Several recent studies propose that political choices of Indian youth can hardly be distinguished from those of their parents in many respects. Contrary to this well-established understanding, this article shows that when set apart from the spheres of family and work, students in a flagship Indian university-mostly in the social sciences and humanities-gradually transform their political attitudes in light of prolonged exposure to a campus environment. Through combining ethnographic study with the analysis of a survey of political attitudes of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students, we show that time spent in situ fosters participation to political activities, increases chances of joining a student organization and make students more likely to identify themselves as politically radical. The class and caste background of students, on the other hand, are not strongly associated with political attitudes, showing the integrative nature of politicization on the JNU campus.

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Many studies argue that third-party guarantees, such as those of the United Nations, increase the chances that belligerents will sign peace agreements, but it is unclear how third-party involvement affects the implementation of such agreements. We unpack the relationship between UN involvement and peace agreement success by focusing on the risk factors of defections during the peace accord implementation phase. We argue that two types of commitment problems, namely involuntary and voluntary defections, emerge due to the characteristics of the peace process as well as new opportunities available to rebel groups. We expect that shifts in relative power and polarized voting lead to overall lower implementation score, but UN deployment has a mitigating effect, thereby increasing the levels of overall accord implementation. Using data from the Peace Accords Matrix Implementation Dataset from 1989 to 2010 and personnel commitments to United Nations peacekeeping operations, we find evidence that large UN missions are better placed to support the implementation and longevity of the peace process.

Costs associated with recognizing an internal armed challenger as a legitimate bargaining partner deter governments from initiating peace talks. Yet peaceful termination of conflict requires formal negotiations between the belligerents. This article presents evidence that democratic reforms provide a window of opportunity for peace talks. Democratic reforms represent an opportunity to break away from the past policies of the state and render the conflict as an artifact of the preceding authoritarian institutions. The article contributes to the research field by enhancing our ability to predict negotiations. It also highlights that democratic reforms can be undertaken during an ongoing civil conflict.

While the extant literature has highlighted the importance of UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs) in addressing commitment problems in civil wars, actor fragmentation presents additional challenges for conflict resolution. A higher number of competing actors not only worsens coordination problems but also aggravates the risk of opposition to a peace process, generating an environment prone to spoiler violence. This article argues that UN interventions matter more when commitment and coordination problems are worse, which corresponds to known traits of fragmented conflicts. Using data on civil conflict duration and intensity, we present evidence that UN PKOs are effective at mitigating adverse impacts of fragmentation. Fragmented conflicts are both longer and deadlier when the UN is not involved to support a peace process, while UN peacekeeping mitigates the effects of fragmentation.