To fight or not to fight?

Abstract

Recurrence of domestic armed conflict is rapidly becoming the most prevalent form of major organized conflict in the international system. Scholarly work and practical responses to this phenomena have largely focused on economic development, third party intervention or the identity divisions in post Civil War states. Drawing on both civil war and institutional social capital, this work tests the role of institutions in a post-violence state. As such, this paper argues that institutions of state, and specifically prioritizing inclusive institutions and fair institutions of order, signal post civil war state‘s commitment to enduring peace in the short-term and provide fair space for cross-group interaction in the long-term. Those institutions have been shown in social capital literature to aid in generating social trust. In the context of the post-domestic violence state, I argue, they can reduce pervasive inter-group mistrust bridging suspicion between identity groups and reducing domestic security dilemma. Such institutional effects can reduce the hazard of reverting to violence. I test those assertions plotting measures of trust promoting institutions on probability of violence recurrence at three different time points to assert institutional effects in short and longer time horizons. Strong support is found for the pacifying role of credible and fair institutions of order for all time periods, while inclusive institutional effects become a significant factor in the long-term. The significance of the findings of this research rests on the clear implications it has for practical policy output that is within the reach of post civil violence states.