Do Stronger Cease-fire Agreements Keep Peace Longer after War?

Abstract

Although there are theoretical reasons to expect that stronger agreements promote durable peace,the extant empirical research provides mixed support for this expectation. This paper reexamines this argument empirically, addressing two inferential problems overlooked in the past studies. First, since the strength of cease-fire agreements is endogenous to the baseline prospect for peace, I employ a copula-based estimation that explains agreement strength and peace duration jointly. Second, I allow the effect of agreement strength to vary over time. This is important because agreement strength matters little right after the war, for there exists a rough consensus among the ex-belligerents about the likely outcome of a next war. As time passes, however, the effect of agreement strength will start to show because there will be a greater chance that some exogenous shocks distort this consensus. Analyzing the duration of postwar peace from 1914 to 2001, I demonstrate that stronger cease-fire agreements indeed stabilize peace after war.