ABSTRACT
Civil wars are more likely to have significant power asymmetries than interstate wars. Intrastate wars start with rebellion—thus initial disputants are state and non-state actors. While non-state actors can sometimes defeat states, initially, states are likely to be more powerful. When evaluating peace-making efforts it is critical to differentiate between interstate wars and civil wars because the two types of conflict have different violence and peace-making dynamics. Process effects have a causal relationship to peace-making outcomes – they influence, directly, peace-making efforts' success and failure. Mediators offer and disputants request third-party mediation for the most dire, hard to resolve, and most likely to lead to peace-making-failure disputes. In civil wars, bilateral negotiation is rare, and third-party mediation is by far the most common form of the civil war peace-making process. The right mediator and peace-making policy depend on the dispute – there is no ideal type.
