Careful what you promise: Executive constraints and conflict recurrence

Abstract

A substantial fraction of all intrastate conflict onsets are recurrences of previously active conflicts. Recent studies suggest that constitutional arrangements that constrain executive power limit the risk of conflict recurrence. This effect is theorized to be driven by minority and individual-rights protection, in which formal executive constraints act as promises to protect these rights. These promises increase the mobilization costs for any challenger to the regime. However, the promises may no longer be credible at very high levels of formal executive constraints, as excessive promises are often seen as ‘too good to be true’. Consequently, one might expect a curvilinear relationship between executive constraints and conflict recurrence, in which high levels of constraints increase the risk of conflict recurrence. Empirical analysis of post-conflict regimes between 1975 and 2019 shows evidence of such a curvilinear relationship. The effect is further illustrated by a case study of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where the rebel group M23 emerged in the aftermath of unfulfilled government promises of minority and individual-rights protection. This nuances the established relationship between executive constraints and conflict recurrence, provides a cautionary note to designers of constitutional arrangements, and lends support to the theory that mobilization costs drive this relationship.