Peace Agreements and Civil Wars in Africa: Insurgent Motivations, ...

At the same time, hard-liners may engage in elite outbidding, a process in which ethnic leaders engage in a competition in extremism, promoting more and more extreme policies vis-à-vis other ethnic groups in an effort to gain recognition as the most “authentic” and legitimate representative of their group.³⁰ Moreover, as King points out, the role of leaders can be problematic in other ways. As civil war drags on, the distinction between the goals and objectives of the rebellion, and the personalities of their leaders, can begin to fade as the rank and file of either side come to identify their own leaders with the struggle itself, refusing to accept any agreement that does not involve their leadership.³¹

King further notes that leaders may have a direct personal interest in continuing the war even when they know they will lose, because how the war is terminated directly affects the status of the political leaders who helped execute it. Leaders know that if they are unable to attain victory, they are likely to suffer either at the hands of the victors, or at the hands of their followers who may blame them for the consequences of defeat.³² So, even when leaders know that negotiations may entail fewer costs than continuing the war, thinking of their status after the war is over—if they do not attain victory—they decide to “gamble for resurrection”³³ (i.e., fight to the finish). Furthermore, factional struggles within the leadership of civil war parties weaken the leadership’s goal of obtaining a military victory because leaders accepting negotiations are likely to be accused by other factions for softness.³⁴ This means that negotiations are difficult to arrange—and agreement is almost impossible to reach—between warring groups when a leadership struggle is going on in one of the camps.

Status, Legitimacy, and Peace Negotiations

A general characteristic in civil wars is a wide disparity between the status of the government and that of the other parties. Status here refers to the way belligerents (often the incumbent government and other parties in the conflict) perceive the identities and goals of their opponents, and to the way both parties in the dispute are perceived by other states.³⁵