Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars

Introduction: Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars

introduction: institutions and the negotiated settlement of civil wars Institutions can have a powerful influence on the shape of social conflict. South Africa, a country that endured a brutal civil war throughout the 1980s between its black majority and white minority, is a particularly telling example of the capacity of institutions to foster either conflict or cooperation among collectivities with distinct interests. Institutions that fostered violent conflict appeared in South Africa early in the twentieth century. Several pieces of legislation, including the Natives Land Act (No. 27) of 1913, marked the institutionalization of racial discrimination in that country.1 The reaction of blacks to such measures was swift and included, most prominently, the formation of the South African Native National Congress (renamed the African National Congress [anc] in 1923). Following the initiation of the policy of apartheid in 1948, anc leaders called on the organization to use strikes, boycotts, and other forms of civil disobedience and noncooperation to challenge the apartheid system. With no other means of securing institutional change once the South African government outlawed the anc and the Pan-Africanist Congress in 1960, efforts to change the rules of the game turned violent and took the form of a civil war in the early 1980s. Despite the bitterness provoked by the conflict, the divided communities of South Africa proved capable of constructing an enduring peace. During the early 1990s, adversaries began the process of crafting a mutually accept1 . The Natives Land Act allocated areas to blacks and whites in which they could own freehold land. Blacks, who made up two-thirds of the country’s population, were restricted to 7.5 percent of the land; whites, with one-fifth of the population, were allocated 92.5 percent (Byrnes 1997). 2 crafting peace able settlement intended to ensure that minorities enjoyed a degree of in- fluence at the political center and that the majority would be prohibited from using state power to threaten others. The means that the architects of the South African settlement relied upon to accomplish these goals were a series of power-sharing and power-dividing institutions. Institutions of this nature fostered an environment in which warring groups could lay down their arms and work together to fashion a peaceful future for South Africa that has now endured for more than ten years. The tragedy associated with the civil conflict in South Africa is not an isolated incident. Today, intrastate conflicts are more common than wars between states. Twenty-five countries had ongoing civil wars as recently as 1999.2 The human costs associated with these conflicts are staggering. One estimate places the total number of deaths directly attributable to civil wars fought since World War II at 16.2 million.3 Another study calculates that the average number of refugees displaced by the fighting in each of these con- flicts is more than one-half million.4 The indirect costs of these wars extend well beyond the hostilities themselves. Civilians, for example, continue to bear the costs of domestic warfare long after the fighting has ended. The breakdown in the provision of government services following civil wars leaves in its wake crises ranging from the rapid spread of infectious diseases to a higher incidence of violent criminal behavior.5 This book, which is about the bargained resolution of civil wars, focuses on one means of bringing these conflicts to an end and building an enduring peace. The conventional wisdom is that negotiated settlements of civil wars are not only difficult to construct but are also among the forms of civilcon flict resolution least likely to produce an enduring peace.6 As the South African case illustrates, however, civil wars can successfully be ended via negotiated settlements. Drawing on a data set of all civil wars ended through negotiations between 1945 and 1999, we seek to draw attention to the merits of this particular means of ending civil conflicts as well as to identify those features of negotiated settlements that facilitate a long-lasting peace among former adversaries. Our central argument is that those settlements that include an array of institutions designed to address the issue of central concern to adversaries 2. Fearon and Laitin 2003, 75. 3. Ibid. 4. Doyle and Sambanis 2000. 5. Ghobarah et al. 2003. 6. See, for example, Wagner 1993, Licklider 1995, and Walter 2002. introduction 3 emerging...