There are currently 193 recognized states, close to three-dozen statelike polities, and more than one hundred autonomous areas and groups aspiring for some degree of self-determination. Among the latter, many groups will be accommodated, others will engage in civil war with their governments, while some will succumb to fratricidal violence. How can we explain this variation in self-determination (SD) outcomes? This is a vexing question that has given rise to a substantial body of literature written from diverse epistemological and methodological traditions. Among the large body of works addressing the topic, Inside the Politics of Self-Determination stands out for offering one of the most comprehensive accounts of SD challenges. Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham is to be commended for weaving together multiple research programs into a coherent framework where various conflict processes are logically entwined. The book is foundational for the community of scholars exploring the dynamic nature of civil warfare.

The study addresses four inter-linked questions, which illustrates the sheer complexity of the undertaking. Two questions pertain to the interaction between self-determination groups and the government: When are states more likely to accommodate SD groups? When is the interaction between SD groups and governments more likely to escalate to civil war? The other two questions unpack the internal dynamics of self-determination movements and of the states confronted with demands for some type of self-rule from (usually, but not always) minority groups: Which SD groups are likely to succumb to internecine violence? How do accommodation and conflict affect the internal structure of SD groups and governments over time? To answer these questions, Cunningham adopts a rationalist approach according to which the varying outcomes observed across SD struggles are a by-product of strategic bargaining between the actors involved in the dispute. By investigating the dynamic interactions between actors involved in self-determination struggles, the author makes a landmark contribution to existing bargaining explanations for internal conflict. Cunningham argues that conventional bargaining models abstract too much away from the micro-dynamics of actor behavior and interaction. In particular, traditional bargaining models tend to view the parties involved in the conflict as unitary, and, hence, have little to say about processes happening within the rebel movement or the government as organizational players. The author contends that the internal structure of antagonists is crucial for understanding SD outcomes since the internal politics of states and SD groups alter incentives for credible commitment and ultimately shape the prospects for accommodation or civil war.

The bargaining process in internal conflicts is highly complex, and few studies manage to grasp actors’ strategies and behavior in such a clear way. Cunningham offers a theoretically rigorous account of how players’ internal structure affects the prospects for accommodation of SD demands, civil war, and internecine violence. The author suggests that accommodation of self-determination demands is more likely when states display a moderate level of internal divisions. The rationale here is that moderately divided governments are better equipped to credibly commit to an agreement. By contrast, extremely high levels of government divisions are likely to lead to bargaining failure since there are multiple veto players who possess institutional or extra-institutional means to block a deal. Accommodation is also less viable when the self-determination movement is highly splintered. A highly fractionalized group will have difficulty committing to a settlement when individual factions stay away from the deal and vow to continue the violent struggle. A high degree of SD group division creates uncertainty for the state about the bargaining range and the kind of settlements that are possible.

Cunningham notes that a government’s decision to make concessions is strategic, much like a rebel group’s choice to accept or reject the state’s proposal. Divisions within the larger rebel movement allow the government to offer concessions to moderate SD factions in order to be able to fight the more radical ones. In effect, governments tend to propose concessions to SD factions in order to solve a critical informational problem: While rebels are generally aware of the level of divisions within states (veto players tend to be highly institutionalized—for example, the military establishment may retain a reserved role in domestic politics), governments are often uncertain about the power and legitimacy of each SD faction. The author suggests that the behavior of SD splinter groups vis-à-vis civilians and other factions within the SD movement functions as a signal about their ability to make credible commitments. One key theoretical expectation is that the more divided SD groups are, the more likely they are to be accommodated by the parent state, but also, the more likely they are to be engulfed in violence. Cunningham argues that fragmented groups get accommodated with greater frequency, but are also more likely to fight the state.

The study proposes that much of the intra-group violence that we observe in SD disputes occurs as a result of the government’s accommodation policies. A government’s strategic selection of factions that are more open towards some type of accommodation creates incentives for SD factions to fight with one another in order to reap the benefits of accommodation (p. 130). Internecine violence functions as a signaling mechanism: “When SD factions use violence to eliminate rival factions, this demonstrates that they are dominant within the group and have the ability to impose costs on the state if they are not part of a bargained settlement. Attacks against civilians can be used to sway the allegiance of the populace to a particular SD faction” (p.131). Cunningham contends that SD group fractionalization creates incentives for the government to be strategic in its selection of bargaining partners, and suggests that “violence directed at SD factions within a group is more likely when there are more competing factions attempting to signal to the state that they are capable of imposing costs on it and, therefore, that the state should negotiate with them” (p. 132). According to this logic, rebel factions sometimes fight with one another in order to reap the benefits of accommodation (p. 134). While this may be a reasonable assumption in many SD cases, in some instances factions fight in order to forestall any agreement with the state. In fact, rebel movement fractionalization often occurs when a dominant faction engages in negotiations with the government, as it was the case with the protracted South Sudanese independence struggle or the Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka.

Finally, Cunningham also analyzes the longer-term connections between civil conflict, accommodation, and the internal structure of actors. More precisely, she conjectures that states are likely to become more cohesive immediately after the outbreak of civil war, while accommodation is likely to produce less fractionalized SD movements in the long run. Hence, one expectation is that internal conflict will coalesce divided governments around the struggle against internal challengers. The other expectation is that we should expect fewer SD factions in the aftermath of accommodations. This is so for three reasons: “First, some factions will be co-opted by the government through accommodation. Second, some factions will be satisfied and cease making demands related to self-determination. Finally, accommodation might prevent the emergence of new factions” (p.159).

To test these theoretical propositions, the author compiled an original dataset on the internal structure of self-determination movements and the number of accommodations between 1960 and 2005. The data collection effort is impressive, and allows Cunningham to empirically test a host of dynamic conflict processes that were insufficiently explored in previous studies. The theoretical conjectures are broadly corroborated: Accommodation is more likely with moderately divided states and highly divided SD groups (Chapter 4); civil war is more likely with highly splintered rebel organizations and with unitary or highly divided governments (Chapter 5); internecine violence is more likely with highly fractionalized SD groups (Chapter 6). The hypotheses are also probed with the use of qualitative data. In addition to the original dataset, the author relies on insights from three self-determination groups in the Assam territory of India: Nagas, Mizos, and Bodos. Case selection ensures a high degree of control for country- and region-specific characteristic, thus allowing the investigator to focus on variation across time in rebel factions, government veto players, and their strategic interactions. The mechanisms uncovered across these three cases generally conform to the theoretical expectations.

The empirics and case narratives are rigorously conducted and reveal a scholar who is particularly attentive to important issues of research design. As with any study, a few comments on the theory and the empirics are apposite. Cunningham’s theory rests on the assumption that actors involved in SD groups bargain over divisible goods; however, whether the good under dispute is actually divisible or whether bargaining really occurs are empirical questions rather than a priori theoretical premises. States are generally stronger than rebel groups, and often have few incentives to bargain with them. Bargaining is costly as it might signal government weakness and might encourage like-minded groups to escalate their own demands. For these reasons, rather than accommodation, states prefer repression. Only where rebels exert territorial control and induce substantial economic and political costs are governments more inclined to come to the negotiation table. Moreover, as the author argues, the fragmented structure of SD groups is a key obstacle to bargaining. Why would a government negotiate with a rebel faction when more powerful splinter groups have vowed to continue the armed struggle and undermine any peaceful overtures from within the larger SD movement? Hence, the point is that across many of the SD disputes analyzed in the study, there may be less bargaining than generally assumed.

When it comes to the empirical models, they adequately capture the strategic bargaining between the government and the SD group. Cunningham meticulously accounts for state- and rebel-actor characteristics to explain the variation in self-determination outcomes. At the same time, the SD bargaining milieu is often more complex and includes multiple other actors beside the government and SD factions. As shown in the extant literature, the outcomes of self-determination disputes are also likely to be influenced by external intervention or mediation, external military/political support for the government or the rebels, or recognition of a separatist entity by UN-member countries. All of these variables are likely to alter actors’ incentives for credible commitment and to have an impact on the outcomes of self-determination disputes. The inclusion of these covariates, perhaps in the appendix, would have strengthened the empirical findings.

The value of this book lies not only with what the author has accomplished but also with the avenues that the study opens for a better understanding of how bargaining unfolds in internal conflicts. A self-determination struggle, and civil war more generally, is a process that encompasses multiple stages: onset, (often, multiple waves of) escalation, de-escalation, and termination. As Cunningham notes, actors’ internal characteristics and strategies are critical for understanding this dynamic, processual nature of domestic conflict. The book is noteworthy for signaling the need to better integrate the stages between the outbreak of an internal crisis and accommodation or civil war onset. The careful examination of the competition within and between domestic actors gets us closer to a more comprehensive “steps-to-civil war” theory, one that would also pay attention to the influence of external players and to the international/regional context in which the dispute unfolds. All in all, Cunningham’s study is essential for grasping the complexity of civil war processes. The theory is compelling, the data impressive, and the research design rigorous. With sound scholarship and lucid argumentation, The Politics of Self-Determination is a tour de force, and a must-read for scholars and practitioners alike.