What’s Law Got to Do With It? Legalization and Post-Conflict Autonomy Success (with G. Carolan)

Territorial self-governance remains a persistent feature of contemporary conflict resolution. Existing research has identified a number of exogenous factors that impact the sustainability of such arrangements, including previous levels of violence, the level of economic development in a given territory, or the strategic importance thereof. We argue that a hitherto neglected variable lies
in the legal form of the autonomy agreement – that is, the degree to which it has been ‘legalized’
by the language and processes prescribed in the agreement. Based on an in-depth qualitative
evaluation, we assess the degree of legalization of 228 post-conflict autonomy agreements signed between 1945 and 2019. Quantitative survival analyses and Cox regression models show that a higher degree of legalization has a positive and significant effect on peace durability.

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Schulte Carolan 2023_Whats Law-Autonomy Success and Legalization
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Schulte Carolan (2023) Whats Law Got To
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