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Full-Text Articles in Peace and Conflict Studies

Power Sharing And Democracy In Post-Civil War States: The Art Of The Possible, Caroline A. Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie Jun 2020

Power Sharing And Democracy In Post-Civil War States: The Art Of The Possible, Caroline A. Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Power Sharing and Democracy in Post-Civil War States examines the challenge of promoting democracy in the aftermath of civil war. Hartzell and Hoddie argue that minimalist democracy is the most realistic form of democracy to which states emerging from civil war violence can aspire. The adoption of power-sharing institutions within civil war settlements helps mitigate insecurity and facilitate democracy's emergence. Power sharing promotes 'democratization from above' by limiting the capacity of the state to engage in predatory behavior, and 'democratization from below' by empowering citizens to participate in politics. Drawing on cross-national and case study evidence, Hartzell and Hoddie find …


Conflict Environments And Civil War Onset, Lindsay Reid, Rachel Myrick, Kelly M. Kadera, Mark J.C. Crescenzi May 2020

Conflict Environments And Civil War Onset, Lindsay Reid, Rachel Myrick, Kelly M. Kadera, Mark J.C. Crescenzi

Political Science Faculty Publications

The spread of civil war poses serious risks and costs. We argue that conflict environments, which vary across time and space, systematically exacerbate the spread of civil war. As conflict in a state’s neighborhood becomes more spatially proximate and as lingering effects of conflict accumulate over time, that state’s risk of civil war onset increases. To theorize and test this argument, we construct the conflict environment (CE) score, a concept that taps into spatial and temporal dimensions of violence in a state’s neighborhood. Using the CE score in established empirical models of civil war onset, we demonstrate that a …


Religious Polarization And The Duration Of Civil Wars, Adrienne M. Poissant Apr 2020

Religious Polarization And The Duration Of Civil Wars, Adrienne M. Poissant

Student Publications

More and more research has begun to look at the impact that religion has on armed conflict. This paper takes a closer look at religious polarization and the impact that it has on the duration of civil wars. The central hypothesis focuses on the idea that polarized societies are less likely to reach a settlement in conflict; therefore, religious polarization should lengthen the duration of civil wars. The research compiled looks at the topic from a variety of different facets while paying attention to other possible contributing factors that can lengthen war and how religion in general plays a role …


Sinister Intentions And Devastating Results: Intervention And Duration Of Civil Conflict, John M. Zak Apr 2020

Sinister Intentions And Devastating Results: Intervention And Duration Of Civil Conflict, John M. Zak

Student Publications

In the post-Second World War era, intra-state conflict has become an increasingly prominent feature of the international system. Accompanying the increase in civil conflicts has been interventions by third-parties seeking to influence the outcome of those civil conflicts. This has had a decisive impact on the duration of civil conflict that this work seeks to analyze in detail. Using duration of civil conflict as the dependent variable and intervention as the independent variable, this work will seek to demonstrate empirically that intervention in civil conflict has a significant impact on prolonging the duration of the conflict and can contribute to …


External Intervention And The Duration Of Civil Wars, Sofia E. Mouritsen Apr 2020

External Intervention And The Duration Of Civil Wars, Sofia E. Mouritsen

Student Publications

This paper examines the effect of external intervention on civil war duration from the years 1946-2002. Based on the logic that intervention causes a distortion of the bargaining process in civil wars, it is hypothesized that intervention leads to increased civil war duration. This hypothesis is tested using linear regression analysis, which finds a positive, significant relationship between intervention and civil war duration. Considered in the context of previous literature, it is concluded that in addition to the distorting effect intervention appears to have on the bargaining process, this result may have been informed by the presence of competitive intervention, …