External Intervention and the Duration of Civil Wars

This paper examines the effect of external intervention on civil war duration from the years 1946-2002. Based on the logic that intervention causes a distortion of the bargaining process in civil wars, it is hypothesized that intervention leads to increased civil war duration. This hypothesis is tested using linear regression analysis, which finds a positive, significant relationship between intervention and civil war duration. Considered in the context of previous literature, it is concluded that in addition to the distorting effect intervention appears to have on the bargaining process, this result may have been informed by the presence of competitive intervention, rival intervention, and interventions by states with an independent agenda. This research provides further evidence of the conflict lengthening effect of intervention, while tracing a common explanation based in the bargaining model of war throughout the various perspectives in the literature