Negotiation in the Shadow of an Extremist Threat: Insurgencies and the Internal Commitment Problem

Negotiation in the Shadow of an Extremist Threat: Insurgencies and the Internal Commitment Problem Public Deposited

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Creator

Best, Rebecca H.
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Political Science

Abstract

The effect of insurgent factionalization on peace process has become in recent years a topic of much research. Although many insurgencies are not factionalized, those that are include several long-running and highly visible conflicts - including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Northern Ireland, and Darfur. Much of this work has assumed that when governments negotiate with an insurgent faction, they negotiate with that faction which is least extreme in its preferences. In this dissertation, I find support for the proposition that government decisions regarding which faction to include in negotiations may be more influenced by the strength of the faction than by that faction's ideology. I also find that while factional preferences matter, they may say more about when peace is possible than about which faction the government will select as its negotiating partner.

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