ABSTRACT
The specter of ethnic conflicts has ravaged both developed and developing countries and ethnic conflicts present a sustained challenge for theories on conflict management and resolution.2 This chapter considers ethnic conflicts as a bargaining situation between ethnic groups and governments, where commitment problems may prevent the parties from reaching settlements and encourage the use of violence. When parties in a conflict are unable to reach an agreement by themselves, an external enforcer who can help the parties overcome credible commitment problems and bear the cost of providing the settlement may be necessary to reach an arrangement.3 Since the inability to find settlement to violent ethnic conflicts can create severe regional security problems that can impose significant costs on external actors, external actors will often have incentives to facilitate a stable settlement in ethnic conflicts. However, if settlement is a collective good for more than one actor, then the actors may try to shirk and rely on others enforcing the settlement. In this chapter, I use the theory of public goods provision to identify when third party provision will be more or less likely. I illustrate the implications of the argument with case studies of Sri Lanka and Bosnia.
