Is the Sum Greater than the Parts? The Terms of Civil War Peace Agreements and the Commitment Problem Revisited

Abstract

The dominant theoretical approaches to civil war negotiations in the

Harvesting Social Signals to Inform Peace Processes Implementation and Monitoring

“… 31 , 32 Notwithstanding these challenges, the number of armed conflicts resolved through negotiated peace settlements has increased significantly over the past 25 years. 29 , 40 Previous studies also demonstrate that the level of peace agreement implementation is a significant predictor for durable peace between signatory and nonsignatory groups, 41 , 42 thereby motivating our inquiry of the interplay between intergroup polarization, public sentiment, and peace process implementation.…”

“…28 However, the likelihood of negotiated peace agreement failure is higher than other types of civil war outcomes. 29 In general, negotiated peace settlements have a 23% chance of conflict reversion during the initial 5 years and 17% chance of reversion in the subsequent 5 years. 25 On average, negotiated peace agreements last 3.5 years before conflict resumes.…”

Why Do Peace Negotiations Succeed or Fail? Legal Commitment, Transparency, and Inclusion during Peace Negotiations in Colombia (2012–2016) and Turkey (2012–2015)

“…Insurgent organizations are offered a seat at the table and are more likely to receive concessions if the government fails to secure early decisive victory (Bapat ; Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan ). The realization that peace agreements do not always result in lasting peace has led to a reappraisal of agreements themselves; their capacity to solve information asymmetry, commitment, and indivisibility problems, enable power sharing, and address the structural causes of violence has been scrutinized (Fortna ; Mattes and Savun ; Joshi and Darby ; Joshi and Quinn ; Westendorf ). A government's (and the international community's) ability to include former enemies in the post‐conflict political settlement is found to be an important determinant of whether a peace agreement will be durable (Call ).…”

“…While secrecy is common to peace processes (Storholt ; Sapkota ), it is increasingly acknowledged that transparency between the negotiating parties (Albin and Druckman ) and sharing at least some of the content of peace negotiations with the broader public can strengthen the process. Third‐party intervention by individuals, states, regional organizations, and international organizations (Bercovitch and Gartner ) may affect the underlying bargaining structure and ultimately allow the negotiating parties to communicate more effectively and overcome commitment problems (Pugh ; Ruggeri, Gizelis, and Dorussen ; Joshi and Quinn ). Nonstate actors, especially, are likely to demand the presence of an outside party in the process.…”

The Roles of Design and Third Parties on Civil War Peace Agreement Outcomes

“…This is what Madhav Joshi and J. Michael Quinn suggest and find evidence to support. 17 An agreement along the lines of the 1992 Chapultepec Agreement ending the war in El Salvador-whose eight major provisions called for military, policing, justice, economic, land, property, social, and electoral reforms-demonstrates a commitment to the process on the part of the parties involved. On its surface, more elaborate agreements would indeed seem to provide a more effective road map to peace.…”