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Deals with the Devil? Conflict Amnesties, Civil War, and Sustainable Peace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2018

Geoff Dancy
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Abstract

Do legal amnesties for combatants help end civil wars? International policy experts often take it for granted that amnesties promote negotiated settlements with rebels. However, a large number of amnesties are followed by continued fighting or a return to the battlefield. What, then, are the factors that make amnesties effective or ineffective? In this article I use a disaggregated data set of all amnesties enacted in the context of internal war since 1946 to evaluate a bargaining theory of amnesties and peace. Testing hypotheses about conflict patterns using models that account for selection, I find that (1) only amnesties passed following conflict termination help resolve civil wars, (2) amnesties are more effective when they are embedded in peace agreements, and (3) amnesties that grant immunity for serious rights violations have no observable pacifying effects. These policy-relevant findings represent a new breakthrough in an ossified “peace versus justice” debate pitting security specialists against global human rights advocates.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , Spring 2018 , pp. 387 - 421
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2018 

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