Rebel—Military Integration and Civil War Termination

Civil wars are far less likely to end in peace agreements than are international wars, and more than a third of civil wars restart within a few years. This may be due to the time-inconsistency of peace settlements in civil wars: once the rebels demobilize, they lose bargaining power and the government can renege on its promises. This makes rebels reluctant to stop fighting and quick to remobilize for a fight. A self-enforcing agreement could prevent this, but it is difficult to create such agreements. Recent efforts to structure self-enforcing agreements after civil wars have involved the integration of former rebels in a new national army. This solution should make unilateral defection from peace settlements more costly. This is an increasingly popular mechanism used in peace settlements, but it is not yet well understood. We do not know if it works or under what conditions it is likely to be used. This article provides the first systematic study of rebel—military integration agreements and considers if and how such agreements can help build peace. It also analyzes the conditions under which such agreements will be reached and implemented. The analysis suggests that rebel—military integration has not been an effective peacebuilding mechanism, but this is often due to poor implementation of the agreements.