Turning the Tables: Military Intervention and the Onset of Negotiations in Civil War

Abstract

When do negotiations occur in civil war? How does military intervention alter this process? While the existing literature presents models of the onset of negotiations – both mediated and unassisted – they are incomplete if they do not consider third-party states involved in the conflict prior to negotiations. I argue that military intervention impacts negotiation onset by adjusting barriers to negotiation through three pathways: the likelihood of military victory, the risk of signaling weakness, and the presence of additional veto players. I examine these mechanisms using logistic random effects models on a dataset of African civil wars. An extension of the argument addresses how expectations of intervention shape conflict behavior. Rebel-supporting interventions, interventions with independent interests, and asymmetric interventions lead to an increase in the likelihood of negotiations occurring. Models controlling for expectations of intervention also suggest that third parties can impact belligerents’ behavior through both expectations and follow-through.