Reconsidering the settlement of civil conflict

Given their enormous impact on societal development and prosperity, armed civil conflicts have always been one of the most worrisome problems that we are presented with. Although a variety of actors have put a great deal of effort into preventing and containing conflicts, a large number of violent incidents have been recorded. Once a conflict erupts, what we need to consider and then implement is how to manage and settle the dispute and, at its end, prevent recurrence. However, human history shows that this is easier said than done. Assume a case of prolonged conflict where negotiation is left as the only option for a feasible way of settlement. It is often difficult to bring to the negotiation table conflict parties who have long harbored hostility towards each other during the conflict. Furthermore, the parties may have no incentive to terminate the conflict if they are benefitting from the status quo or even the continuation of fighting. Even if the parties come to negotiation, it is often an arduous task to reach an agreement because the post-conflict embarkation comes with political uncertainty for the future.

Of course, academia has been anything but silent about these issues. The bargaining model of civil conflict suggests mechanisms that make it difficult for conflict parties (and external actors) to settle a conflict. Armed struggles will continue, and conflict settlement will be difficult, when the conflict comprises asymmetric information, commitment problems, and issue indivisibilities (Fearon, 1995). In the context of a deadlocked conflict, the belligerents are often unable to commit to peace agreements. For instance, an incumbent government would be hesitant to implement the agreements (e.g. power-sharing arrangements with the rebels) because the strategic incentive of the rebels is unknown. The new agreements might advantage the rebels by providing them with a stronger bargaining position. The rebels would also be wary about peace deals because they would perceive the government’s implementation to be not fully guaranteed. That is, the possibility of shifts in the distribution of power could deter the credible commitment of the belligerents (Powell, 2006). They would keep fighting if such power shifts were to be costlier than what they could gain by continuing the conflict.

The bargaining model implies that external third parties could play an important role in making agreements credible. The intermediary may be able to enforce the implementation of agreements between the conflict parties by providing armed peacekeepers and financial assistance or hinting at punishment such as with trade sanctions, asset freezes, and bombing (Blattman and Miguel, 2010; Walter, 1997). Yet, it is important to note that the involvement of external actors could make post-conflict deals less credible for the side of the belligerents and render the commitment problems more serious when the consequence of intervention proves that the third party sides with the other side (e.g. indictment by international criminal courts) (Blattman and Miguel, 2010).

The settlement of civil conflict is thus highly relevant to both policy agendas and academic research. This special issue is aimed at addressing the issue from two different angles. First, it attempts to understand the requisite conditions for the successful settlement of armed civil conflicts. Why and when can conflicts be peacefully settled? Why do some political actors succeed in terminating conflicts but others do not? These questions should be approached at the levels of both structure and actor. Structural conditions frame the possible policies that government, rebel organizations, and external third parties can implement. Yet, the profiles of those political actors would still matter in the possible consequences of their strategic interactions. To explore when and why conflicts can be settled, we have to keep ourselves open to these analytical options.

Second, the special issue has a particular interest in the post-conflict design of political institutions. Why do conflicts recur? How can post-conflict societies prevent a relapse into violence? Given that civil conflict is in essence violence organized by sociopolitical groups, a post-conflict formal/legal arrangement will have a crucial impact on their consequent strategic options. The issue of how a conflict is settled has implications in the design of post-conflict institutions. Careful consideration must be given to institutional design in post-conflict societies because of their extreme vulnerability to the recurrence of violence.

This special issue is edited by four contributors. Obayashi explores the influence of political power-sharing arrangements (PSAs) on post-conflict peace duration, along with the conditions for the terms of peace agreement to include a political PSA. This article contrasts strikingly with previous studies on conflict settlement that tend to focus on the “benign” effects of political PSAs as instruments to moderate the information asymmetry and commitment problem among the signatories. Obayashi instead argues that conflict parties tend to be sensitive to the distributional consequences of political PSA provisions in a peace agreement, which makes them hesitant to adhere to the agreement. Although the parties still have an incentive to sign agreements with such provisions, its tendency to redistribute power among the signatories renders the commitment problem serious. Primary findings from the cross-sectional analysis are twofold. First, the incumbent government is motivated to sign a peace agreement including political PSAs when its power to hurt the rebels will be reduced only in the short-run. Second, a political PSA increases the risk of conflict recurrence by intensifying the commitment problem with the rebels who would question the intent of the government and external actors to implement the provisions.

In his article, Ohmura answers the question of why natural resources prolong or shorten the duration of civil conflict and influence how the conflict is terminated. Introducing a concept, the lootability of natural resources, the article offers empirical evidence that “lootability” is closely linked to conflict longevity and outcome. When rebels have sufficient military capability against the government, lootable resources decrease the duration of conflict if it results in a rebel victory, but such resources tend to lengthen the conflict that is eventually settled by a peace agreement. The article also argues that non-lootable resources are more likely to shorten the longevity of conflict where the government militarily defeats the rebels. These findings are drawn from Ohmura’s claim that researchers should clearly distinguish two courses of resource-conflict linkage: motivation and feasibility mechanisms. The article contributes to the literature on armed conflict duration by showing that natural resources influence conflict duration and outcome not in a single manner but in multiple ways.

Tanaka’s article builds a game-theoretical model and discusses the mechanism of how post-conflict violence occurs. The post-conflict context often makes it inevitable for the conflict parties to be engaged in the negotiation on state-building and democratization. While former rebels can choose to stay armed, join new security apparatus, or transform into political parties, the government’s intention to enhance state capacity and to introduce a democratic system may pose a threat to them when the project includes military buildup and political rearrangement. The problem of commitment appears here because the former rebels might reasonably assume that they could lose out on their political positions in the future. Even though the recurrence of conflict is costly for the parties, neither side would put down weapons when the negotiation comes to an unsuccessful end. In addition to the theoretical consideration, Tanaka examines the case of Timor-Leste and suggests that the involvement of third parties could help decrease post-conflict violence by guaranteeing the credibility of commitments in the negotiation, influencing actors’ decision-making or supporting their abilities.

Lastly, to investigate the conditions of civil-war settlement, Watanabe focuses on the roles of the government by disaggregating incumbent political actors into the executive, legislature, and judiciary branches. Previous studies have shortcomings in that they regard each warring party as a unitary actor. Watanabe instead takes a closer look at in-group bargaining dynamics in the government branches. This allows examining in detail the political struggles in the Mindanao peace process. Comparing the Arroyo (2001–2010) and Aquino (2010–2016) administrations, she finds that “veto power” had a great impact on the settlement of the war; while the Senate and the Supreme Court had little incentive to support the peace agreement under the Arroyo administration, they became supportive of the peace process with the Mindanao rebels in the Aquino period. The article suggests that the diversity of government actors should be researched in order to fully understand the settlement of civil war.

The findings of these articles are based on rigorous quantitative analyses and in-depth case studies. The academic contribution of the articles lies in theoretical advancement as it applies to the settlement of civil conflict. Each contribution adds a nuanced understanding of civil-conflict settlement to the relevant literature. The bargaining theory is brilliantly incisive in accounting for why conflict parties often fail to reach a peace agreement. However, its scope could be extended by disaggregating contexts and actors, like the articles in this special issue do, which allows us to investigate to what extent the theory is useful and valid over time and across cases.

The articles provide insight into the successful conditions of conflict settlement and post-conflict institutional design, such as power-sharing and the management of resources. In addition, they offer suggestions as to how and when the involvement of a third party can be effective; an external party helps settle the conflict when increasing the credibility of what the conflict parties agree on. There is no single solution to the challenge of terminating conflict and preventing its recurrence. Knowledge produced in this special issue should rather be combined to deal with organized violence.