Peace and Violence after Conflict Shoko KOHAMA Nara, Japan B.A. University of Tokyo, 2006 M.A. University of Tokyo, 2008 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Politics University of Virginia December 2014 Contents Abstract vi Acknowledgments viii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation ......................................... 6 1.2 The Argument ....................................... 8 1.3 The Scope of This Research ............................... 12 1.4 Literature on Post-Conflict Peace ............................. 13 1.4.1 Theories of Post-Conflict Peace .......................... 13 1.4.2 The Role of Formal Agreements ......................... 14 1.4.3 Material Conditions of Post-Conflict Peace ................... 15 1.5 Outline of the Dissertation ................................. 16 2 A Theory of Post-Conflict Peace 18 2.1 A Basic Model ....................................... 21 2.1.1 Ceasefire ...................................... 21 2.1.2 Post-Conflict Phase ................................ 24 2.1.3 Results of A Basic Model ............................. 27 2.2 A Full Model ........................................ 29 2.2.1 Outcomes and General Mechanisms ....................... 32 2.2.2 Analysis: Resumption of Fighting ........................ 35 2.2.3 Analysis: Achievement of Ceasefire ........................ 38 i CONTENTS ii 2.3 Summaries and Implications ................................ 42 3 Explain the Duration of Ceasefires 45 3.1 Dataset on Ceasefires .................................... 47 3.2 Measurement of Violent Resource Transfer ........................ 49 3.2.1 Territorial Change ................................. 49 3.2.2 Characteristics of Territorial Change ....................... 51 3.2.3 Terms of Settlement ................................ 56 3.3 Alternative Hypotheses .................................. 57 3.4 A Statistical Model ..................................... 58 3.5 Results ............................................ 60 3.5.1 Resource Transfer Causes Unstable Peace .................... 60 3.5.2 \Who Gets What" Matters ............................ 65 3.6 Summary of Findings ................................... 69 4 Illustration: Sino-Vietnamese Conflict 70 4.1 Case Selection ........................................ 73 4.2 Puzzles: Ceasefires between China and Vietnam .................... 74 4.3 Theoretical Predictions and Competing Arguments ................... 76 4.4 Comparison over Time ................................... 78 4.4.1 Road to the First Sino-Vietnamese War ..................... 79 4.4.2 The First Sino-Vietnamese War .......................... 81 4.4.3 Fragile Ceasefire .................................. 83 4.4.4 The Second War and Post-War Peace ...................... 85 4.5 Comparison across Locations ............................... 87 4.5.1 Between 1974 and 1988 .............................. 89 4.5.2 Resumption of Conflict in March 1988 and after ................ 92 4.5.3 Rise in Hostility in 2014 ............................. 93 4.6 Past and Future of the Sino-Vietnamese Relationship .................. 95 5 Conclusion 97 5.1 Explaining Post-Conflict Peace .............................. 98 5.1.1 Why and Under What Conditions Does Fighting Resume? ........... 98 CONTENTS iii 5.1.2 Findings of Empirical Analysis .......................... 100 5.1.3 Future Avenue of Research ............................ 103 5.2 Implications for International Relations ......................... 104 5.3 Constructing Post-Conflict Peace ............................. 108 Appendix A Proof of the Model 111 Appendix B Descriptive Statistics of Variables 114 Appendix C List of Cases 116 Appendix D Post-Estimation Analysis 121 D.1 The Effect of Territorial Change (Table 3.1) ....................... 121 D.2 The Nature of Territorial Change (Table 3.2) ...................... 125 List of Figures 1.1 Duration of Ceasefires 1946-2004 ............................. 2 2.1 A Strategic Game of Ceasefire ............................... 22 2.2 A Basic Model: The Sequence of Moves ......................... 26 2.3 The Loser's Strategies ................................... 28 2.4 A Full Model: The Sequence of Moves .......................... 31 2.5 The Loser's Strategies in A Full Model .......................... 34 3.1 Density and Area of Exchanged Territories ....................... 55 3.2 Effects on the Likelihood of War Resumption (Model 5 in Table 3.1) ......... 63 3.3 Characteristics of the Gainer and Survival of Post-War Peace (Model 3 in Table 3.2) 66 4.1 Map: Southeast Asia in 2012 (Central Intelligence Agency, 2012) ........... 75 4.2 Map: South China Sea (Central Intelligence Agency, 1988) .............. 88 D.1 Deviance Residuals of the original analysis (Model 5, Table 3.1) ............ 122 D.2 Dfbeta of the quasi-original analysis (Model 1, Table D.1) ............... 123 D.3 Dfbeta of the post-estimation analysis (Model 4, Table D.1) .............. 123 D.4 Deviance Residuals of the original analysis (Model 3, Table 3.2) ............ 126 D.5 Dfbeta of the quasi-original analysis (Model 1, Table D.2) ............... 126 iv List of Tables 3.1 Replications and the Effect of Territorial Change .................... 61 3.2 Characteristics of Territorial Change and Post-War Peace ............... 67 4.1 Predictions of Existing Theories .............................. 77 4.2 Theoretical Predictions: the Duration of Ceasefires ................... 87 B.1 Summary Statistics .................................... 114 B.2 Cross-Correlation Table .................................. 115 D.1 Robustness Check, Table 3.1 in Chapter 3 ........................ 124 D.2 Robustness Check, Table 3.2 in Chapter 3 ........................ 127 v Abstract This dissertation investigates why certain post-conflict peace between states last longer than others. Many ceasefires break down within a few years, which suggests that despite tremendous costs, violence has been a surprisingly ineffective means of solving international disputes, although existing literature assumes that armed conflict mitigates the causes of conflict. Specifically, two theoretical puzzles are drawn from this observation. The first puzzle is why conflicting parties often dishonor ceasefires to which they once mutually agreed. Because rational adversaries must believe that they are better off terminating conflict than continuing fighting at the moment of the conflict’s termination, they should not have an incentive to renege on the settlement in the same environment. The second puzzle is why countries fail to peacefully renegotiate an initial settlement and resort to force when they become dissatisfied with it. Revisionist wishes do not necessarily imply that further fighting is inevitable because adversaries can peacefully renegotiate the terms of the original settlement if necessary. This situation is all the more puzzling considering that, in the framework of the existing literature, combat resolves the cause of conflict, whether it is informational asymmetry or a commitment problem. To solve these questions, this dissertation provides a game-theoretic model that analyzes con- flict termination, renegotiation, and conflict resumption as a single process. My theory demonstrates that uncertainty regarding the degree to which resources acquired during conflict empower the gainer determines the stability of post-conflict peace because the divergence between the ex-ante expec- tation and ex-post realization of the gainer's post-conflict power growth provokes a revisionist and opportunistic incentive for the loser. Specifically, conflict resumes when the country who obtained resources, such as territory, during a conflict fails to fully exploit the resources because such tem- poral stagnation in resource usage incentivizes the loser to seek an opportunity to recapture some resources before the gainer can fully utilize the resources. Conversely, the loser appeases his growing vi ABSTRACT vii opponent and fighting does not resume when the gainer's power increases more than anticipated because the loser does not want to confront a strong opponent. The disturbing effects of uncertainty are amplified, ceteris paribus, if a greater amount of resources is transferred; if the gainer is expected to be more capable of extracting obtained resources; and if capable gainers, such as democracies, obtain resources that reward investments, such as colonies. The logic behind these findings is that, in such circumstance, the losing party has a greater incentive to react to the temporal stagnation of the gainer's resource usage more opportunistically, anticipating that it would have to give up more resources to appease the growing gainer if it did not resume conflict now. Empirical analyses confirm these arguments. The statistical analysis of ceasefires between 1946 and 1997 demonstrates that ceasefires that include resource transfer such as territorial change are thirteen times more likely to break down than those without territorial change. Moreover, the analysis shows that ceasefires are most likely to break down when wealthy democracies obtain large and populated territory. The case study on the Sino-Vietnamese conflict also shows that the nature of transferred resources conditional on the gainer's capability of exploiting them is the key to explaining fragile ceasefires at their land border and relatively stable ceasefires in the South China Sea. This study provides sensible grounds for determining successful third party intervention, identi-