This paper conducts a quantitative analysis of all civil wars ending in the post-World War II period to examine the impact of election timing on post-conflict stability. The paper argues that holding elections soon after a civil war ends generally increases the likelihood of renewed fighting, but that favourable conditions, including decisive victories, demobilisation, peacekeeping, power sharing, and strong political, administrative and judicial institutions, can mitigate this risk.
The paper tests its argument through quantitative analysis of an original dataset of all post-civil-war elections that occurred between 1945 and 2008. In estimating the effect of election timing on the renewal of war, they use matching methods to distinguish the effects of election timing from the effects of other factors that might affect timing as well as the likelihood of a return to war.
Key Findings:
- Holding elections too soon after a civil war raises substantially the risk of war occurring again. National elections being held later significantly reduces the probability of a new war breaking out over ones held earlier. Whether a country’s first elections are national, subnational or concurrent does not have a significant, or even a consistent, effect on the outbreak of a new civil war.
- The environment in which early elections take place is one in which previously warring factions are the most powerful political actors and continue to mobilise supporters along wartime constituencies. Former combatants, turned politicians, reignite warfare by rejecting the results of unfavourable elections and returning to war in the short term, or by governing in an arbitrary, exclusionary, and exploitative manner, which creates new grievances and provokes renewed fighting in the long term.
- However a number of circumstances can reduce the risk of early elections.
- Decisive victories, demobilisation, and peacekeeping diminish the fighting capacity of former combatants who might otherwise be tempted to return to war when faced with unfavourable election results.
- Effective institutional reforms can help new pro-reform actors come to power.
- Power sharing agreements reassure both sides that they will have a place in government, reducing the chances of them rejecting the election results and returning to war. In the long run, however, power sharing can retard a full transition to peaceful democracy and spark renewed fighting since it locks former combatants into power and reifies social cleavages along old lines.
- Having a stronger bureaucracy, a higher level of law and order, and a lower level of corruption in the year in which the first post-conflict election is held, reduces the probability of a new civil war occurring.
Recommendations:
- International pressure in favour of early elections strengthens peace when they provide robust peacekeeping, facilitate the demobilisation of armed forces, back power sharing agreements, and help build robust political institutions.
- However international pressure in favour of early elections undermines peace when it is not backed by effective means to achieve stable democracy.
- In seeking to promote peace following civil wars, international actors should be wary to not only promote elections in the right context, but also to build the right context wherever possible.