When Do They Stop? Modeling the Termination of War

• Published in: Conflict management and peace science Vol. 21; no. 3; pp. 179 - 193
• Main Authors: MATTES, MICHAELA, MORGAN, T. CLIFTON
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England Taylor & Francis, Inc 01.10.2004; SAGE Publications; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Accountability; Civil wars; Conflict resolution; Costs; Democracy; Domestic politics; Expectations; Mathematical moments; Modeling; Peacetime; Politicians; Prediction; Queens; War; Warfare; war termination; principal/agent models; domestic politics

This paper deals with war termination. We develop a formal model based on the logic of domestic political accountability. We assume that leaders seek to maximize the likelihood that they will stay in office and that their decisions regarding war termination are responsive to their winning coalition&...