The aim of this thesis is to determine the relationship between natural resources and peace, by examining whether a correlation exists between conflicts related to natural resources and conflict recurrence. The hypothesis is that conflicts with distribution mechanisms increase the likelihood of conflict recurrence. This is tested through the application of Mill’s Method of Difference and a SFC, cross-case comparison of two conflicts in Angola between 1991 and 2002. The first conflict between UNITA and the government of Angola was characterized by the usage of diamonds for rebel group financing, whereas the second conflict between various separatist groups and the Angolan government in the enclave of Cabinda concerned the inequitable distribution of oil revenues. The findings show that both conflicts resumed, showing little support for the paper’s hypothesis. This thesis’ empirical data derives from different sources of secondary nature. The findings suggest that the paper’s hypothesis lacks sufficient support and therefore, alternative explanations are put forward in order to explain the inconsistency with the hypothesis — thus encouraging other avenues for research that take aim at disaggregating the relationship between natural resources and the prospects for post-conflict peace.

Countries emerging out of armed conflicts face immense challenges in their efforts to build electoral democracies. Contrary to our intuition that elections can transform violent competition to peaceful political contests, past research suggests that holding post-conflict elections only increases the chance of renewed violence. Why are elections unable to build sustainable democracies as expected? In this dissertation, I examine the question by focusing on two levels of analysis. First, I study the effects of violence on political behavior of mass publics at the individual level using the World Values survey Dataset. I argue that citizens are more inclined to support undemocratic leaders, when they are faced with threats from armed violence. Empirically, I find that presence of pre-election violence in post-conflict elections leads voters to prefer parties that are stronger in terms of their violence-wielding capacities over more moderate and peaceful parties. Second, I investigate how such an outcome might influence the risk of renewed conflicts in a country emerging out of armed conflict. The hypothesized mechanism can only be described as tragic. At individual level, fearful voters support violent parties mainly to maintain the status quo, fearing that parties with a violent reputation are likely to renew conflict if they lose the election. Tragically, however, placing undemocratic and violent parties in power only increases the likelihood of renewed conflicts. I test this expectation using an event history model to analyze all post-conflict countries from 1950 to 2010 and find that the presence of pre-election violence in a country increases its risk of renewed armed conflicts. The study has important implication for policymakers and election monitoring bodies. Rather than the current practice of observing only a single event Election Day, this study emphasizes the importance of creating a secure environment during the pre-election phase, about six months prior to the first election, in order to achieve a sustainable peace in post-conflict countries.

While the role of youth in post-conflict settings has increasingly gained policy attention, systematic academic studies on this topic remain scarce. This research adds to existing literature by the youth bulge theory of conflict onset to a post-conflict setting. It hypothesizes that large youth bulges at the time conflict episodes end increase the feasibility for rebel groups to relaunch their insurgence and are therefore associated with a higher risk of conflict recurrence. A global quantitative analysis revealed a statistically significant positive correlation between youth bulges and conflict recurrence. Three conditional hypotheses which focus on elements of economic, political and social exclusion that are argued to interact with youth bulges to influence the risk of conflict recurrence found no empirical support. However, the combination of findings for Hypothesis 1 and non-findings for Hypotheses 2 may indicate that the underlying cause for the relationship between youth bulges and conflict recurrence may not be based on young people’s individual grievances and motives to join a rebel group. Instead, other factors may be at play which could not be tested within the scope of this study. Despite its shortcomings, this study therefore confirms the necessity of continuing to investigate the relationship between the age distribution of a population and the risk of conflict recurrence.

Countries that have experienced civil war suffer a greater risk for new conflict than countries with no prior history of civil war. This empirical finding has been called a conflict trap where the legacy of previous war - unsolved issues, indecisive outcomes, and destruction – leads to renewed fighting. Yet, countries like Cambodia, El Salvador, Indonesia, and Mozambique have managed to overcome decade-long conflicts without relapse. This dissertation addresses this empirical puzzle by seeking to dismantle the conflict trap and look at microlevel explanations for civil war resolution and relapse. It adds to existing scholarship in three ways: first, by using disaggregated empirics on war termination and how fighting resumes; second, by exploring government agency in conflict processes; and third, by disaggregating rebel organizations. Essay I present original data on the start and end dates and means of termination for all armed conflicts, 1946-2005. Contrary to previous work, this data reveal that wars does not always end through victory or peace agreement, but commonly end under unclear circumstances. Essay II addresses how developments exogenous to the conflict influence governments’ decision to engage in a peace process. The results show that after natural disasters when state resources need to be allocated towards disaster relief, governments are more willing to negotiate and conclude ceasefires with insurgents. Essay III focuses on the post-conflict society, and posits that security concerns among former war participants will push them towards remobilizing into rebellion. The findings indicate that if ex-belligerent elite’s security is compromised, the parties of the previous war will resume fighting, while insecurity among former rank-and-file leads to the formation of violent splinter rebel groups. Finally, Essay IV seeks to explain why governments sometimes launch offensives on former rebels in post-conflict countries. The results show that internal power struggles provide leaders with incentives to use force against domestic third parties to strengthen their position against intra-government rivals. Taken together, this dissertation demonstrates that there is analytical leverage to be had by disaggregating the processes of violence in civil war and post-conflict societies, as well as the actors involved – both the government and rebel sides.

Time has passed since truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) started to grow in popularity. The general patterns of their effect on the post-conflict societies are still unexplored. The main claim is that establishing a TRC will reduce the likelihood of conflict recurrence compared to other forms of transitional justice as TRCs are especially well equipped to mitigate reasons for conflict recurrence. This paper uses quantitative methods with the PCJ dataset and the UCDP dyadic dataset to analyse the trends of different types of transitional justice between the years 1946-2006. The logistic regression showed a negative relationship between establishment of TRCs and conflict recurrence. The main implication of these findings is that there are general patterns of TRCs having an effect, which need to be further researched.

Many civil wars are illustrative of wider international tensions and connections that transcend state borders. States often intervene to influence the trajectory and outcome of civil conflicts by providing external support to warring parties. This assistance ranges from direct military intervention to the provision of weapons, training, funds, safe havens, intelligence, logistics and other critical resources. This dissertation contains four individual essays that each seeks to advance our knowledge of state support to rebel movements. The first essays (I and II) add to our understanding of how external state support influences conflict dynamics while the latter (III and IV) begin to unpack the political decision-making process behind decisions that alter the original support commitment. Essay I evaluates whether state support to rebels increases the probability of civil war negotiations being initiated. The findings question a widespread belief among policymakers that support can foster negotiations. Essay II explores if external support influences the risk of conflict recurrence. It finds that state support to rebels can increase the risk of conflict recurrence in the short-term while there is no equivalent effect of support provided to governments. Essay III is the first global analysis of support termination and it thereby opens up an entirely new research field. The results suggest that the causes related to the initiation of support and its termination are largely distinct while the transition from the Cold War and the absence of ethnic kinship ties offer some insights into when states are more likely to terminate support. Essay IV unpacks the political decision-making process of the United States’ support to the armed opposition in Nicaragua in the 1980s and in Syria in the 2010s. The results indicate that adverse feedback functions as a trigger for increasing previous commitments as long as policy failure can be attributed to external actors, while reduced support is often a result of attributing failure to the state sponsor’s own actions. Taken together, the essays make significant contributions to advance our understanding of biased third-party interventions, conflict recurrence, civil war negotiations, foreign policy decision-making and state sponsorship of terrorism.