Volume 27, Issue 1

Within the field of peace and conflict studies, data-production on peace agreements has rapidly increased. One complicated task for scholars and practitioners alike is understanding the relationships between peace agreements and the relationships between agreements and processes. For example, discerning when an agreement establishes continuity with previous agreements and, thus, belongs to the same peace process or when an agreement signals the start of a new peace process is not straightforward. In this study, I highlight what appears to be a fuzzy boundary for categorizing some disciplinary core concepts which, in turn, can cause our data to be unreliable. As a point of comparison, I investigate how two major peace agreement datasets – UCDP Peace Agreement Dataset and PA-X Peace Agreement Dataset  – associate peace agreements with peace processes and find differences and ambiguities with respect to how they are coded in both databases. As a result of such inconsistencies, analyses drawn from these data can have different outputs and lead to misunderstandings about peace processes. Here, I demonstrate the disciplinary need for clearer principles to effectively associate peace agreements with peace processes and then argue for developing a disciplinary standard for the criteria used to operationalize peace processes. Crucially, a standard method for aggregating agreements into processes will facilitate consistent data production across databases.

I study the relationship between the likelihood of a violent domestic conflict and the risk that such a conflict “externalizes” (i.e. spreads to another country by creating an international dispute). I consider a situation in which a domestic conflict between a government and a rebel group has the potential to externalize. I show that the risk of externalization increases the likelihood of a peaceful outcome, but only if the government is sufficiently powerful relative to the rebels, the risk of externalization is sufficiently high, and the foreign actor who can intervene in the domestic conflict is sufficiently uninterested in material costs and benefits. I show how this model helps to understand the recent and successful peace process between the Colombian government and the country’s most powerful rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

This study re-examines the international convergence in defence spending for 125 countries spanning 1985–2018. We employ the approach of Phillips and Sul, which tests for the existence of convergence clubs and the modelling of different transition paths to convergence. Our findings suggest no overall defence spending convergence at the world, income groups (except the low-income countries) and regional levels. However, we identify two convergence clubs using an iterative testing procedure and eventually (i) at world level, these two clubs exhibit convergence, and (ii) while taking into account Gross national income, geography and defence alliances/economic cooperation it is possible to make different number of convergence/divergence clubs. Contrary to previous findings, this study finds that the process of convergence in defence spending does not reflect the desirable emanations of defence policies sharing similar characteristics, at least in terms of the allocation of scarce public resources across the globe.

Territorial power-sharing arrangements in civil wars face trade-offs between broadening inclusions and dangers of secession. This article argues that in civil wars over a government, the commitment problem is overcome as secession is not in its political agenda, however, the central concern pertains to the issues that arise in policymaking. Granting autonomy at the subnational level leads to peace without weakening the central authority. In addition, in bargaining over policies with multiple conflict parties, a government strategically makes concessions of territorial power-sharing to retain the status quo of national policy and positions in the government in a situation where dominance by one party is not attainable. It signals a government’s less resolute attitude in accommodating additional rebel groups. Hence, territorial power-sharing entails positive externality. This article finds that in civil wars over a government, at a dyad level, the positive effects of territorial power-sharing in peace decreases over time. Instead, the likelihood of a peace agreement with another rebel group increases. The results imply that the effectiveness of the autonomy arrangement depends on strategic concessions and broader future inclusions.

The aim of this study is to survey the literature dealing with the relationship between defense expenditures and external debt. Especially, nowadays, amid the international financial crisis and the global security challenges, understanding the relationship between external debt and defense spending is prominent in designing the debt management policy in conjunction with defense policy. The empirical investigation has produced mixed results, which can be attributed to differences in data sets or time periods, variable selection, econometric methodologies used etc. However, most of the studies confirm the presence of a long-run relationship among military spending and external debt and consider military spending as a significant contributing factor to the stock of external debt.