 Enforcing Peace Agreements in Fragile States through Commitment TechnologiesSyed Mansoob Murshed and Philip Verwimp ULB Institutional Repository from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles Abstract: This chapter models the instability of peace agreements, motivated by the empirical regularity with which peace agreements tend to break down following civil war. When war provides opportunities for profit to one side, or when other difficulties such as historical grievances exist, peace may become incentive incompatible. The party that has something to gain from surprise warfare may agree to peace, but will later renege on it. It is shown that the levels of conflict chosen by this group are an increasing function of both grievance and greed, but decreasing in the direct costs of war. Peace is achievable via externally devised mechanisms that enhance commitment to peace. Aid and direct military peacekeeping intervention (sanctions) can reduce or eliminate conflict. These sanctions, however, need to be credible. Finally, the independent provision and finance of international sanctions are considered. When these arrangements yield little benefit to financial sponsors, or are very costly to them, the bite of the sanctions can become ineffective. Keywords: Commitment problems; Commitment technologies; Peace treaties; Sanctions (search for similar items in EconPapers) There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/204843 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Access Statistics for this paper More papers in ULB Institutional Repository from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles Contact information at EDIRC. |
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