Mehmet Gurses

Sustaining the Peace: Determinants of Civil War Recurrence

Over half of all civil wars that began and ended between 1944 and 1997 were followed by at least one if not more episodes of civil war. We present a model to explain which characteristics of a civil war and the post-war environment make civil war more or less likely to recur. We test this model with data on civil wars that began and ended between 1944 and 1997. Findings suggest that civil wars are less likely to recur following rebel victories and peace agreements supported by peacekeeping forces. Post-war economic development also reduces the probability of civil war recurrence, and the longer the peace can be sustained, the less likely civil war is to recur. These effects hold regardless of whether the previous war was ethnically based or not, and whether it was secessionist or revolutionary.

WHEN AND HOW THE FIGHTING STOPS: EXPLAINING THE DURATION AND OUTCOME OF CIVIL WARS

Previous research has shown that the duration of a civil war is in part a function of how it ends: in government victory, rebel victory, or negotiated settlement. We present a model of how protagonists in a civil war choose to stop fighting. Hypotheses derived from this theory relate the duration of a civil war to its outcome as well as characteristics of the civil war and the civil war nation. Findings from a competing risk model reveal that the effects of predictors on duration vary according to whether the conflict ended in government victory, rebel victory, or negotiated settlement.

Mediating Civil War Settlements and the Duration of Peace

In this article, we examine the impact of international mediation attempts during civil war on the duration of peace once the war has ended. We include several aspects of the mediation attempt in our theoretical framework and our empirical tests, but we also control for other characteristics of the conflict and the country. While studies often find that decisive victories lead to a more durable peace, we expect that different types of mediation attempts have a distinct impact on the duration of peace after a civil war. In empirical tests on civil wars from 1945–1995 with Cox and Weibull event history models, we find the presence of mediation leads to a longer peace, while mediated agreements and superpower mediation attempts shorten the peace. In addition, several characteristics of both country and previous conflict impact how long the peace will last.

Islamists, democracy and Turkey A test of the inclusion-moderation hypothesis

The rise of Islamist movements in the Muslim world has been the subject of heated debate among scholars and policymakers. One group of scholars argues that Islamists use elections as a façade and warn against their political ascendency via electoral democracy. Another group of scholars, however, points to the moderating effects democracy has on views held by Islamists. This article does not present a novel theory but rather attempts to improve on existing studies by providing a test for the inclusion-moderation hypothesis using the data on Turkey collected by the World Values Survey. The findings from the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis, as well as in-depth face-to-face interviews with ranking members of the Islamist parties and communities in Turkey, show that Islamists develop positive attitudes toward electoral democracy to the extent that they are allowed to share power. Islamists’ support for democracy, however, seems to be fragmented, provisional and driven by pragmatism more than a principled commitment to democratic norms and values.

Partition, Democracy, and Turkey's Kurdish Minority

Scholars have argued that the outbreak of civil wars destroys the possibilities for ethnic cooperation and conclude that the most effective remedy for ethnic civil conflict is to redraw national borders. Building upon the Kurdish conflict in Turkey, this article shows that peaceful coexistence after ethnic civil wars is possible as long as the state sufficiently democratizes by respecting the political and cultural rights of the ethnic group. These in-depth interviews with members of the Kurdish political elite, together with other informal conversations with dozens of people, show that, despite decades of conflict, the respondents do not deem ethnicity to be a primary obstacle against a peaceful coexistence.

Transnational Ethnic Kin and Civil War Outcomes

The literature on the transnational dimension of civil wars points to transnational ethnic kin as an important catalyst that initiates and sustains civil wars. Ethnic ties that transcend national boundaries, these studies argue, intensify the conflict by providing sanctuaries as well as human and material resources to the rebels. In this study, I argue that the same transborder ethnic ties make it more difficult for the government to achieve a decisive victory and contribute to outcomes more favorable to rebels. These networks can help create a more balanced relationship between an ethnic group and a previously antagonistic state by increasing the political, economic, and military costs of repression for the government. An analysis of ethnic civil wars starting and ending between 1950 and 2006 demonstrates that civil wars fought by ethnically mobilized rebel groups are more likely to be negotiated and settled in favor of rebels who have ethnic kin in a neighboring country.

Is Islam a Cure for Ethnic Conflict? Evidence from Turkey

Abstract: Turkish Islamists have long attributed the root causes of the Kurdishconflict in Turkey to the anti-religious Turkish nationalism promulgated by thesecular Kemalist republican elite in the 1920s. As a result, they lay emphasison “Islamic brotherhood” as the glue that holds numerous ethnic nationalitiestogether. This article examines this claim and argues that Islam’s role as apeacemaker has been overstated. The data from in-depth interviews withdozens of Kurdish Islamists in Turkey conducted in the summer of 2013indicate that Kurdish Islamists in principle agree with the peacemakingpotential of Islam. Distrustful of the “Islamic brotherhood” discourse however,they describe this allegedly new policy as yet another tactic to undermine theKurdish struggle for equal rights INTRODUCTIONReligion is no longer on the retreat and in fact, in countries as diverse asIndia, Israel, Sri Lanka, and the United States, it is increasingly becomingmore salient (Calfano and Djupe 2013; Toft et al. 2011). In some cases,this ascendency of religion has resulted in violent riots, massacres, anddeadlier and longer civil wars (Basedau et al. 2011;Fox2004;Foxet al. 2009; Svensson 2007). Religious differences between members ofwarring groups in Sudan pitched the Southerners, predominantly blackAfrican Christians and adherents to traditional African religions, againstmajority Arab Muslim northerners, and contributed to the armed conflict.After more than three decades of war, two million dead, and nearly 4.5

Sustaining the peace after ethnic civil wars

We explore factors that influence the duration of peace after an ethnic civil war. Results from a series of survival models indicate that political and economic discrimination against the ethnic group that was involved in the war on the opposition side diminishes chances for peace. This finding is robust across different model specifications. Group size, group concentration, war duration and war outcome also influence the risk of war recurrence, although these results are not as robust as those for ethnic discrimination. The intensity of the war and its humanitarian consequences—deaths, displacement, and genocide—do not seem significantly to influence the duration of post-war peace. Taken together, our findings show that the way ethnic groups interact with each other after a war is a more important factor than the level of violence during the war. Peace and ethnic co-existence are possible in the aftermath of ethnic conflicts.

The complexities of minority rights in the European Union

In this study we argue that the ‘opportunity structure’ EU membership and conditionality provide helps to reconfigure the relationships between minority groups and states. EU membership and/or the membership process can mitigate the conflict between minorities and their respective states by putting direct pressure on the states to address ethnic demands. We argue that a minority groups characteristics will also determine that groups success in terms of securing and/or advancing its demands. This study presents one of the first systematic empirical tests of EU membership and minority rights. Results from a series of ordered logit and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses support our thesis.

Religion as a Peacemaker? Peace Duration after Ethnic Civil Wars

What role does religion play in preventing civil war from recurring? Politicians have proposed that when warring groups share the same religion, achieving a durable peace will be easier. We test this hypothesis empirically using a large- n sample of all ethnic civil wars that began and ended between 1950 and 2006, and a measure of co-religiosity between the ethnic group in power and the main opposition group. The analysis shows that there is no positive relationship between co-religiosity and the duration of post-civil war peace, showing that sharing the same religion may not help to bring about peace following an ethnic civil war. To the contrary, the closer religious ties, the less likely it is that peace will last after the end of the conflict, and the higher the risk that conflict will recur.