The Human Cost of a Peace Process: An Estimate from the War in Bosnia

• In Event: Civilian Victimization and Mass Atrocities

Abstract

Peace talks may fail to put an armed conflict to a lasting end if warring factions are able manipulate the conditions that the proposed settlement was predicated upon and force a revision of its terms. In the context of ethnic conflicts, territorial settlements may go as far as to incentivize ethnic cleansing and, in the end, do little but exacerbate human suffering. However, tracing wartime atrocities back to the bargaining process is hard since both are likely to be shaped by the strategic dynamics of the conflict. I present a solution to this problem by isolating the immediate effect of the specific failed peace deals on violence in the Bosnian War (1992—1995). In particular, I utilize the unique geographically disaggregated data on missing persons and information about both timing and routing of territorial transfer proposals put forward by international mediators in the course of the conflict.

Author

• Ivan Aleksandrov, New York University