Why peace fails

Charles T Call Why peace fails: The causes and prevention of civil war recurrence Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012. 328 pp., $34.26 (paper) ISBN: 978-1-5890-1894-5Interstate war has been steadily declining over past few decades, while intrastate war has been on rise. Civil wars are now most common form of human armed conflict and account for an appalling number of deaths, injuries and forced displacements, especially in developing world. Charles T. Call aims to answer question of why, after a civil war has shown every sign of ending, some reignite while others stay stagnant. In order to address this puzzle, Call uses regression analysis techniques on a newly updated data set of civil wars, constructing a new variable based on wars that recur after at least 1 year of widespread peace. Along with his quantitative analysis, Call also presents an in-depth case study of civil war in Liberia, as well as 14 mini case studies of other countries in his data set that have experienced civil war recurrence. Moreover, he examines cases in which war did not recur to uncover decisive factors that might explain why peace endures in certain contexts.Call's central argument is based on notion of exclusion. Political exclusion denotes the perceived or actual deprivation of an expected opportunity for former warring parties, or social groups associated with them, to participate in state administration, through either appointed posts or elected office (4). Call explains that this factor plays a critical role in determining whether or not peace will be consolidated after civil war; he goes so far as to conclude that it acts as a trigger for war recurrence. On other hand, political inclusion, in form of power-sharing agreements, can act as a catalyst to bolster peace. Call presents a thorough and well-thought-out argument and uses a tried and true mixed-methods research strategy: quantitative statistical analysis buttressed and nuanced by contextually rich case studies. As both an academic and practitioner, Call is well positioned to contribute to debate on this important topic.While there has been a great deal of scholarship addressing causes of civil war, less attention has been focused on civil war recurrence. Previous research on recurrence has focused on structural factors rather than role of leadership and weight of key decisions leading to civil war recurrence. With this contribution to our understanding of civil war recurrence, Call has bridged that gap, as his argument addresses elite behaviour. He explains how leaders choose to include former enemies in key administrative and executive positions or merely pay lip service to idea while blocking any real form of power-sharing. Especially noteworthy is in-depth case study of Liberia, which illustrates mechanisms and causal relationships that are at play after a civil war comes to an end. The mini-case studies further nuance his argument, demonstrating that characteristics of civil war recurrence vary depending on whether conflict is a separatist war or not. Call also addresses several cases that defy his argument, and is careful throughout book not to overstate importance of a single variable.Perhaps Call is too modest in this respect. As I read through four case studies that he characterizes as defying argument I could not help but feel that author was not giving his own argument enough credit

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