Theories of observational learning and the effects of reputation formation on future conflict interactions have been applied much more steadily to interstate conflict than to civil conflict. Yet, many nations have multiple civil wars with multiple warring dyads, offering groups ample opportunities to watch and learn from prior interactions between other rebel groups and the government. When a government keeps the promises it made to the signatories in a previous negotiated agreement, we argue that the risk of subsequent challenges from other non-signatory groups declines as these groups update their beliefs about that government and the efficacy of violent versus non-violent mobilization. In our analysis of the implementation of comprehensive peace accords since 1989, we found that governments that kept their implementation commitments to the signatory group(s) in a negotiated settlement experienced fewer armed challenges from other armed groups in the future.

Theory Bargaining theories of civil war attribute the emergence of civil war violence and its continuation to commitment problems and information uncertainties of a temporal nature that complicate bargaining efforts to avoid violence (Wagner, 2000). The credible commitment problem, for instance, is principally an implementation sequencing problem: no government will agree to implement the terms of a negotiated agreement before the rebel group has demobilized, and the rebel group knows that once it has implemented its own demobilization it is powerless to enforce the implementation of the rest of the agreement (Walter, 1997). Information problems in a civil war bargaining context also result from temporal sequencing issues: the rebel group will not have access to information on the degree to which the government complied with its implementation duties until it is too late to do anything about it. As powerful as this logic is, it only applies to the negotiating parties in a civil war context, that is, the signatories to the agreement. External rebel groups, that is, non-signatories, can observe whether or not the government implemented the agreed-upon reforms and can act accordingly to avoid being cheated in a likewise manner. We draw from Crescenzi’s (2007) model of how nations process reputation-related information from watching conflict interactions between other states to extrapolate some predictions of future conflict behavior between a government and non-signatory groups based on the government’s level of compliance with prior peace agreements negotiated with other groups. Crescenzi’s (2007) model of reputational learning has two main components: information and relevance. States need to be able to locate relevant information from the interaction of other states from the much larger pool of irrelevant interactions. Cresenzi argues that states use the interactions of other states as proxies in an effort to predict the likely behavior of a contemporaneous rival. But which interactions are followed? According to the model, proxies are selected based on similarity: “Given three countries, A, B, and C, A can process information about B by looking at how B has historically interacted with C. States weight this information from the extra-dyadic behavior of other states. That is, A weights this information based on how similar it is to C. The more similar A and C are, the more A is able to treat C as a useful proxy for information” (Crescenzi, 2007: 386). In a civil war context, actors A and C, in the above scenario, would be two different rebel groups fighting against the same government (actor B). Crescenzi argues that his reputational learning model predicts that “conflict begets conflict” and “cooperation begets cooperation.” Extrapolating this prediction more explicitly to a multi-group civil war context, we expect that when rebel groups observe a government cheating a proxy, those observing groups will be more inclined to continue their armed struggle against that same government. Alternatively, when groups observe a government upholding its negotiated commitments with a proxy, they will be less likely to choose armed conflict and more likely to pursue their desire to alter the status quo through non-violent mobilization. Burundi’s peace process provides an illustrative example. In 2000, the CNDD, FROLINA, Palipehutu, and other groups signed the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, while the original CNDD–FDD and FNL continued their armed challenge against the government.1 Despite some early setbacks, the implementation of the Arusha Accord was relatively high with 14 of its 35 major provisions (40%) being fully implemented by the end of the third year. This showed that the government had a strong willingness and capacity to implement what was negotiated. In 2003, the CNDD–FDD and the government signed the Pretoria Protocol, effectively terminating the Government–CNDD–FDD conflict. Later in 2006, the government and the last remaining group, FNL negotiated the Agreement of Principles towards Lasting Peace, Security and Stability. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) (2015) conflict narratives, this agreement was “the first ever agreement signed by the Palipehutu–FNL and the government.” It seems implausible to us that CNDD–FDD and FNL would have entered into negotiations had the Burundian government balked on its implementation commitments, and many other cases suggest a similar pattern. Conversely, countries like India, the Philippines and Sierra Leone that have negotiated agreements with one or more groups but implemented the agreements at very low levels have continued to struggle with armed challenges from existing rebel groups as well as new rebel groups in future conflicts. Our argument contributes to the wider literature on civil war by offering an alternative path to cooperative dyadic behavior through observational learning. To date, bargaining theories of civil war have examined reciprocity and the emergence of cooperation as an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game, in which two opposing players choose independently whether to defect or cooperate. Since cooperation makes one vulnerable to exploitation, mutual defection is the stable equilibrium in single-play dyadic interactions. Only when the same two players repeat the interaction can cooperation evolve over time as the actors learn about each other (Axlerod and Hamilton, 1981). To date, the only solution put forth to resolve this inherent dilemma has been third-party involvement (Karreth and Tir, 2013; Walter, 1997). The issue of third-party involvement, we argue, fits well within our theory of observational and reputational learning. By allowing third-party participation, governments signal their commitment to implementation given the increases in scrutiny, verification and monitoring of the implementation processes that third-party guarantors bring to the table. When a proxy group is observed getting the Sucker’s Payoff of low implementation by the current government, existing groups will be more likely to keep fighting that government and latent groups, who are considering a fight, are more likely to conclude that violence against this government is necessary. Additionally, when a government cheats a signatory rebel group, the combatants who are now angered by that government’s betrayal, can form new groups or migrate to existing non-signatory groups. Greater generalizable evidence of observational learning in civil war peace processes is pursued in the next section, by following a sample of countries for which we have annual data on the extent that the government complied with its peace agreement implementation mandate. Based on this level of compliance, we examine future levels of armed conflict between the government and non-signatory groups.

Conclusion Standard bargaining approaches to explaining civil war based on problems of credible commitment and information uncertainty have failed to take into account the ability of armed actors to observe the interactions of the government and other armed groups and to use information gleaned from those interactions to update their assessment of the government as a reputable negotiation partner. For countries that signed CPAs after 1989, the findings here suggest that accommodating rebel groups by implementing a negotiated settlement does not encourage greater levels of future armed conflict from other groups as previous studies have maintained (Walter, 2006, 2009). Given the bounded nature of Walter’s arguments about reputation in civil war and the types of groups she examines, some of the discrepancy between Walter’s findings and ours may stem from differences between the armed groups. Another explanation that follows more closely from our results is that a good portion of the divergence in findings is likely attributable to the fact that Walter does not consider whether or not the government actually implemented the negotiated arrangement. It may be the case that many of those “accommodating” governments that negotiated a deal went on to face additional armed challenges in the future, not because they were seen as weak or conciliatory, but rather because they were perceived as having cheated those groups with whom they negotiated. Other self-determination movements that were paying attention might have concluded that the government had shown itself not to be a reputable negotiating partner, and any notions of reaching a deal to avoid war are discarded.

Declaration of Conflicting Interest

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Supplementary material

The online appendix is available at: http://rap.sagepub.com/content/3/1 Carnegie Corporation of New York Grant

The open access article processing charge (APC) for this article was waived due to a grant awarded to Research & Politics from Carnegie Corporation of New York under its ‘Bridging the Gap’ initiative.

Notes 1.

The Conseil National Pour la Défense de la Démocratie–Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie (CNDD–FDD) was founded in 1994. In 1997, Léonard Nyangoma, the expelled leader of CNDD–FDD founded the splinter group: Conseil National Pour la Défense de la Démocratie (CNDD). 2.

CPA implementation rate excludes implementation of ceasefire provisions so as to not have violence on both sides of the equation. 3.

The hazard ratio is equal to {[exp ( − P ^ β ^ ) ] = exp (–1.628(0.052))} or 0.919. This translates to 8.12 percentage increase in peace durability {100 * (1 – [exp ( − P ^ β ^ ) ] = exp (–1.628(0.052)))}.