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

In this case, the mediator’s role is more active because the third party becomes an actor with “interests and full participant” in the conflict.¹⁸

Third Parties as Agreement Guarantors

It is widely believed that an important reason why adversaries do not accept a negotiated end to civil wars is because they cannot credibly commit to peace without the promise of implementation by a powerful third party. Indeed, self-enforcing peace agreements are extremely rare, whether it is between interstate or intrastate adversaries.¹⁹ Third parties can guarantee that vulnerable parties are protected from attack by their more powerful rivals once they disarm. Moreover, third parties can ensure that the payoffs from cheating on a peace agreement no longer exceed the payoffs from observing its terms. Once cheating becomes difficult and costly, promises to cooperate gain credibility, and cooperation becomes more likely.²⁰

However, how do adversaries determine whether the guarantees they have been given by third parties are credible? Barbara Walter points out that to be credible, a third-party guarantee must fulfill at least three basic conditions. The first condition is that the third party must have a self-interest in upholding its promise.²¹ The second condition is that the guarantor must be willing to use force to impose its will and must be militarily strong enough to punish the party violating the agreement. The final condition is that the third party should be able to show resolve. The third party can show resolve by stationing enough troops to deter aggression in the region of conflict.²² The conclusion from this is that the absence of credible commitments from powerful third parties is a major cause of why adversaries rarely commit to peace agreements.

1.5. Conflict Dynamics

Civil Wars Are Intractable

The fact that civil wars are intractable makes them less likely to be ended through negotiated agreements. Most civil wars are characterized by a number of cleavages—with class, ethnicity, religion, and race being the most prominent.