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a government victory, a rebel victory, or a negotiated settlement? To explore this question we present an expected utility model of the choice rebels and governments face between accepting a settlement or continuing to fight. The model implies that a settlement becomes more likely as (1) estimates of the probability of victory decline; (2) costs of conflict increase; (3) estimates of the time required to win increase; or (4) the utility from a settlement increases relative to that of victory.Factors that (1) increase one party's probability of victory; (2) increase its payoffs from victory; (3) reduce the costs of conflict; and/or (4) reduce the time required to achieve victory increase that party's probability of winning and decrease the likelihood of a settlement. We test these propositions with a multinomial choice model that correctly predicts the outcome in 86 percent of the cases. NOTE: An earlier version of this article was presented at the 1996 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. The authors are indebted to the editors and several anonymous reviewers for the suggestions on how to revise the manuscript. Any remaining errors remain the responsibility of the authors.

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What conditions determine whether a civil war ends in a negotiated settlement or a military victory? The authors address this question by developing an expected utility model of the choice between seeking an immediate settlement or continuing to fight in anticipation of eventual victory. The model implies that the likelihood of a settlement varies with estimates of the probability of winning, the time required to win, the rate at which the costs of conflict accrue, and the payoffs for victory versus settlement. Logistic regression results suggest that a settlement becomes less likely the larger the government's army and more likely the longer the civil war lasts. Payoff and cost variables had no effect on the likelihood of a settlement.

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