This chapter details the book’s theoretical model, focusing first on elites’ decisions and then on voters’ reactions. It highlights how expected party lifespan stands to impact leaders’ decision-making about violence by shortening or lengthening their time horizons. Politicians operating with truncated time horizons will display a higher propensity for organizing or sponsoring party conflict than their counterparts with lengthy time horizons. The chapter thus holds that the effect of party instability on elite choice is conditioning rather than determinative. While unstable parties do not cause violence, they can incentivize elites to engineer or sponsor violence in certain contexts.