In Chapter 9, the concluding chapter, we provide an overview of the main theoretical and empirical contributions. We then lay out what we see as a path forward for future research. This includes but is not limited to a need for additional research into the process by which borders settle. We offer insights into factors that influence the process but more research is needed about how that process unfolds. Second, one implication of this book is that there are multiple paths to rivalry, only one of which is explored here. The path to rivalry for those not competing over borders, or for non-neighbors, demands an alternative theory. Third, we uncover that some rivalries persist even after border settlement, even if their behavior toward each other changes. We do not yet know why these rivalries persist. Fourth, we find evidence consistent with the expectations that conflict management effectiveness vary based on the tools chosen and type of bargaining problem experienced. We discuss the implications of these findings for conflict management research, particularly as it relates to legalized dispute resolution mechanisms.

Chapter 2 introduces two concepts that form the core of the theoretical argument presented in the book: settled borders and commitment problems. The concept of border settlement can encompass either mutual agreement on or mutual satisfaction with (i.e., acceptance of) a territorial border division, and scholars sometimes slip between these two meanings. Our argument relies on a conceptualization of border settlement as the mutual agreement of a border’s delimitation under international law. We also argue that the lack of border settlement contributes to interstate rivalry via a commitment problem. We offer an innovation within the rivalry program by connecting rivalries to a theory of bargaining breakdown. In particular, we argue that many unsettled borders are the product of a commitment problem. Commitment problems are a negotiating obstacle often resolved through war.Yet we propose that states might manage commitment problems through interstate rivalries as well. The second part of the chapter therefore explains the origins of commitment problems and why initiating and maintaining a rivalry might be a valid method for managing certain subsets of them.

Chapter 6 evaluates the relationship between border settlement and the onset of interstate rivalry.We estimate a series of models based on existing rivalry research.These models provide a baseline comparison to our fully specified models, which include unsettled borders and power endowments.Several key findings emerge.Strong support is found for all the expectations derived from the commitment problem framework. Unsettled borders are associated with an increased likelihood of rivalry initiation. Power endowments feature disproportionately more often in contiguous dyad-years with unsettled borders relative to settled borders. Neighboring states are more likely to form rivalries when contesting territory with power endowments. Mixed and relatively weak evidence is found for alternative explanations. Democratic neighbors are less likely to form rivalries but the results are not consistent across models. States closer in power are more likely to form rivalries but again the results are inconsistent. No relationship is found between allied states and rivalry formation, and little evidence is found that disputed ethnic identify claims are related to rivalry initiation.

This chapter uses an original dataset of rebel governance historically and globally to statistically analyze the strength and robustness of the association between rebel goals and rebel governance. The chapter begins with a preliminary test for selection that assesses whether rebel goals are systematically correlated with structural factors that might ease rebel groups’ provision of governance such that rebel goals and governance appear to be systematically correlated when this correlation is an artifact of some latent variable. The results of this analysis suggest that rebel goals are not associated with other factors that might make it easier for rebels with revolutionary goals to implement challenging governance projects. Next, it presents the multivariate regression results of rebel goals on governance. Results are consistent with expectations and robust to a number of different specifications. Third, this chapter examines whether rebels who introduced governance to a broader array of people were more likely to be victorious. The results indicate that more extensive governance confers no military advantage, further suggesting that rebels’ governance is not necessarily militarily advantageous.

This chapter presents the first empirical test of the theory using a paired case comparison of two rebel groups that are highly similar organizationally, had the same knowledge of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) governance, operated in the same place and the same time in Eritrea, but had two different goals: the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). The ELF leadership articulated moderately transformative goals and although rebel leaders were familiar with the CCP’s governance, they decided to introduce but a partial imitation of it. By contrast, the EPLF articulated more transformative, revolutionary goals and explicitly decided to imitate the CCP’s governance almost exactly, even when the EPLF’s governance provoked violent civilian resistance. Because these two organizations were similar in all ways but the transformativity of their long-term goals, the empirical evidence strongly supports the theoretical claims. The chapter draws heavily from archival materials collected in the United States, United Kingdom and rebel primary sources.

This chapter concludes with a summary of the work, as well as a discussion of the implications thereof. In particular, the book identifies implications for research on civil wars and insurgencies, governance and statebuilding, as well as revolution. Critically, if some forms of rebel governance are not directly related to rebels’ military strategy in that they do not necessarily confer resources and recruits, then the consequences of rebel governance institutions are not yet fully known. This chapter suggests instead that the consequences of rebel groups imitating burdensome governance learned from the Chinese Communist Party can affect international politics, national institutions, subnational social cohesion, and individual behavior in ways that have implications for scholars and policy practitioners. The chapter then discusses how the findings of this work relate to research on governance and state formation and calls for a greater synthesis of scholarship on these topics. Finally, it reviews the importance of governance to revolutionaries generally, beyond rebel groups, and demonstrates that learning and imitation about how to govern for revolution has persisted for centuries.

Chapter 7 evaluates rivalry termination expectations.The rivalry process helps states overcome the commitment problem but not necessary through war, as traditionally expected.States instead use the rivalry process to consolidate power so as to disincentivize the revision of an eventual agreement. Given the difficulties of overcoming the commitment problem, we would expect these rivalries to be of longer duration and more violence prone.We derive a series of predictions from this argument. Conflict management techniques should be somewhat effective at helping rivals resolve border disagreements within rivalry but only in the absence of power endowments. The exception is legalized dispute resolution techniques, which may have features that help states overcome commitment problems. Border settlement within rivalry will facilitate rivalry termination but rival states bargaining over territorial borders that contain power endowments will be less likely to terminate. Relations between these rivals will generally improve after border settlement.We also derive hypotheses based whether the neighbors are democracies, share an alliance, power relations, and presence of ethnic kin.

This chapter examines the settlement of the separatist conflict fought in Aceh, Indonesia. It demonstrates that after the loss of East Timor, Indonesia toughened its approach to separatist claims and reaffirmed its acceptance of impunity and belief in the relative importance of state survival over human rights. The chapter argues that this and the UN’s absence from the peace process, meant that the inclusion of an unrestricted amnesty in the final peace agreement was unsurprising. However, the chapter also details the evolution of the separatists’ ideas about the relationship between peace and justice and the importance of ending impunity for human rights violations in Aceh. It demonstrates that although the protection of human rights and the pursuit of accountability for past violations was a key pillar of the separatists’ claim, as the conflict and negotiations wore on, the possibility of Acehnese independence faded, and a political future for its key protagonists became probable, they accepted the pragmatic view that amnesties may help end conflict, allow some measure of self-determination and, perhaps ironically, facilitate the protection of human rights.

This chapter demonstrates that jihadist rebels with more transformative goals imitate the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) governance using the case of Hezbollah in Lebanon. When Hezbollah first formed, it defined its goals as revolutionary and imitated the CCP’s governance, building many of the same institutions as the CCP, despite Hezbollah leaders’ familiarity with more ideologically proximate models for political organization. Hezbollah, however, changed the content of the CCP’s governance institutions to match its jihadist ideology. Even today, Hezbollah leaders and members compare the organization to the CCP or leftist rebel groups that imitated the CCP and note that governance is a strategy for revolutionary change with its origins in the Chinese Civil War. The chapter further underscores that it is more transformative goals, and not ideologies, that determine governance strategies.

Why do some rebel groups undertake costly, burdensome governing projects that undermine their legitimacy, and even trigger resistance and violence that could put their own combatants at risk, while other rebel groups do not? The introductory chapter uses the contemporary cases of three rebel groups’ control of the city Raqqa in Syria to illustrate the empirical puzzle that motivates the book. The chapter then outlines existing works related to rebel governance and details why these approaches cannot explain rebel governance in Raqqa. Specifically, research generally assumes that rebel governance is popular and desirable in ways that confer material and organizational benefits to rebel groups. This chapter then puts forth an alternative conceptualization of rebel governance as varied in terms of its costs and benefits such that rebel leaders make decisions about whether to introduce more or less burdensome governance institutions during war. The chapter then outlines the central argument of the text: that rebel groups’ goals determine their governance strategy. It then describes how the book empirically tests this argument before concluding with a discussion of the importance of the topic.

Drawing on the fundamental principles of the interpretive approach, this chapter provides a set of theoretical explanations for Asian resistance to the United Nations’ anti-amnesty norm. Building on existing explanations for resistance to human rights accountability norms in Asia, it details the historical and contemporary contexts, beliefs and ideas that have led peacemakers to resist the UN’s anti-amnesty policy in the region. It argues that resistance in the Asia-Pacific can be attributed to the persistence of longstanding beliefs about the importance of preserving the sovereignty, stability, and sanctity of the state. These beliefs, which found prominent form during the ‘Asian values’ debate of the 1990s, were forged in a context in which state formation and consolidation existed in tension with relentless separatist claims and the persistent threat of state disintegration.