline prospects for the improvement in postwar QOL, which account for the possible effects of variables other than external intervention. Then I estimate the effects of intervention controlling for the variables that significantly affect the baseline prospects.⁸ In doing so, I address the potential problem of nonrandom target selection by interveners and provide more comprehensive explanations about the determinants of postwar social development.

Post-civil War Data Set and Estimation Method

I construct a data set of states that have experienced civil wars between 1944 and 1999 derived from Regan’s (2002) study. During this period, some countries experiences only one civil war, but others undergo multiple civil wars. For the former, all years from the end of war to 1999 are included in the data set. For the latter, I include the peace years in the data set only if peace lasts for at least two years after the end of the prior war so that there is adequate information about postwar development. For example, Rwanda experienced two civil wars (1963–1964 and 1990–1994). Thus, I record two postwar periods, 1964 to 1989 and 1994 to 1999. As a result, my data set covers years of seventy postwar panels for fifty states in which civil wars started and ended between 1944 and 1998.

To analyze the postwar data set including dependent variables and explanatory variables introduced in the following sections, I employ a pooled time-series cross-sectional (TSCS) model. The general equation of my TSCS model is

Y_{i, t} = X_{i, t} β + ε_{i, t},

where i refers to postwar panels (1, …, 70), t refers to postwar years, and ε_i,t is the error term (Beck and Katz 1995). I estimate this model through ordinary least squares (OLS) with panel corrected standard errors (PCSEs), which is proposed by Beck and Katz (1995) to address the potential problem that heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation among observations can bias estimation.

Dependent Variables

The main dependent variable, Y_i,t , is the annual percentage changes in postwar QOL. To measure this variable, I employ Morris’s (1979) QOL index, which is widely used as an indicator of development (e.g., Pourgerami 1992; Emizet 2000; Pickering and Kisangani 2006). The QOL index focuses on how well a state satisfies basic human needs. It is a composite measure of the following three individual indicators: life expectancy (LE), IM rate (deaths per 1,000), and adult literacy rate (LR). This measure therefore reflects how effectively a state’s resources are used to promote societal well-being and summarize the various effects of policies that influence the three individual components (Morris 1979).

To construct QOL index, I collect data for LE and IM rate from the World Bank Development Indicators (2013), UN Demographic Yearbooks (1951, 1957, 1961, 1966), and World Population Ageing, 1950-2050 (2002). LR data are taken from United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Statistical Yearbooks (1963, 1965, 1973, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1999). The collected data show that LE ranges between 27.94 for Rwanda in 1994 and 78.14 for Greece in 1997, IM rate is distributed between 5.9 for Cyprus in 1999 and 227.34 for Bolivia in 1946, and LR between 10.4 for Algeria in 1962 and 99.59 for Georgia in 1999. Following the method devised by Morris (1979), I compute QOL as follows:

\begin{matrix} Physical Quality of Life (QOL) = & [LR + {(227.34 - IM) / 2.21} \\ + {(LE - 27.94) / 0.5}] / 3, \end{matrix}

where 2.21 = (the highest IM − the lowest IM)/100, and 0.5 = (the highest LE − the lowest LE)/100. This computing method allows QOL to be scaled on an index of 0 to 100. In my data set, QOL ranges between 16.96 for Bolivia in 1946 and 98.73 for Greece 1999. Its mean is 66.28, and standard deviation 20.74. Being interested in the changes in QOL rather than its level, I take annual percentage changes in QOL: {(QOL _t − QOL _t _{− 1})/QOL _t _{− 1}} × 100.

Figure 1 depicts the distribution of annual percentage changes in QOL during post-civil war years in fifty states covered in my data set. It displays that citizens’ QOL tends to improve after war (% Δ in QOL is mostly larger than 0). The improvement rates are remarkable in the early postwar period and decrease over time. On average, QOL annually improves by 1.38 percent.

Figure 1.

Scatter plot of annual percentage changes in post-civil war quality of life.

Besides the composite index, I employ annual percentage changes in LE, IM, and LR to evaluate the each component separately (e.g., annual percentage changes in IM = {(IM _t − IM _t _{− 1})/IM _t _{− 1}} × 100). The use of the three measures not only helps check for robustness of the main findings, it also provides more information about the effects of intervention. LE and IM are important measures of public health (Iqbal 2010), and the LR is a good proxy for the level of elementary education. Each of these indicators is important in their own right, as well as being good proxies for the more general QOL.

Independent Variables

The key independent variables are unilateral intervention and UN intervention. To measure unilateral intervention, I use Regan’s (2002) data that report third-party states’ civil war intervention without the UN’s auspices.⁹ This measure has been widely used as a proxy of states’ intervention in civil wars (e.g., Findley and Teo 2006; Gent 2007, 2008). I measure UN intervention by employing Doyle and Sambanis’s (2006) data that record all UN peace operations in civil wars until 1999, which are broadly used as a proxy of UN’s civil war intervention (e.g., Gilligan and Stedman 2003; Fortna 2004a, 2008). If a civil war underwent unilateral intervention, all years after war are coded 1, otherwise 0. If a civil war experienced UN intervention, all postwar years are coded 1, otherwise 0.

Figure 2 shows the average annual percentage changes in QOL over twenty years for states that did not experience any intervention and those that experienced unilateral or UN intervention. The average percentage QOL changes are almost equal in the next year after war termination, whether or not states experience intervention. However, they have different levels over time. When no foreign power intervenes in civil war, states show relatively greater improvement in QOL. States that experienced unilateral intervention display lower QOL improvement than do those states experiencing no intervention, and the improvement rate consistently drops over time. States undergoing UN intervention show overall the lowest improvement rates. Accordingly, one might conclude that third-party intervention impedes postwar QOL improvement, and UN intervention has worse effects than unilateral intervention. This preliminary conclusion, however, might not be the case due to a selection effect. Conditions of target states can make QOL progress easier or harder, and interveners can select harder cases. Therefore, multivariate analyses are essential for testing my hypotheses.

Figure 2.

Unilateral/United Nations intervention and annual percentage changes in post-civil war quality of life.

Variables for Baseline Models

Building the model to examine the baseline prospects for post-civil war QOL improvement, I employ eleven variables that reflect the characteristics of civil wars and postwar situations. They are military victory, war deaths, war duration, ideological war, QOL at war end, democracy score, % Δ in GDP per capita, primary resource export rate, population, ethnic fractionalization, and elapsed years since war end.

Whether a civil war ends in a military victory can affect postwar QOL. By facilitating the monopoly of violent means, a military victory is better able to contribute to postwar peace than negotiated settlement, which is empirically confirmed by many studies (e.g., Licklider 1995; Fortna 2004a). The monopoly of violence and ensuing peace can not only provide a postwar government with an opportunity to divert more resources to development policy but also facilitate citizens’ access to food, clean water, and housing (Mori, Meddings, and Bettcher 2004). Another advantage of the monopoly of violence through military victory is the increase in government ability to extract taxes, which can expedite postwar reconstruction. Tilly (1985, 181) argues that the ability of states to tax depends on whether they “monopolize the concentrated means of coercion,” and thus “a state that successfully eradicates its internal rivals strengthens its ability to extract resources.” Therefore, military victory is more likely than negotiated settlement to improve postwar QOL. Data for this dichotomous variable are based on Gent (2008) that records the outcomes of civil wars included in Regan’s (2002) data.

The costs of civil war are likely to negatively influence postwar social development. Civil war destroys resources available for public services (Ghobarah, Huth, and Russett 2003; Lai and Thyne 2007; Iqbal 2010). Therefore, the more war costs, the harder citizens’ welfare is to ameliorate. I use two proxies, war deaths and war duration, which are conventional measures of war costs. The number of deaths is logged, and war duration is measured in days and logged to correct for skewness. Both data are from Regan (2002).¹⁰

War type can also influence postwar social development. If a civil war is an ideological conflict, combatants aim at the preservation or change of existing political and economic systems. Ideological war is a dichotomous variable based on Regan (2002). The reference war type is ethno-religious war.

The baseline model needs to include the level of QOL at war’s end. The literature on post-civil war development (Collier 1999; Kang and Meernik 2005) suggests that poor countries initially tend to grow faster than rich countries, which is called “convergence effects.” Thus, one can expect that states having lower levels of QOL at the time of war termination are more likely to be able to improve QOL during the postwar period.

Previous studies show that democracies are more likely than autocracies to provide public services including education and public health (Stasavage 2005; Iqbal 2010). Therefore, we can expect that the level of democracy is likely to be positively associated with QOL improvement. Democracy scores of postwar states are measured by using Polity IV data (Marshall, Gurr, and Jaggers 2010).

Economic development can also positively contribute to postwar QOL progress by increasing resources spent on social policy (Emizet 2000; Pickering and Kisangani 2006; Iqbal 2010). To estimate the effects of economic development, I use annual percentage change in GDP per capita rather than GDP per capita because the latter has a fairly strong correlation with another variable, QOL at war end, at 0.59. Employing this variable, we can test how postwar economic growth rates affect social development. The data are based on Gleditsch (2002).

There is debate about the effects of natural resources on political stability and social development. Some scholars find that nontax revenues including natural resources positively contribute to political stability and redistributive policy by increasing government revenues (Smith 2004; Morrison 2009). On the other hand, natural resources can be a cause of political instability by providing incentives for rebellion, the so-called resource curse (Collier and Hoeffler 2004). Resource-rich states can be disconnected from their societies and be less accountable to citizens because they do not have to rely on tax revenues (Skocpol 1982). This debate suggests contrasting prospects about the relationship between natural resources and postwar QOL improvement. I attempt to adjudicate across those competing explanations. To measure natural resources of postwar states, I use primary resource exports measured as a percentage of GDP (Fearon 2005).

A larger population may be a condition making QOL improvement easier or harder. While Iqbal (2010) shows that a larger population is positively associated with the reduction in IM rate and the increase in LE, Lake and Baum (2001) find that the larger the population, the more likely the IM rate is to increase. My model includes the logged values of populations in postwar years, which come from Gleditsch (2002).

Ethnic fractionalization is likely to negatively influence QOL improvement because it can increase social polarization and make it difficult for a society to form a consensus for policy related to the provision of public goods (Easterly and Levine 1997). The data are taken from Fearon and Laitin (2003). Finally, I control for elapsed years since the end of war because the effects of variables including foreign intervention on postwar QOL might be only temporary or decline over time (Lai and Thyne 2007).

Empirical Findings and Discussion

Intervention Types and the Prospects for Post-civil War QOL Improvement

Table 1 presents the baseline prospects for postwar QOL change (model 1) and the main findings about the effects of third-party intervention (model 2). Each OLS coefficient, along with PCSE, indicates whether a variable has statistically significant effects on the change in citizens’ QOL and how much it positively or negatively influences postwar social development. The baseline model identifies variables that are likely to significantly make postwar social development easier or harder. By controlling for those variables, I account for the interveners’ selection and analyze the effects of intervention on postwar QOL.¹¹

Table 1.

Unilateral/UN Intervention and the Prospects for the Improvement in Post-civil War QOL.

Variable	DV: % Change in QOL
	Model 1: Baseline		Model 2: Intervention
	Coefficient	PCSE	Coefficient	PCSE
Unilateral intervention			−0.259***	0.053
UN intervention			0.650***	0.115
Military victory	0.123*	0.067	0.399***	0.109
War deaths	0.114***	0.020	0.093***	0.013
War duration	−0.015	0.022
Ideological war	0.325**	0.129	0.293***	0.110
QOL at war end	−0.043***	0.003	−0.043***	0.002
Democracy	0.010***	0.004	0.008***	0.003
% Δ in GDP PC	0.018**	0.008	0.015*	0.008
Resource export rate	1.588***	0.364	1.807***	0.391
Population	−0.015	0.014
Ethnic fractionalization	−0.183	0.294
Elapsed years	−0.034***	0.002	−0.035***	0.002
Constant	3.061***	0.462	2.756***	0.199
N	880		880
R ²	.528		.552

Note: Estimation by OLS with PCSE. DV = dependent variable; GDP PC = gross domestic product per capita; OLS = ordinary least squares; PCSE = panel corrected standard error; QOL = quality of life; UN = United Nations.

*Significant at 10 percent.

**Significant at 5 percent.

***Significant at 1 percent.

Unilateral intervention has statistically significant and negative impacts on annual percentage changes in postwar QOL. In other words, unilateral intervention is likely to impede the improvement in postwar QOL. This finding supports my hypothesis, H_Uni. The estimated coefficient means that when a civil war experiences unilateral intervention, citizens’ QOL is likely to drop by 0.259 percent each year during a postwar period, compared to when it does not experience unilateral intervention.¹² This finding demonstrates that unilateral intervention is a significant factor explaining why some states are not successful in post-civil war development.

The Chadian case provides a solid example of civilian hardship after unilateral intervention. A series of Chadian civil wars from its independence to the early 1990s were arenas in which external interveners including the United States, Libya, and France competed to preserve or expand their influence (Azevedo 1998). In particular, intervention by France who is the former colonizer of Chad was prominent. Militarily supporting the Habré government and the Déby government in the 1980s and 1990s, France strove to remove the government’s domestic rivals and block Libya’s involvement in Chad. In doing so, France sought to preserve its influence in Chad and expand its access to natural resources, rather than contribute to Chad’s economic and social development (Weisburd 1997; Olsen 2009). Even though Chad’s violent conflict was settled by the mid-1990s and it had affluent natural resources, there was no significant improvement in citizens’ well-being. My data set shows that from 1995 to 1999, the IM rate only slightly dropped from 109 to 106, LE decreased from 50 to 49, and LR increased from 48.2 percent to 52.5 percent. During that period, Chad’s QOL improved by 0.58 percent annually on average. This slight progress in fact means that Chad lagged in postwar social development compared to all postwar states whose average annual percentage change in QOL during four years after civil war is 1.9.

UN intervention has significant and positive impacts on the improvement in postwar QOL, which supports H_UN. The estimated coefficient indicates that when the UN intervenes in a civil war, QOL is likely to rise by 0.65 percent annually during a postwar period. Compared to Figure 2, this finding implies that the UN is unlikely to randomly select targets to intervene. A preliminary conclusion from Figure 2 was that UN intervention is likely to have negative impacts on the improvement in QOL. This initial inference is refuted by the finding from model 2 that controls for variables making postwar social development easier or harder. A corrected interpretation of Figure 2 is that the UN is likely to go to harder cases that have lower baseline prospects for postwar social development.¹³ As a result, my findings show that even though the UN tends to intervene in states where postwar social development is relatively difficult, it is likely to significantly promote citizens’ well-being.

The Mozambican case illustrates how the UN helps post-civil war development. In 1992, the UN started a multidimensional operation to stop the civil war and secure sustainable peace in Mozambique. The UN deployed over 6,000 peacekeepers and spent about US$1 billion on the reconstruction of Mozambique (Howard 2008). It did not only help terminate a long-lasting violent conflict between a ruling group (Mozambique Liberation Front) and a rebel group (Mozambican National Resistance) but also played an important role in recovering public infrastructures and institutions, such as health facilities, schools, and food production mechanisms, through cooperation with UNHCR (Howard 2008; Fortna 2008). Mozambique exhibited a great performance in social development during the four years after war termination (1993–1997): the four-year average annual percentage change in QOL was 2.83 percent, which is 0.93 percent higher than that for all postwar states.

Next, I explain the effects of significant variables identified in the baseline model (model 1). Military victory has a positive impact on postwar social development, which coincides with my expectation. When one side wins a military victory in civil war, a postwar government is more likely to improve citizens’ QOL in comparison with a government formed by a negotiated settlement. Although many studies examine the extent to which civil war outcomes form postwar peace, relatively little attention has been paid to the relationships between war outcomes and postwar development. By finding a positive impact of military victory on postwar well-being, my research contributes to the postwar development literature.

The death toll from civil war positively affects postwar QOL, although war duration has no significant impact. The more casualties, the more citizens’ welfare is likely to improve, which is contrary to my expectation. The literature on post-(civil or interstate) war peace helps interpret this finding. Some scholars show that more deadly wars indicating more hostility among combatants increase the likelihood of another war (Doyle and Sambanis 2000; Fortna 2004a). On the other hand, others propose that they make postwar peace more durable because higher war costs make combatants more hesitant to resume fighting and motivate them to cooperate for lasting peace (Werner 1999; Morey 2011). Luttwak (1999, 36) similarly contends that “war brings peace (by resolving political conflicts) only after passing a culminating phase of violence.” The latter line of reasoning can be expanded to explain the positive relationship between higher death toll and postwar development. A fatal civil war can resolve political conflicts that are barriers to development and prompt belligerents to cooperate with each other for the reconstruction of their country.

Ideological war has a positive impact on postwar social development. This finding implies that a postwar government formed through ideological conflict shows better achievements in social policy than when it is made through ethnic or religious conflict.

As expected, the level of QOL at war’s end is negatively associated with the improvement in citizens’ welfare during postwar periods. In other words, the lower level of initial social wellness, the more likely a postwar government is to be able to improve citizens’ QOL. This finding confirms the convergence effects suggested by the postwar development literature.

Democracy and economic growth rate positively affect the betterment of postwar QOL, respectively, which is in the expected direction. The more democratic, the more likely a postwar state is to improve citizen’s well-being. This result supports previous studies’ findings that democracy promotes social wellness (e.g., Iqbal 2010). A faster growing economy is more likely to improve postwar QOL, which upholds existing findings showing the positive relationships between economic growth and social development (e.g., Pickering and Kisangani 2006).

Primary resource export rate has a positive impact on the improvement in postwar QOL, which means that resource-abundant countries are more likely than resource-poor states to improve postwar well-being. Although prior studies have mixed findings about the effects of natural resources on political or social development, my analysis shows that natural resources positively influence postwar QOL rather than cause a government to be disconnected from its society. Finally, the negative effect of elapsed years indicates that postwar QOL improvement rate decreases over time.

Intervention Types and Changes in LE, IM Rate, and LR during Post-civil War Periods

Models 4, 6, and 8 in Table 2 examine how external intervention influences annual percentage changes in the three individual measures, controlling for significant variables identified by each baseline model. Model 4 presents that when a civil war undergoes unilateral intervention, citizens’ LE decreases by 0.209 percent each year after war termination, compared to when it does not experience unilateral intervention. On the other hand, UN intervention increases LE by 0.754 percent per year during a postwar period. In model 6, we find that while unilateral intervention raises the postwar IM rate by 0.258 percent per year, UN intervention reduces the rate by 0.542 percent annually. Model 8 shows that third-party intervention, whether it is unilateral or UN intervention, does not significantly influence postwar changes in LR. These findings, along with the results in Table 1, suggest that external intervention positively or negatively affects the improvement in postwar QOL mainly in the fields of public health.

Table 2.

Unilateral/UN Intervention and Changes in Life Expectancy (LE), Infant Mortality Rate (IM), and Literacy Rate (LR) during Post-civil War Periods.

Variable	DV: % Change in LE		DV: % Change in IM		DV: % Change in LR
Variable	Model 3: Baseline	Model 4: Intervention	Model 5: Baseline	Model 6: Intervention	Model 7: Baseline	Model 8: Intervention
Unilateral intervention		−0.209*** (0.069)		0.258** (0.105)		0.052 (0.062)
UN intervention		0.754*** (0.152)		−0.542*** (0.182)		−0.094 (0.071)
Military victory	0.135** (0.063)	0.474*** (0.113)	−0.134 (0.176)		0.045 (0.086)
War deaths	0.116*** (0.02)	0.106*** (0.022)	−0.197*** (0.033)	−0.174*** (0.034)	0.056*** (0.018)	0.055** (0.022)
War duration	0.026 (0.022)		0.035 (0.037)		−0.092*** (0.024)	−0.095*** (0.022)
Ideological war	0.163 (0.171)		−0.148 (0.178)		0.046 (0.089)
LE, IM, or LR at war end (see Note)	−0.047*** (0.012)	−0.042*** (0.008)	0.012*** (0.002)	0.011*** (0.001)	−0.05*** (0.004)	−0.05*** (0.003)
Democracy	0.025*** (0.005)	0.021*** (0.003)	−0.053*** (0.009)	−0.046*** (0.008)	−0.012*** (0.004)	−0.012*** (0.003)
% Δ in GDP PC	0.012 (0.01)		−0.019* (0.01)	−0.015 (0.01)	0.013** (0.005)	0.013** (0.005)
Resource export rate	1.535*** (0.344)	1.665*** (0.425)	−5.402*** (0.717)	−5.738*** (0.635)	1.771*** (0.499)	1.729*** (0.496)
Population	−0.027** (0.013)	−0.005 (0.034)	0.066* (0.036)	0.046 (0.051)	0.068* (0.039)	0.071* (0.038)
Ethnic fractionalization	−0.565 (0.435)		−0.232 (0.439)		−0.706** (0.293)	−0.769*** (0.286)
Elapsed years	−0.018*** (0.002)	−0.017*** (0.002)	−0.042*** (0.007)	−0.044*** (0.005)	−0.04*** (0.004)	−0.039*** (0.003)
Constant	2.346** (1.044)	1.678*** (0.584)	−1.606* (0.826)	−1.604** (0.751)	4.493*** (0.37)	4.558*** (0.367)
N	880	880	880	880	880	880
R ²	.178	.197	.217	.222	.607	.607

Note: Estimation by OLS with PCSE. Figures in parentheses are PCSEs. LE at war end is used for models 3 to 4, IM at war end for models 5 to 6, and LR at war end for models 7 to 8. DV = dependent variable; GDP PC = gross domestic product per capita; OLS = ordinary least squares; PCSE = panel corrected standard error; UN = United Nations.

*Significant at 10 percent.

**Significant at 5 percent.

***Significant at 1 percent.

These findings provide a policy implication concerning the UN’s missions. The UN tends to succeed in improving public health but does not make a significant contribution to education. This result may mean that UN resources are not effectively invested in the field of education. The improvement in elementary education may be one of the essential missions for the international community to promote social development in war-torn states. Therefore, the UN needs to make efforts to allocate human and material resources to elementary education in addition to public health and other important fields that this article does not survey, although it should also consider which field is in more urgent needs of support.

Interaction Effects between Unilateral Intervention and Civil War Outcomes

Table 3 tests the interaction effect between unilateral intervention and war outcomes. The dependent variable is the annual percentage changes in postwar QOL. For the tests, I classify unilateral interventions into support for a government and for an opposition group, following Regan (2002). The outcome of war has three categories: government victory, opposition victory, and negotiated settlement, which are based on Gent (2008).

Table 3.

Interactions between Unilateral Intervention and War Outcomes, and the Prospects for the Improvement in Post-civil War QOL.

Variable	DV: % Change in QOL
	Model 9		Model 10
	Coefficient	PCSE	Coefficient	PCSE
Unilateral intervention for government	−0.233***	0.075	−0.169***	0.6
× Opposition victory			1.481***	0.447
× Negotiated settlement			−0.725***	0.129
Unilateral intervention for opposition	−0.31**	0.122	0.003	0.106
× Opposition victory			−1.767***	0.433
× Negotiated settlement			−0.436***	0.098
Government victory	0.422***	0.114
Opposition victory	0.72***	0.207	0.295***	0.091
Negotiated settlement			0.302*	0.18
UN intervention	0.761***	0.128	0.632***	0.1
War deaths	0.114***	0.015	0.084***	0.014
Ideological war	0.231	0.156	0.45***	0.141
QOL at war end	−0.042***	0.001	−0.042***	0.002
Democracy	0.009***	0.003	0.002	0.003
% Δ in GDP PC	0.015**	0.007	0.009	0.006
Resource export rate	2.147***	0.453	2.037***	0.423
Elapsed years	−0.037***	0.002	−0.037***	0.002
Constant	2.479***	0.202	2.947***	0.247
N	880		880
R ²	.57		.609

*Significant at 10 percent.

**Significant at 5 percent.

***Significant at 1 percent.

Model 9 finds that unilateral intervention, whether it is for the government or the opposition, tends to impede the improvement in postwar QOL. In model 10 including interaction terms, however, I find that the effects of unilateral intervention depend on war outcomes. For the cases of government victory, unilateral intervention for the government is likely to decrease postwar QOL by 0.169 percent per year, relative to when there is no unilateral intervention for the government. That intervention also tends to reduce QOL by 0.894 percent (= −0.725–0.169) annually among the cases where war ends in a negotiated settlement. Intervention for a government, however, raises QOL by 1.312 percent (=1.481–0.169) each year among the opposition victory cases. That is, if the opposition wins against the government supported by unilateral interveners, postwar QOL is more likely to improve than when it defeats the government that unilateral interveners do not support. Although unilateral support for the opposition does not make significant differences in postwar QOL among the cases of government victory, it tends to decrease QOL for the cases where war ends in an opposition victory or a negotiated settlement, compared to when there is no unilateral intervention for the opposition.

These results reveal how unilateral intervention impedes the improvement in postwar QOL. Through contributing to their protégé’s victory or a negotiated settlement, self-serving interveners exert influence over postwar government. While they make postwar governance and policy more favorable to their own interests, the postwar government becomes less accountable to its own citizens’ hardship and resources available for welfare decrease. Consequently, citizens’ QOL is hard to improve. The findings also provide an interesting implication that if an opposition group or a government wins a military victory on their own (i.e., without support from unilateral interveners), a postwar government is more likely to succeed in improving QOL. When intervention for a government yields a negotiated settlement, its negative effect (−0.894 percent) is larger than when it produces a government victory (−0.169 percent). This finding may be because the positive effects of government victory can somewhat cancel out the negative impact of unilateral intervention supporting government.

Conclusion

This article has sought to answer why some states succeed in improving citizens’ QOL after civil war and others fail to do so. Controlling for the effects of domestic political, economic, and societal factors, I found that foreign intervention has significant impacts on postwar social well-being. Unilateral intervention tends to impede postwar social development particularly in terms of LE and IM rate. Unilateral interveners seeking self-interest are likely to do so through producing their protégé’s military victory or a negotiated settlement, expanding their influence, and forming a postwar government less responsive to citizens’ hardship and reducing resources available for social policy. If a side supported by unilateral interveners loses war, the intervention does not impede postwar social development.

UN intervention tends to promote the improvement in postwar QOL particularly in the field of public health, although it does not ameliorate LR. The positive effect of UN intervention is associated with an increase in the resources available for postwar reconstruction. Going where postwar social development is relatively difficult, the UN helps a postwar government recover infrastructures and institutions related to public health by facilitating resource diversion to welfare policy and by providing direct development aid. My finding implies that UN intervention is more likely to be motivated by humanitarian concerns than by interveners’ self-interest, which reinforces previous studies’ arguments (Gilligan and Stedman 2003; Fortna 2004a, 2008).

Tragedies caused by civil conflicts have aroused humanitarian concerns of the public and policy makers in the international community. The emerging “Responsibility to Protect” norm reflects those concerns and helps legitimize third-party intervention in civil war. My findings imply that the intervention must not be unilateral but be via multilateral channels, such as the UN and its suborganizations/affiliates. International organization-led intervention can reduce the possibility that individual states seeking their own interests attempt to expand their influence on postwar states, form a less responsive government, and extract resources. If interveners do not focus on gaining self-interest but make efforts at helping citizens suffering from war, their support can greatly contribute to social development in war-torn states. While Finnemore (2003) emphasizes multilateralism as a necessary condition of humanitarian intervention in terms of the motive of intervention, I do so in terms of consequences as well as motivation. “Good” motivation increases the possibility that “good” results occur, through corresponding actions.

Footnotes

Author’s Note

Replication materials and the Online Appendix are available at the Journal of Conflict Resolution website.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Kelly Kadera, Heajeong Lee, Jonathan Ring, Sara Mitchell, Brian Lai, Cameron Thies, Jae-On Kim, anonymous reviewers, and the editor for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Supplemental Material

The supplemental materials are available at .

Notes

References

Azevedo

Mario

. 1998. Roots of Violence: A History of War in Chad. New York: Routledge.

Balch-Lindsay

Dylan

Enterline

Andrew

Joyce

Kyle

. 2008. “Third-party Intervention and the Civil War Process.” Journal of Peace Research 45 (3): 345–63.

Barnett

Michael

Weiss

Thomas

. 2008. “A Brief History of the Present.” In Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, and Ethics, edited by Barnett

Michael

Weiss

Thomas

. 1–48. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Bates

Robert

. 2008. When Things Fell apart: State Failure in Late-century Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Beck

Nathaniel

Katz

Jonathan

. 1995. “What to Do (and not to Do) with Time-series Cross-section Data.” American Political Science Review 89 (3): 634–47.

Brautigam

Deborah

. 1992. “Governance, Economy, and Foreign Aid.” Studies in Comparative International Development 27 (3): 3–25.

Bueno de Mesquita

Bruce

Downs

George

. 2006. “Intervention and Democracy.” International Organization 60 (3): 627–49.

Bueno de Mesquita

Bruce

Smith

Alastair

Siverson

Randolph

Morrow

James

. 2003. The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Burnside

Craig

Dollar

David

. 2000. “Aid, Policies, and Growth.” American Economic Review 90 (4): 847–68.

10.

Chen

Siyan

Loayza

Norman

Reynal-Querol

Marta

. 2008. “The Aftermath of Civil War.” World Bank Economic Review 22 (1): 63–85.

11.

Chesterman

Simon

. 2004. You, the People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration, and State-building. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

12.

Collier

Paul

. 1999. “On the Economic Consequences of Civil War.” Oxford Economic Papers 51:168–83.

13.

Collier

Paul

Hoeffler

Anke

. 2004. “Greed and Grievance in Civil War.” Oxford Economic Papers 56:563–95.

14.

de Jonge Oudraat

Chantal

. 1996. “The United Nations and Internal Conflict.” In The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict, edited by Brown

Michael

. 517–519. Cambridge, UK: MIT Press.

15.

Doyle

Michael

Sambanis

Nicholas

. 2000. “International Peacebuilding: A Theoretical and Quantitative Analysis.” American Political Science Review 94 (4): 779–801.

16.

Doyle

Michael

Sambanis

Nicholas

. 2006. Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

17.

Easterly

William

Levine

Ross

. 1997. “Africa’s Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 112 (4): 1203–50.

18.

Economides

George

Kalyvitis

Sarantis

Philippopoulos

Apostolis

. 2008. “Does Foreign Aid Distort Incentives and Hurt Growth? Theory and Evidence from 75 Aid-recipient Countries.” Public Choice 134:463–88.

19.

Emizet

Kisangani

. 2000. “The Relationship between the Liberal Ethos and Quality of Life: A Comparative Analysis of Pooled Time-series Data from 1970 to 1994.” Comparative Political Studies 33 (8): 1049–78.

20.

Enikolopov

Ruben

Zhuravskaya

Ekaterina

. 2007. “Decentralization and Political Institutions.” Journal of Public Economics 91:2261–90.

21.

Enterline

Andrew

Greig

J. Michael

. 2008. “Perfect Storms? Political Instability in Imposed Polities and the Futures of Iraq and Afghanistan.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 52 (6): 880–915.

22.

Fearon

James

. 2005. “Primary Commodity Exports and Civil War.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49 (4): 483–507.

23.

Fearon

James

Laitin

David

. 2003. “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.” American Political Science Review 97 (1): 75–90.

24.

Findley

Michael

Teo

Tze Kwang

. 2006. “Rethinking Third-party Interventions into Civil Wars: An Actor-centric Approach.” Journal of Politics 68 (4): 828–37.

25.

Finnemore

Martha

. 2003. The Purpose of Intervention. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

26.

Fortna

Virginia

. 2004a. “Does Peacekeeping Keep Peace?: International Intervention and the Duration of Peace after Civil War.” International Studies Quarterly 48:269–92.

27.

Fortna

Virginia

. 2004b. Peace Time: Cease-fire Agreements and the Durability of Peace. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

28.

Fortna

Virgina

. 2008. Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents’ Choices after Civil War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

29.

Gent

Stephen

. 2007. “Strange Bedfellows: The Strategic Dynamics of Major Powers Military Interventions.” Journal of Politics 69 (4): 1089–102.

30.

Gent

Stephen

. 2008. “Going When it Counts: Military Intervention and the Outcome of Civil Conflicts.” International Studies Quarterly 52 (4): 713–35.

31.

Gent

Stephen

. 2010. “External Threats and Military Intervention: The United States and the Caribbean Basin.” Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 16 (1): Article 9.

32.

Ghobarah

Hazem

Huth

Paul

Russett

Bruce

. 2003. “Civil Wars Kill and Maim People-long after the Shooting Stops.” American Political Science Review 97 (2): 189–202.

33.

Gibbs

David

. 1997. “Is Peacekeeping a New Form of Imperialism?” International Peacekeeping 4 (1): 122–28.

34.

Gilligan

Michael

Stedman

Stephen

. 2003. “Where Do Peacekeepers Go?” International Studies Review 5 (1): 37–54.

35.

Gleditsch

Kristian

. 2002. “Expanded Trade and GDP Data.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 46 (5): 712–24.

36.

Hoddie

Matthew

Smith

Jason

. 2009. “Forms of Civil War Violence and Their Consequences for Future Public Health.” International Studies Quarterly 53:175–202.

37.

Howard

Lise

. 2008. UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

38.

Iqbal

Zaryab

. 2010. War and the Health of Nations. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

39.

Jackman

Robert

. 1993. Power without Force: The Political Capacity of Nation States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

40.

Jakobsen

Peter

. 1996. “National Interest, Humanitarianism or CNN: What Triggers UN Peace Enforcement after the Cold War?” Journal of Peace Research 33 (2): 205–15.

41.

Kang

Seonjou

Meernik

James

. 2005. “Civil War Destruction and the Prospects for Economic Growth.” Journal of Politics 67 (1): 88–109.

42.

Knack

Stephen

. 2001. “Aid Dependence and the Quality of Governance: Cross-country Empirical Tests.” Southern Economic Journal 68 (2): 310–29.

43.

Krasner

Stephen

. 2004. “Sharing Sovereignty: New Institutions for Collapsed and Failing States.” International Security 29 (2): 85–120.

44.

Lai

Brian

Thyne

Clayton

. 2007. “The Effect of Civil War on Education, 1980-97.” Journal of Peace Research 44 (3): 277–92.

45.

Lake

David

. 1988. Power, Protection and Free Trade: International Sources of U.S. Commercial Strategy, 1887-1939. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

46.

Lake

David

. 1992. “Powerful Pacifists: Democratic States and War.” American Political Science Review 86 (1): 24–37.

47.

Lake

David

Baum

Matthew

. 2001. “The Invisible Hand of Democracy: Political Control and the Provision of Public Services.” Comparative Political Studies 34 (6): 587–621.

48.

La Porta

Rafael

Lopez-de-Silanes

Florencio

Shleifer

Andrei

Vishny

Robert

. 1999. “The Quality of Government.” Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization 15 (1): 222–79.

49.

Lemke

Douglas

Regan

Patrick

. 2004. “Intervention as Influence.” In The Scourge of War: New Extensions on an Old Problem, edited by Diehl

Paul

, 145–68. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

50.

Levi

Margaret

. 1981. “The Predatory Theory of Rule.” Politics & Society 10:431–65.

51.

Licklider

Roy

. 1995. “The Consequences of Negotiated Settlement in Civil Wars, 1945-1993.” American Political Science Review 89 (3): 681–90.

52.

Luttwak

Edward

. 1999. “Give War a Chance.” Foreign Affairs 78 (4): 36–44.

53.

Marshall

Monty

Gurr

Ted

Jaggers

Keith

. 2010. Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2009. Accessed July 6, 2011. http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscr/inscr.htm.

54.

Mastanduno

Michael

Lake

David

Ikenberry

G. John

. 1989. “Toward a Realist Theory of State Action.” International Studies Quarterly 33 (4): 457–74.

55.

Mearsheimer

John

. 1994. “The False Promise of International Institutions.” International Security 19 (3): 5–49.

56.

Morey

Daniel

. 2011. “When War Brings Peace: A Dynamic Model of the Rivalry Process.” American Journal of Political Science 55 (2): 263–75.

57.

Morgenthau

Hans

. 1967. “To Intervene or Not to Intervene.” Foreign Affairs 45 (3): 425–36.

58.

Mori

Larisa

Meddings

David

Bettcher

Douglas

. 2004. “Health, Human Security and the Peace-building Process.” In Conflict and Human Security: A Search for New Approaches of Peace-building, edited by Shinoda

Hideaki

Jeong

Ho-Won

. 176–196. Hiroshima, Japan: Institute for Peace Science Hiroshima University. IPSHU Research Report Series Vol. 19.

59.

Morris

. 1979. Measuring the Condition of the World’s Poor: Physical Quality of Life Index. New York: Pergamon.

60.

Morrison

Kevin

. 2009. “Oil, Nontax Revenue, and the Redistributional Foundations of Regime Stability.” International Organization 63 (1): 107–38.

61.

Olsen

Gorm

. 2009. “The EU and Military Conflict Management in Africa: For the Good of Africa or Europe?” International Peacekeeping 16 (2): 245–60.

62.

Paris

Roland

. 2004. At War’s End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

63.

Pickering

Jeffrey

Kisangani

Emizet

. 2006. “Political, Economic, and Social Consequences of Foreign Military Intervention.” Political Research Quarterly 59 (3): 363–76.

64.

Pourgerami

Abbas

. 1992. “Authoritarian versus Nonauthoritarian Approaches to Economic Development: Update and Additional Evidence.” Public Choice 74 (3): 365–77.

65.

Pugh

Michael

. 2004. “Peacekeeping and Critical Theory.” International Peacekeeping 11 (1): 39–58.

66.

Regan

Patrick

. 2000. Civil Wars and Foreign Powers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

67.

Regan

Patrick

. 2002. “Third Party Interventions and the Duration of Intrastate Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 46 (1): 55–73.

68.

Robinson

William

. 1996. Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

69.

Ross

Michael

. 2004. “How Do Natural Resources Influence Civil War? Evidence from Thirteen Cases.” International Organization 58 (1): 35–67.

70.

Skocpol

Theda

. 1982. “Rentier State and Shi’a Islam in the Iranian Revolution.” Theory and Society 11 (3): 265–82.

71.

Smith

Benjamin

. 2004. “Oil Wealth and Regime Survival in the Developing World, 1960-1999.” American Journal of Political Science 48 (2): 232–46.

72.

Stasavage

David

. 2005. “Democracy and Education Spending in Africa.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (2): 343–58.

73.

Thies

Cameron

. 2006. “Public Violence and State Building in Central America.” Comparative Political Studies 39 (10): 1263–82.

74.

Thies

Cameron

. 2007. “The Political Economy of State Building in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Journal of Politics 69 (3): 716–31.

75.

Thies

Cameron

Sobek

David

. 2010. “War, Economic Development, and Political Development in the Contemporary International System.” International Studies Quarterly 54 (1): 267–87.

76.

Tilly

Charles

. 1985. “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime.” In Bringing the State Back, edited by Evans

Peter

Rueschemeyer

Dietrich

Skocpol

Theda

. 169–186. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

77.

United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 1963, 1965, 1973, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1999. Statistical Yearbooks. Paris, France: UNESCO.

78.

United Nations. 1951, 1957, 1961, 1966. Demographic Yearbooks. New York: United Nations.

79.

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Devision. 2002. World Population Ageing, 1950-2050. New York: United Nations.

80.

Voeten

Erik

. 2001. “Outside Options and the Logic of Security Council Action.” American Political Science Review 95 (4): 845–58.

81.

Walter

Barbara

. 2004. “Does Conflict Beget Conflict? Explaining Recurring Civil War.” Journal of Peace Research 41 (3): 371–88.

82.

Waltz

Kenneth

. 1979. Theory of International Politics. New York: McGraw-Hill.

83.

Weisburd

A. Mark

. 1997. Use of Force: The Practice of States since World War II. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

84.

Werner

Suzanne

. 1999. “The Precarious Nature of Peace: Resolving the Issues, Enforcing the Settlement, and Renegotiating the Terms.” American Journal of Political Science 43 (3): 912–34.

85.

Western

Jon

. 2002. “Sources of Humanitarian Intervention: Beliefs, Information, and Advocacy in the U.S. Decisions on Somalia and Bosnia.” International Security 26 (4): 112–42.

86.

World Bank. 2013. World Development Indicators. Accessed May 11, 2013. http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.15 MB

0.00 MB