Deals with the Devil? Conflict Amnesties, Civil War, and Sustainable Peace

Dancy, Geoff

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2978889

Cited by 4 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…These results also have implications for policy on the use of amnesty. The findings support recent research that shows that giving generous amnesties during conflict is not of use in ending conflict sooner (Dancy 2018). However, amnesty can be a valuable nonmilitary way to make a negotiated settlement more likely.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

“…The database used here is built primarily from Mallinder’s Amnesty Law Database (Mallinder 2008) and the During-Conflict Justice data set (Loyle and Binningsbø 2018). 5 During-conflict amnesties have been largely ignored in research to date, even though they constitute 60 percent of amnesties (Dancy 2018, 394). 6 To comply with my theoretical interest, I do not include self-amnesties where governments give amnesties only to state forces, for example, for state violence, and I include amnesties to active fighters so not pardons to prisoners or release of political prisoners.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A contrasting position is that of Dancy (2018), who argues that the information transmitted by an amnesty is lost because adversaries will not trust the signal sent by the other side. From the rebels’ point of view, an amnesty is either a trick or an expression that the government is weak, and therefore the rebels are encouraged to fight on.…”

Section: Amnesty As Bargainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To address this problem, researchers are increasingly generating cross-national analyses of justice mechanisms and civil war (Binningsbø et al 2012; Reiter, Olsen, and Payne 2012; Olsen, Payne, and Reiter 2010; Dancy 2018). Much of this research focuses on the impact of amnesty after civil war, but there is increasing recognition that the majority of amnesties occur during civil wars (Olsen, Payne, and Reiter 2010; Loyle and Binningsbø 2018), and I add to this literature.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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How and When Amnesty during Conflict Affects Conflict Termination

Daniels

2020

Journal of Conflict Resolution

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In the difficult process of ending civil wars, granting amnesty during conflict is seen as a useful option, with an underpinning assumption that trading justice for peace is effective. However, is the case? This article tries to bring some clarity to when and how amnesty given during conflict has an impact. Amnesty should have different effects on diverse conflict endings: negotiated settlement, rebel victory, government victory, or conflict reduction. The article also disaggregates amnesties to test direct impacts as an incentive or through reducing the commitment problem, and indirect effects that give military advantage to the government. Using a cross-national data set of amnesties in dyadic conflicts from 1975 to 2011, the research finds that amnesty’s strongest effect is, surprisingly, not as an incentive but rather to reduce commitment problems. It can lead to negotiated settlements but also to government military advantage. The results have implications for negotiations and conflict resolution.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Amnesty As Bargainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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How and When Amnesty during Conflict Affects Conflict Termination

Daniels

2020

Journal of Conflict Resolution

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“…We suggest that conflict participants seek to uphold a version of history that paints their side as defensive, blameless, benevolent, or worthy of amnesty (Dancy 2018; Byman 2002; Conner 2003) in order to retain legitimacy. These attacks on the truth and truth tellers occur in the context of a postwar environment in which political divisions are still exposed and potent, and where politicians play on ethnic fears to consolidate power.…”

Section: Violence After Peacebuilding Beginsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Security Consequences of Bearing Witness

Meernik

King

2019

Journal of Conflict Resolution

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It is a central assumption of our research that threats to a fragile security and violence can continue during postconflict peacebuilding and that these threats are driven by many of the same sociopolitical dynamics that initially led to war. We examine a critical but much less queried area of postwar societal instability—violence directed at segments of the population who may still be targets for those seeking dominance. Using a survey of 300 individuals who testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), we seek to explain violence, threats of violence, and other forms of intimidation directed at those who witnessed human rights violations during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Our theory of postwar violence emphasizes the vulnerability of the (potential) victims of postwar violence. We argue that victims are selectively chosen because of their vulnerability. We develop and test an alternative explanation for this selective targeting that emphasizes the level of exposure an individual may have because of testifying at the ICTY. The results demonstrate quite convincingly, however, that it is vulnerability rather than exposure risk that predicts who is most likely to be targeted with human security threats.

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Lessons from Liberia’s Transitional Justice Process

Mieszkalski

Zyla

2021

Engaging Displaced Populations in a Future Syrian Transitional Justice Process

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Deals with the Devil? Conflict Amnesties, Civil War, and Sustainable Peace

Cited by 4 publications

References 56 publications

How and When Amnesty during Conflict Affects Conflict Termination

How and When Amnesty during Conflict Affects Conflict Termination

The Security Consequences of Bearing Witness

Lessons from Liberia’s Transitional Justice Process

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