Policing Institutions and Post-Conflict Peace

Abstract

How do policing institutions affect the prospects for peace in post-conflict settings? We present a principal-agent theoretical framework to explain how the institutional design of policing affects the recurrence of civil conflict. We argue that the fragmentation of police forces can reignite conflict dynamics by impeding coordinated action, undermining information sharing, and enabling agents to pursue their own interests. We test these expectations with the Police Force Organization Dataset (PFOD) on police forces in over 100 developing states. Our empirical analyses show that increasing the number of distinct police forces is systematically associated with an increased risk of conflict recurrence in post-conflict states. We also find that a larger number of police forces is associated with more abuse against civilian populations in post-conflict states, setting the stage for new grievances that may undermine peace.