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HAVING EXAMINEDTHE POOL of the clearest cases of both successful and failed postwarpeacebuilding,whatcanonesayabouttheimplicationsofthesefindings for the theory of civil wars and their recurrence, and for theories of postconflict peacebuilding? This chapter revisits the initial analysis of what scholars have found about the causes of civil wars and of consolidated postconflict peace. It first recaps the central findings of the five previous, empirical chapters (part II) of the book. Here the focus is on synthesizing the findings of the case studies, tempered by an examination of the range of cases of war recurrence and nonrecurrence that have informed the study. I then turn to theory, focusing on the principal overarching approaches to peacebuilding that dominate contemporary debate on postwar peacebuilding. The next section sets forth the concept of “legitimacy-focused peacebuilding” and its potential to address shortcomings of the four extant approaches. Then, informed by the perils of extrapolating policy implications from the theoretical findings, the subsequent chapter turns to what, if anything, these findings mean for the ability of internal and external actors to shape peacebuilding outcomes. The Main Findings of the Book The first important implication of this book is that elite political behavior— more directly than economic risk factors, state capacity, natural resource dependence , or democracy per se—lies at the heart of the success of efforts to consolidate peace after civil wars. Political factors, shaped by national elites and to a lesser extent external diplomacy and leverage, condition the chances of whether peace can be consolidated or not. These findings underscore the focus on “spoilers ”andtheneedtounderstandandmanagethem(Stedman1997;Zahar2003). Such factors figure in much of the literature on postconflict reconstruction and peacebuilding, but economic factors have been emphasized more recently, especially in the quantitative literature that has achieved a certain stature in political Legitimacy-Focused Peacebuilding 8 Conclusions forTheory 214 Implications for Theory and Practice science. Moreover, the extensive literature on peacekeeping does not adequately address these challenges (Durch 1996, 2006; Howard 2008). Specifically, inclusion and exclusion are crucial factors in many cases of war recurrence, and should be the first place to look for evidence of potential reversiontointernalarmedconflictinpostwarsocieties .Thisexclusiontakestheform (as defined in this book) of perceived or actual deprivation of an opportunity to participate in state administration in ways that defy the expectations of former warring parties or the social groups associated with them. Exclusion is prevalent in many cases of recurrence. However, it is important to acknowledge the presence of several other pathways and variables that are associated with failure. I am calling special attention to the role of exclusion and inclusion but am not saying these are the sole causal variables in war recurrence. Recurrence cases point to other factors in explaining outcomes such as meddlesome or invasive neighbors; dissatisfaction in “frozen” conflicts with the status quo after some time; and the resurgence of rebels organizing after apparent defeat and without significant changes in government policy. Nevertheless, in many of these cases (recall Tibet , Nicaragua, and Peru), exclusion also played a significant role. Even cases that were omitted from the analysis as not enjoying sufficient levels of “interwar” peace, like Cambodia and Senegal, exhibited exclusionary behavior. Moreover, in cases where many of the postulated factors prevalent in current theory—natural resource dependency, poverty, and economic malaise—were present, these factors were not considered key factors in the recurrence of armed conflict. Recall the cases of Liberia, the Central African Republic, and Sudan (natural resource dependency) and the poor economies of Nicaragua and Mali. Conversely, here exclusionary behavior proved the most helpful for understanding these recurrent wars. And even where exclusion was not the predominant factor, neither were these more commonly touted variables. Consider again the cases of Nicaragua, Burundi, and Rwanda, where such factors cannot distinguish these recurrences from nonrecurrence in cases like Djibouti, Laos, Nepal, Sierra Leone, and Paraguay. These cases instead point to the importance of other sorts of factors—certainly to political exclusion, but also to a regional level of analysis (bothformeddlesomeneighborsandforthepatternsofviolence)andtotheprevailing global and regional norms about state repression. Such factors have not received the same level of attention as poverty, inequality, and natural resources. This is not to say that other hypothesized variables are unimportant. Many casesexaminedhere—Liberia,Haiti,theCentralAfricanRepublic,Sudan,Mali, Nicaragua, East Timor, Burundi, and Zimbabwe—are poor countries characterized by very weak formal institutions, including state institutions. Despite the problems associated with conceptualizing and measuring state “fragility” or “weakness,” countries that have a low per capita income or whose formal institutions are irrelevant, penetrable, or unreliable appear...

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