Deciding on the Tit for the Tat: Decision-Making in the Wake of Ceasefire Violations

Ceasefires are agreed in most intra-state conflicts and the majority of these agreements are violated. Yet, the subsequent dynamics of retaliation are still poorly understood. This is critical since collapsing ceasefires can lead to a deterioration of the humanitarian situation and of the prospects for peace. In this article for International Peacekeeping, CSS' PhD candidate Claudia Wiehler proposes a novel conceptual framework, describing the decision-making of conflict parties after ceasefire violations and draws the attention to the counter-intuitive function of violence to secure cooperation in intra-state conflicts. The empirical implications of this framework are illustrated with evidence from two ceasefires in the Mindanao conflict in the Philippines.