The Dark Side of Power-Sharing: Middle Managers and Civil War Recurrence

A Compromised Peace? The Effect of Power-Sharing Arrangements on Post-War Violence

“…Peace agreement also frequently facilitate the fragmentation of government and rebel signatories into smaller factions which are then outside the settlement and resort to violence to get back in (Cunningham, Bakke, and Seymour 2012). Finally, once power-shared is in the capital many former government and rebel commanders might neglect their former combatants causing disaffection and, ultimately, increased levels of post-war violence (Daly 2014;Themnér 2011). halves from an average of 800 fatalities in the immediate aftermath of a peace agreement to about 500 fatalities after five years.…”

“…This enables government and rebel elites to implement an effective 'stick-and-carrot' counterinsurgency strategy (Daly 2014;Themnér 2011). They can reward their commanders and fighters and, in doing so, retain tight control over their armed forces.…”

“…This has considerable implications on the 'stick-and-carrot' counter-insurgency strategy available to the elite coalition (Daly 2014;Grossman 1995;Themnér 2011). Reduced privileged access to state resources results in elites having fewer rents at their disposal and, ultimately, less opportunities to reward their commanders and fighters.…”

“…Excluded armed groups continue their fighting while newly emerging armed groups soon join the fray (Boyle 2014;Nilsson and Söderberg Kovacs 2011). To better understand the determinants of post-war violence, scholars have turned to the internal politics of rebel movements and the incentives former combatants might have for renewed violence after war (Cunningham, Bakke, and Seymour 2012;Daly 2014;Themnér 2011;Walter 2004). However, these approaches do not explicate if power-sharing impacts these actors and the wider post-war order.…”

When National Unity Governments are neither National, United, nor Governments: The Case of Tunisia

“…Few studies have attempted to adjudicate between these competing accounts and determine what effect powersharing has on polarization, government effectiveness, and democracy. Most of the literature on power-sharing instead focuses on post-conflict environments (i.e., Cammett and Malesky 2012;Daly 2014;Haass and Ottmann 2017), examining whether such agreements succeed or fail in preventing a relapse into violence. This is a significant oversight, as the majority of cases of power-sharing actually occur not in post-conflict countries but in new democracies with no recent history of conflict.…”