Sustaining the Peace After Civil War

: Without exception, every widely used data set on civil wars indicates that once a civil war ends in a nation, that nation is at risk of experiencing another one at a later date. I will present a conceptual framework that allows us to identify the factors that make the post-civil war peace more likely to break down into a resumption of civil war. Alternatively, this framework will allow us to point to those factors that make the post-civil war peace more durable. Many of these factors are policy manipulable variables: there are policy tools at the disposal of the international community that can inoculate a post-civil war nation against the prospects of a relapse into renewed civil war. The analytical framework that informs the analysis suggests that the outcome of the previous civil war whether it ended in a government victory, a rebel victory, or a negotiated settlement as well as the duration and deadliness of the civil war affect the durability of the peace after civil war. In addition, characteristics of the post-civil war environment the extent of democracy, the level of economic development, and the degree of ethnic fractionalization also affect the durability of the peace. Finally, there is a set of policy interventions at the disposal of the international community that can be deployed to enhance the prospects of sustaining the peace. These include the introduction of peacekeeping forces, modest levels of investment in economic development and reconstruction, and supporting the establishment of a set of democratic political institutions that are tailored appropriately for the particular configuration of ethnic and religious cleavages in the society. One critical finding from several recent studies is that the longer the peace lasts, the less likely it is to break down into renewed conflict, regardless of the characteristics of the society, its economy, or its political system.