When civil wars involve a greater number of actors that have the ability to block agreement, they are longer, more deadly, and more likely to involve genocide or politicide, and, when peace is finally achieved, it does not last long. These negative consequences occur because the presence of more veto players introduces several separate barriers to peace, leading negotiations to stall or break down, causing wars to drag on. Cumulatively, this means that many multi-party civil wars are among those that have received the most international attention and been the most resistant to resolution.

Up to this point, the theoretical discussion in this book has treated conflict bargaining primarily as a process that takes place only among the various veto players to the conflict. In this way, the analysis has been quite consistent with the general view in political science, which examines the conditions that facilitate successful bargaining between combatants with little regard to the role of international actors in that process. The case studies of Rwanda and Burundi, conversely, revealed that international actors can directly affect the prospects for peace by shaping the nature of any negotiations that take place. In each of these conflicts, international actors had substantial influence on who was invited or allowed to participate in negotiations, on what the agenda for those negotiations was, and on the extent of the international commitment to enforce the terms of the settlement reached. These are all crucial decisions that can have considerable effects on the likelihood of negotiations being successful.