Fighting with Faith

Isak Svensson
Additional contact information
Isak Svensson: Department of Peace and Conflict Research Uppsala University, Sweden

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2007, vol. 51, issue 6, 930-949

Abstract: A growing literature has started to explore the relationship between religious dimensions and the escalation, duration, and termination of armed conflicts. This study explores the conditions for negotiated settlements. The author argues that if the belligerents' demands are explicitly anchored in a religious tradition, they will come to perceive the conflicting issues as indivisible, and the conflict will be less likely to be settled through negotiations. Utilizing unique data on the primary parties' religious demands and identities, all intrastate conflict-dyads in the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), 1989-2003, are examined. The study finds that if governments or rebel-groups have made explicit religious claims, these conflict-dyads are significantly less likely than others to be terminated through negotiated settlement. By contrast, whether the primary parties come from different religious traditions does not affect the chances for negotiated settlement.

Keywords: religion; civil wars; peace agreement; indivisibility; negotiated settlement; internal armed conflicts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002707306812 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:51:y:2007:i:6:p:930-949

DOI: 10.1177/0022002707306812

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().