This book seeks to explain the puzzle of why some civil wars end quickly while others drag on. It shows that a major factor affecting how amenable wars are to resolution, and therefore how long they last, is the number and type of participants in the conflict that have the ability to block settlement. The more of these veto players there are, the harder conflicts are to resolve and the longer they last.

Civil wars with more veto players are harder to resolve due to four dynamics that arise during bargaining in multi-party conflicts. First, the bargaining range of acceptable agreements shrinks when additional actors with diverse preferences must consent to any agreement. Second, the battlefield reveals information less clearly in multi-party wars, making it harder for combatants to become more realistic about their chances of winning the conflict outright and to adjust their demands at the negotiating table accordingly. Third, all actors in multi-party conflicts have incentives to hold out in the hope of getting the best deal as the last signer, and so parties negotiate harder, leading negotiations to drag on. Finally, parties are unable to overcome these barriers to peace by forming overarching negotiating blocs, because of shifting alliances on different issue areas. The combined effect of these four dynamics is that negotiating a sustainable agreement is substantially more difficult when there are a greater number of veto players involved in civil war.

A comparison of negotiations in Rwanda and Burundi reveals the difficulties of bargaining in multi-party civil wars.