11:00 - 13:15
Thursday-Panel
Chair/s:
Anna Getmansky
Discussant/s:
Anna Getmansky
Meeting Room D

Constantin Ruhe, Meri Dankenbring
Facilitating negotiations on complex, controversial and salient topics: How mediators shape the content of peace agreements

Douglas Atkinson, Kevin Fahey
Manpower Acquisition Institutions and the Battlefield

Vojtech Bahensky
Distance and Military Power: When and How it Matters

Giuseppe Spatafora
From subsidizers to co-belligerents: Why foreign sponsors intervene militarily in civil war
From subsidizers to co-belligerents: Why foreign sponsors intervene militarily in civil war
Giuseppe Spatafora
University of Oxford, Department of Politics and International Relations

In many civil wars, from Vietnam and Afghanistan during the Cold War to Ukraine and Libya today, foreign state sponsors sometimes provide more intrusive and invasive support over the course of the conflict. Surprisingly, this increased level of assistance often happens when the supported side is in disagreement with or under heavy criticism from the sponsor. What explains more invasive foreign intervention in civil conflict? This paper proposes a theory that ascribes foreign support to a strategy of control by the sponsor over the recipient of support and the conflict itself. When foreign sponsors are dissatisfied about the recipient’s performance or are concerned about the latter's preferences, they can address the issue by increasing their level of commitment rather than withdrawing. High costs of withdrawal, high levels of threat, and the absence of alternative recipients increase the likelihood of this outcome. This paper also studies the recipient's preferences for more or less intrusive assistance, and explores how local actors can influence their stronger patrons. I plan to use quantitative analysis of the UCDP External Support Dataset as well as a case study of the Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) to probe the theory.