The president-led peace process and institutional veto players
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2057891117725210 |
| Author | Aya Watanabe |
| Subject Matter | Research articles |
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
2018, Vol. 3(2) 167–185
The president-led peace
ª The Author(s) 2017
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process and institutional
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DOI: 10.1177/2057891117725210
veto players: The Mindanao
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conflict in the Philippines
Aya Watanabe
Graduate School of Political Science, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Abstract
What makes a negotiated settlement of civil wars so complicated? This question attracts much
scholarly attention. Many existing studies focus on information asymmetry and commitment
problems when examining civil war termination or duration. These studies tend to assume con-
flicting parties as unitary, not grasping the dynamic nature within the conflicting party. This article
disaggregates government actors, drawing on the ‘veto player’ framework, and examines how
political relationships among them affect the peace process, using the Mindanao conflict as a case
study. The Philippine case illustrates how government actors influence the peace process, shedding
light on a neglected aspect of the government influence on civil war termination.
Keywords
civil war termination, government actors, peace process, the Mindanao conflict
Introduction
Since the end of the Cold War, 70 nation states have experienced 120 civil wars, with 48 out of
these wars experiencing 117 peace processes (Reiter, 2015: 93). With a simple calculation, it is
estimated that 2.5 peace processes have taken place per civil war, indicating the difficulty of
resolving conflicts through peaceful means despite vast human and financial resources invested
in peace process.
What makes negotiated civil war settlements so complicated? What factors influence the
duration or termination of civil wars? This research question attracts much scholarly attention.
Many studies point out information asymmetry and commitment problems as key barriers to
resolving conflicts through negotiated settlements. However, these studies tend to regard civil
Corresponding author:
Aya Watanabe, Waseda Univeristy, 1-6-1, Nishi-waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8050, Japan.
Email: aya.miyasaka@gmail.com
168
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 3(2)
wars as a two-party phenomenon, fought between a government and a rebel group. In contempo-
rary civil wars, multiple parties often struggle for their political goals, as pointed out by Cunning-
ham (2006, 2011). This article disaggregates government actors and examines how government
dynamics influence peace processes, using the Mindanao conflict as a case study.
The first section of this article (Literature review) provides an overview of the existing
literature on civil war termination, and presents a puzzle. The second section (Negotiated
settlements of civil wars as policy change, and the ‘veto player’ theory) presents the logic
for applying the ‘veto player’ theory and viewing civil war termination through negotiated
settlements as policy change. The third section (The Philippine political system and veto
players) describes political systems adopted in the Philippines and identifies veto players in
the Philippine political setting. The fourth section (The preferences of institutional veto
players in the peace process) identifies which institutional players are likely to become a
veto gate on the president’s peace policy. The fifth section (Institutional veto players and
the president-led peace process) explains what factors make the difference in the attitudes of
institutional veto players. The sixth section (The Mindanao peace process under Arroyo and
Aquino) describes the peace process which took place under the Gloria Arroyo and Benigno
Aquino III administrations, analyzing how institutional veto players have responded to the
Mindanao peace process and examining what brings the different outcomes. Lastly, there
follows a Conclusion.
Literature review
As noted above, many scholars have pointed out the difficulty of resolving civil wars. For example,
Fearon and Laitin (2003) observe that the average number of war onsets is 2.31 per year, and that of
civil war terminations is 1.85. An increase in the average duration leads to a steady accumulation
of civil wars.
This situation highlights the importance of negotiated settlements of civil wars. Hartzell (2006)
reports that while most civil wars ending between 1950 and 1990 resolved through military victory
by either the government or the rebels, three-quarters of those that ended in the 1990s did so by
means of negotiated settlements. Furthermore, Harbom et al. (2006: 622) show that 46 out of 121
active conflicts between 1989 and 2006 were terminated by peace agreements. The increasing rate
of civil wars ending through peace negotiations indicates that conflicting actors and the interna-
tional society put a great deal effort into finding an agreeable range that will satisfy both govern-
ments and rebel groups. Nevertheless, considering that 2.5 peace processes have taken place per
war, it is not easy for conflicting parties to reach an agreement despite vast peace-making efforts
and mounting war costs.
A puzzle regarding information asymmetry arguments emerges. According to scholars of
information asymmetry (Filson and Werner, 2002; Slantchev, 2003; Smith and Stam, 2004),
violent conflicts break out due to a lack of information on the relative capability of military power.
The costs of war are so high that conflicting parties prefer settling them through negotiation, but
information asymmetry on relative military power prevents them from doing so. Once information
is revealed, the parties may be willing to negotiate and reach an agreement. Nevertheless, the
above figures suggest that it is still not easy for conflicting parties to reach an acceptable agreement
even if information asymmetry is mitigated through fighting on the battlefield and peace negoti-
ations that involve exchanging information on demands.
Watanabe
169
Many information asymmetry arguments focus on inter-state wars, but civil wars may contain
differing dynamics, e.g. the duration of intra-state wars is generally four times longer than that of
inter-state wars (Hoeffler, 2014: 77).
One of the unique dynamics associated with civil war termination involves commitment prob-
lems (Fearon, 2004; Walter, 2002). Because of the lack of an enforcing mechanism, belligerents
cannot credibly believe in the other side’s commitment to live up to the agreement. They worry that
the other side will renege on the agreement after they have strengthened their military capabilities
vis-a-vis their conflict counterpart. Because of this security dilemma, belligerents choose fighting
over negotiating, even though they could be better off with a negotiated settlement. Commitment
problems hamper disarmament and the resolution of conflict through negotiations.
The literature on information asymmetry and arguments on commitment problems regard civil
war as a two-party phenomenon, fought between a government and a rebel group. This unitary
assumption on conflicting actors allows scholars to develop a sophisticated game-theoretic anal-
ysis for understanding civil war duration and termination. However, it does not capture the
empirical phenomenon of civil wars. Many contemporary civil wars involve more than two parties,
such as in Rwanda and Syria. Such party dynamics could impact civil war duration and
termination.
Cunningham (2006, 2011) emphasizes the necessity of disaggregating conflicting actors rather
than regarding civil war as a two-party phenomenon, and his empirical analyses show that as the
number of rebel groups increases, the longer the civil war will be. Although there is some research
focusing on multiple players on the rebel side (e.g. Pearlman, 2008/2009), there appear to be few
studies addressing diversity on the government side. If a multi-party attribute on the rebel side has
a certain impact on civil war termination or duration, it is reasonable to assume that the dynamics
of the government have a similar impact.
One of the few studies focusing on government dynamics is Thyne’s (2012) analysis. He
focuses on how variations within the government affect the duration of civil wars. Examining
how governmental variations—such as institutional constraints derived from political struggles,
leadership tenure, and the executive system (presidentialism or parliamentarism)—affect the dura-
tion of civil wars, he concludes that power consolidation in the hands of only a few political leaders
would shorten the duration of war by decreasing the number of actors whose support is necessary
for a settlement. Additionally, Thyne shows that wars become shorter as the tenure of the leader
and the leadership’s party increases. This finding is intuitively understandable. Thyne’s empirical
analysis indicates that if power is consolidated with a few political leaders retaining a stable power
base, there is leeway for negotiating with combatants and settling a conflict, which can help
opponents develop expectations regarding post-war commitment. However, it is questionable that
such strong leaders would have an incentive to seek a negotiated settlement with a rebel group
since authoritarian leaders are less sensitive to war costs than their democratic counterparts;
further, they have more discretion about waging war (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 1999). It seems
that democratic leaders are more sensitive to war outcomes and are compelled to seek negotiated
settlements in the face of mounting war costs and the possibility of...
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