Credible power-sharing agreements: Theory with evidence from South Africa and Lebanon

I present a simple model to examine the structure of credible post-conflict power-sharing agreements. I first show that power-sharing is necessary to induce warring factions to choose democratic rule over the statusquo. When warring factions have commitment problems. I show that the agreements require a restructuring of the coercive institutions of the state. The theoretical results are supported by a wide ranging empirical study by Hartzell (1999) on the stability of negotiated settlements of civil wars fought during the post World War II era. I illustrate the results with case studies on Lebanon and South Africa.