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The inclusion of conflict parties in independent commissions through power-sharing has been found to reduce the reoccurrence of conflict. Yet, the theoretical and empirical literature explaining why independent commissions include power-sharing is very limited. Previous publications have focused on in-depth case studies that explain how power-sharing prevents conflict recurrence in specific post-conflict societies but do not provide a general argument or widescale testing beyond individual case studies. This article provides a new systematic, general theoretical argument and novel empirical testing that explains why there is power-sharing on some commissions but not others. We argue that conflict parties adopt power-sharing provisions in independent commissions because doing so allows them to overcome significant credible commitments problems that are inherent to the ending of intrastate conflict. Using a new and comprehensive dataset, Independent Commissions in Post-Conflict Societies, which includes information on 580 commissions (1990–2016), this article applies a combination of decision trees and regression analysis to test our hypotheses. The findings indicate that power-sharing is adopted where credible commitment problems are acute and show that commissions working on political or security issues and those with monitoring or verification roles, or that work on the implementation of peace agreements, are more likely to include power-sharing arrangements.

This paper introduces the new dataset of Political Agreements in Internal Conflicts (PAIC) and presents its first application. PAIC captures the institutional provisions in political agreements concluded between 1989 and 2016. It provides information on 91 variables, along five dimensions: power sharing, transitional justice, cultural institutions, territorial self-governance and international assistance. First, the paper presents the data collection and coding procedures. Then it replicates Hartzell’s and Hoddie’s (2007, Crafting Peace, The Pennsylvania State University Press) seminal study on the relationship between power sharing and negotiated agreements, showing the long-term importance of a previously overlooked realm: commissions.

After decades of scholarship, there is still little agreement about the usefulness of territorial self-governance in managing territory-centred conflicts. We argue that the effectiveness of territorial self-governance as a tool of territory-centred conflict management increases when combined with a proportional representation (PR) electoral system for the national legislature in basically open political regimes, but not when combined with a parliamentary form of government at the centre. We propose that the combination of territorial self-governance and PR in at least minimally democratic regimes has most conflict-reducing potential, as both institutions follow a logic of widening the input side of representative politics. We find empirical support for this proposition using binary time-series cross-section analysis is found. Our findings highlight the need to consider not just the number but, more importantly, the type of power-sharing institutions that are combined with each other when looking for ways to reduce the risk of territory-centred intrastate violence.

According to a rent-seeking approach to corruption, resource-rich countries are more vulnerable to rent-seeking behavior than resource-poor countries. However, not all resource-rich countries experience widespread corruption. To help explain this puzzle, I propose that the relationship between natural resources (e.g. the depletion of minerals) and corruption is dependent on the composition of the selectorate (through diverse levels of economic development) and the variation of political systems (democracies vs. autocracies). The large-N empirical analysis finds support for the hypotheses: on average, poor, autocratic, resource-rich countries suffer from more corruption than rich, democratic, resource-rich countries. This research contributes to the discussion of resource curses and blessings by suggesting that a closer inspection of a country's political and economic conditions is required to understand the causal link between natural resource wealth and corruption. Whereas the empirical analysis particularly focuses on the validity of the argument for mineral resource wealth and corruption, the overall theoretical and empirical scope of this paper is intentionally broader in nature: The paper also contributes to our collective research understanding of various forms of resource wealth (i.e. mineral depletion, fuel exports, oil wealth or energy depletion) and corruption.

This article proposes a political economy argument for the consistent empirical observation of a negative relationship between working women and corruption: employed women influence the spending behavior of governments by requiring different public goods than men, thereby increasing the demand for public goods. Barring a significant rise in the government budget, fewer resources remain available for rents, lowering the level of corruption. I also argue that countries with a large public sector that have a high percentage of working women are less corrupt than countries with few working women. The robust empirical findings (136 countries, 20 years) support the hypotheses.

On average, higher per capita income comes with lower corruption levels. Yet, countries like Mexico, Libya and Saudi Arabia are relatively wealthy but experience comparatively high corruption levels. Simultaneously, countries like Madagascar or Mozambique (in the 1990s) combine poor economic development with a low level of corruption. I propose that the two most common variables in corruption research – wealth and democracy – are mutually conditional: economic development brings about a larger (and stronger) middle class that demands public goods from the government. However, citizens’ ability to influence governmental decision-making varies by political regime type. In democracies, citizens are, on average, more successful in demanding goods from the government than in autocracies. Using a large-N approach (up to 139 countries, 1984–2006), the analysis finds robust empirical support for the proposed conditional effect.

Both natural resource wealth and electoral system design are frequently investigated factors in the civil wars literature. So far, however, there is no well-known study which explicitly considers the interaction effect between these two factors on the risk of violent ethnic conflict. We argue that resource-rich countries with a proportional electoral system for the legislature are less prone to ethnic civil war than resource-rich countries with a majoritarian or mixed electoral system, as proportional electoral systems tend to increase the effective number of parliamentary parties and thus the number of groups who can share state control over resource wealth. We find empirical support for this argument using binary time-series-cross-section analysis covering 83 to 140 countries between 1984 and 2007.

In this article, we argue that countries with strong regional self-rule offer more incentives and opportunities to form networks of local collusion leading to higher corruption levels. In contrast, shared rule allows for more oversight on the national level which reduces political corruption. Using a recent dataset on regional authority, we test our hypotheses on a sample of up to thirty-six countries between 1984 and 2006 and find robust empirical support for the predicted contrasting effects of regional authority: Self-rule enhances and shared rule limits political corruption.

This article presents robust findings for the positive effect of corruption on the risk of ethnic civil war, using binary time-series-cross-section data that cover 87 to 121 countries (per year) between 1984 and 2007. Following a grievance-based explanation of violent intrastate conflict, we argue that corruption increases the risk of large-scale ethnic violence, as it creates distortions in the political decision-making process which lead to a deepening of political and economic inequalities between different ethnic groups. The positive effect of corruption on the risk of ethnic civil war is robust to various model specifications, including the interaction between corruption and natural resource wealth.