ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to shed light on the role of sunset clauses in postconfl ict power-sharing arrangements. Power sharing has become a dominant approach to ending civil wars (Rothchild and Roeder 2005, 5). By sharing the levers of power between the belligerents, it is hoped that the commitment problem that often plagues war-to-peace transitions can be overcome and that peaceful, mutually benefi cial cooperation can be routinized. The institutional safeguards in post-confl ict power-sharing arrangements are meant to provide suffi cient assurances to all parties that their counterparts will not be able to politically marginalize or militarily defeat them. Despite the vast amount of scholarly output on the merits of power-sharing arrangements (e.g. Hartzell and Hoddie 2003, 2007; Jarstad 2009; Lijphart 1999, 2008), surprisingly little attention has been paid to those provisions that end power-sharing arrangements: sunset clauses.1
