The Aftermath of Civil War

Abstract

This article introduces the special issue on 'The Aftermath of Civil War' and presents the research project from which the articles in this issue originate. The article presents a few empirical observations that demonstrate the increasing importance of the post-conflict situation for actors that engage to reduce the global incidence of armed conflict. The global incidence of conflict was reduced from 1992 to 2002, since there were more terminations than onsets. Although this trend seems to have halted, a scrutiny of the onsets shows that they increasingly are recurrences of conflicts that have been inactive for a period. In 2005 and 2006, there were no new conflicts. The article then briefly introduces the six contributions to the special issue. The articles investigate the importance of peacekeeping troops, elections, aid, capital flight, and exclusion of parties from peace agreements in post-conflict situations. The articles are also applicable to countries that have not had armed conflicts, as the authors investigate the relationship between ethnic diversity and military spending and the determinants of youths' decisions to participate in rebel groups.

Microfoundations of Civil Conflict Reconciliation: Ethnicity and Context

“…This conclusion by no means implies that ageold ethnic differences necessarily is a dominant cause of violent conflict, but our finding does point to the importance of investing in trust-building and minority-majority normalization among the general population as well as political elites in the aftermath of ethnically shaped conflicts and wars. This finding also fits well with reports that ethnic conflicts, and particularly separatist ones, are both harder to end (Walter 2003) and more likely to recur once a peaceful settlement has been negotiated (Collier, et al 2008;Elbadawi, et al 2008;Quinn, Mason, and Gurses 2007). Contested issues related to national recognition, equity in rights and privileges, and (local) self-determination are often portrayed as indivisible by the protagonists.…”

“…A large portion of today's conflict outbreaks are recurrences of old conflicts, and as a consequence, the average conflict age is on the rise (HSRP 2010). It thus appears that the "conflict trap" (Collier, Elliott, Hegre, Hoeffler, Reynal-Querol, and Sambanis 2003) is more than fancy jargon; about 60% of all countries with civil wars fall back into violence within ten years (Elbadawi, Hegre, and Milante 2008). To break the conflict trap, we need to enhance our understanding of post-conflict reconciliation and sustainable peace building.…”

Predicting Armed Conflict, 2010-20501

“…It is clear that conflicts, when ending, have a high risk of recurrence. Collier, Hoeffler and Söderbom (2008) estimate the risk of conflict reversal to be around 40% during the first post‐conflict decade, and Elbadawi, Hegre and Milante (2008) find an even higher rate using a more inclusive definition of conflict. These studies, however, often fail to acknowledge that conflicts have strong adverse impact on major conflict risk factors.…”

“…There are good reasons to believe that the underlying transition probability matrix for a country with a given set of characteristics is not constant over the observed period. At least we know that the end of the Cold War led to the eruption of an unusually high number of new conflicts, but at the same time increased the number of conflict terminations (Elbadawi et al. 2008).…”

The Liberal Moment Fifteen Years On1

“…Another encouraging sign is that the number of entirely new conflicts has declined even more drastically, to the point where no new conflicts started in 2005 or 2006 (Elbadawi, Hegre, and Milhous 2008, Figure 2). 7 It is possible, of course, that the remaining conflicts, many of which are decades old, are harder to end than the others.…”