Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T11:17:40.519Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A latent variable approach to measuring and explaining peace agreement strength

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2019

Rob Williams Open the ORCID record for Rob Williams [Opens in a new window] ,
Daniel J. Gustafson ,
Stephen E. Gent  and
Mark J. C. Crescenzi
Rob Williams*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 361 Hamilton Hall, Chapel Hill, NC27599, United States
Daniel J. Gustafson
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 361 Hamilton Hall, Chapel Hill, NC27599, United States
Stephen E. Gent
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 361 Hamilton Hall, Chapel Hill, NC27599, United States
Mark J. C. Crescenzi
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 361 Hamilton Hall, Chapel Hill, NC27599, United States
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Much of the peace agreement durability literature assumes that stronger peace agreements are more likely to survive the trials of the post-conflict environment. This work does an excellent job identifying which provisions indicate that agreements are more likely to endure. However, there is no widely accepted way to directly measure the strength of agreements, and existing measures suffer from a lack of nuance or reliance on subjective weighting. We use a Bayesian item response theory model to develop a principled measure of the latent strength of peace agreements in civil conflicts from 1975 to 2005. We illustrate the measure's utility by exploring how various international factors such as sanctions and mediation contribute to the strength or weakness of agreements.

Keywords

Bayesianlatent variable modelsmeasurementmulti-level and hierarchical models
Type
Original Article
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 89 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alesina, A and Dollar, D (2000) Who gives foreign aid to whom and why? Journal of Economic Growth 5, 33–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anna, C (2015) U.S. pursues new UN sanctions on South Sudan as deal unsigned. The orange county register. https://www.ocregister.com/2015/08/18/us-pursues-new-un-sanctions-on-south-sudan-as-deal-unsigned/.Google Scholar
Arbetman, M and Kugler, J (1997) Political Capacity and Economic Behavior. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Armstrong, D, Bakker, R, Carroll, R, Hare, C, Poole, KT and Rosenthal, H (2014) Analyzing Spatial Models of Choice and Judgment with R. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Badran, R (2014) Intrastate peace agreements and the durability of peace. Conflict Management and Peace Science 31, 193–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bafumi, J, Gelman, A, Park, DK and Kaplan, N (2005) Practical issues in implementing and understanding Bayesian ideal point estimation. Political Analysis 13, 171–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakker, R, Hill, DW and Moore, WH (2016) How much terror? Dissidents, governments, institutions, and the cross-national study of terror attacks. Journal of Peace Research 53, 711–726.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bearce, DH and Tirone, DC (2010) Foreign aid effectiveness and the strategic goals of donor governments. The Journal of Politics 72, 837–851.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beardsley, K (2008) Agreement without peace? International mediation and time inconsistency problems. American Journal of Political Science 52, 723–740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beardsley, KC, Quinn, DM, Biswas, B and Wilkenfeld, J (2006) Mediation style and crisis outcomes. Journal of Conflict Resolution 50, 58–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benson, BV and Clinton, JD (2016) Assessing the variation of formal military alliances. Journal of Conflict Resolution 60, 866–898.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Böhmelt, T (2012) Why many cooks if they can spoil the broth? The determinants of multiparty mediation. Journal of Peace Research 49, 701–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, R and Kenkel, B (Forthcoming) Prediction, proxies, and power. American Journal of Political Science.Google Scholar
Cunningham, DE (2006) Veto players and civil war duration. American Journal of Political Science 50, 875–892.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeRouen, K and Bercovitch, J (2012) Trends in civil war mediation. In Hewitt, JJ, Wilkenfeld, J, Gurr, TR and Heldt, B (eds), Peace and Conflict 2012. College Park, MD: Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland, pp. 59–70.Google Scholar
DeRouen, K, Bercovitch, J and Pospieszna, P (2011) Introducing the Civil Wars Mediation (CWM) dataset. Journal of Peace Research 48, 663–672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreher, A, Sturm, J-E and Vreeland, JR (2009) Development aid and international politics: does membership on the UN security council influence World Bank decisions? Journal of Development Economics 88, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dumo, D (2015) South Sudan president signs peace deal despite concerns. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southsudan-unrest-president/south-sudans-president-says-will-sign-peace-deal-despite-concerns-idUSKCN0QV1MF20150826.Google Scholar
Dür, A, Baccini, L and Elsig, M (2014) The design of international trade agreements: introducing a new dataset. The Review of International Organizations 9, 353–375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fariss, CJ (2014) Respect for human rights has improved over time: modeling the changing standard of accountability. American Political Science Review 108, 297–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fortna, VP (2003) Scraps of paper? Agreements and the durability of peace. International Organization 57, 337–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gartner, SS (2011) Signs of trouble: regional organization mediation and civil war agreement durability. The Journal of Politics 73, 380–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gartner, SS and Bercovitch, J (2006) Overcoming obstacles to peace: the contribution of mediation to short-lived conflict settlements. International Studies Quarterly 50, 819–840.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gleditsch, NP, Wallensteen, P, Eriksson, M, Sollenberg, M and Strand, H (2002) Armed conflict 1946–2001: a new dataset. Journal of Peace Research 39, 615–637.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, J and Slapin, JB (2012) How effective are preferential trade agreements? Ask the experts. The Review of International Organizations 7, 309–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greig, JM (2005) Stepping into the fray: when do mediators mediate? American Journal of Political Science 49, 249–266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harbom, L, Högbladh, S and Wallensteen, P (2006) Armed conflict and peace agreements. Journal of Peace Research 43, 617–631.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartzell, CA (1999) Explaining the stability of negotiated settlements to intrastate wars. Journal of Conflict Resolution 43, 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartzell, C and Hoddie, M (2003) Institutionalizing peace: power sharing and post-civil war conflict management. American Journal of Political Science 47, 318–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartzell, C, Hoddie, M and Rothchild, D (2001) Stabilizing the peace after civil war: an investigation of some key variables. International Organization 55, 183–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joshi, M and Darby, J (2013) Introducing the Peace Accords Matrix (PAM): a database of comprehensive peace agreements and their implementation, 1989–2007. Peacebuilding 1, 256–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joshi, M, Quinn, JM and Regan, PM (2015) Annualized implementation data on comprehensive intrastate peace accords, 1989–2012. Journal of Peace Research 52, 551–562.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kadera, KM (1998) Transmission, barriers, and constraints: a dynamic model of the spread of war. Journal of Conflict Resolution 42, 367–387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kugler, J and Tammen, RL (2012) The Performance of Nations. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Little, R and Rubin, DB (2002) Statistical Analysis with Missing Data, 2nd Edn. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, MG, Gurr, TR and Jaggers, K (2014) POLITY IV PROJECT: Dataset Users' Manual. Codebook, Center for Systemic Peace.Google Scholar
Morgan, TC, Bapat, N and Kobayashi, Y (2014) Threat and imposition of economic sanctions 1945–2005: updating the TIES dataset. Conflict Management and Peace Science 31, 541–558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, TC, Bapat, N and Krustev, V (2009) The threat and imposition of economic sanctions, 1971–2000*. Conflict Management and Peace Science 26, 92–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nichols, M (2015) U.S. proposes United Nations arms embargo on South Sudan. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southsudan-unrest-un/u-s-proposes-united-nations-arms-embargo-on-south-sudan-idUSKCN0QP00V20150820.Google Scholar
Olson, M and Pearson, FS (2002) Civil war characteristics, mediators, and resolution. Conflict Resolution Quarterly 19, 421–445.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pemstein, D, Meserve, SA and Melton, J (2010) Democratic compromise: a latent variable analysis of ten measures of regime type. Political Analysis 18, 426–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, J and Kisangani, EF (2009) The international military intervention dataset: an updated resource for conflict scholars. Journal of Peace Research 46, 589–599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rasch, G (1980) Probabilistic Models for Some Intelligence and Attainment Tests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. OCLC: 6278633.Google Scholar
Regan, PM (2002) Third-party interventions and the duration of intrastate conflicts. Journal of Conflict Resolution 46, 55–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reid, L (2017) Finding a peace that lasts: mediator leverage and the durable resolution of civil wars. Journal of Conflict Resolution 61, 1401–1431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schnakenberg, KE and Fariss, CJ (2014) Dynamic patterns of human rights practices. Political Science Research and Methods 2, 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, BC and Spaniel, W (2018) Introducing ν-Clear: a latent variable approach to measuring nuclear proficiency. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 0738894217741619.Google Scholar
Svensson, I (2009) Who brings which peace? Neutral versus biased mediation and institutional peace arrangements in civil wars. Journal of Conflict Resolution 53, 446–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Themnér, L and Wallensteen, P (2014) Armed conflicts, 1946–2013. Journal of Peace Research 51, 541–554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Touval, S and Zartman, IW (1985) Introduction: mediation in theory. In Touval, S and Zartman, IW (eds), International Mediation in Theory and Practice. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Treier, S and Jackman, S (2008) Democracy as a latent variable. American Journal of Political Science 52, 201–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wehr, P and Lederach, JP (1991) Mediating conflict in central America. Journal of Peace Research 28, 85–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werner, S and Yuen, A (2005) Making and keeping peace. International Organization 59, 261–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank (2018) World development indicators 2018. Technical report, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Williams et al. supplementary material

Appendix

Download Williams et al. supplementary material(File)
File 1.6 MB