HOW CIVIL-WARS END - A RATIONAL CHOICE APPROACH

What conditions determine whether a civil war ends in a negotiated set tlement or a military victory? The authors address this question by de veloping an expected utility model of the choice between seeking an im mediate settlement or continuing to fight in anticipation of eventual victory. The model implies that the likelihood of a settlement varies with estimates of the probability of winning, the time required to win , the rate at which the costs of conflict accrue, and the payoffs for victory versus settlement, Logistic regression results suggest that a settlement becomes less Likely the larger the government's army and mo re likely the longer the civil war lasts. Payoff and cost variables ha d no effect on the likelihood of a settlement.