Abstract(s)
This article examines the impact of the ethnic exclusiveness of
regimes on commitment problems and hence on civil conflict
duration. It argues that members of privileged in-groups in
highly exclusive regimes can be trapped into compliance with
the regime. Ethnic exclusion helps to construct privileged-group
members as regime loyalists. They therefore fear rebel reprisals
even if they surrender or defect and consequently persist in
fighting. The article finds in particular that, in ethnically
exclusive regimes, privileged-group members mistrust even
rebels who mobilize on a nonethnic agenda and regard rebel
reassurances, including nonethnic aims, as suspect. Exclusion
therefore induces privileged-group cohesion, an effect more
resistant to rebel reassurances than previously recognized. A
case study of the Syrian civil war shows this dynamic at a micro
level, and a cross-national statistical analysis gives partial
evidence that it lengthens civil conflicts on a larg`e scale.