In two influential articles Chaim Kaufmann elaborated a set of hypotheses on the usefulness of partition as a solution to ethnic civil war, building on the arguments of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Van Evera. 1 Before them, a first wave of theorists had considered the benefits and costs of partition. A prominent theorist, Donald Horowitz, suggested that
if the short run is so problematical, if the constraints on policy innovation are many, if even grand statements need patchwork readjustment, perhaps it is a mistake to seek accommodation among the antagonists. If it is impossible for groups to live together in a heterogeneous state, perhaps it is better for them to live apart in more than one homogeneous state, even if this necessitates population transfers. Separating the antagonists--partition--is an option increasingly recommended for consideration where groups are territorially concentrated. 2
It is hard to argue with such a statement. Assuming that "the constraints of policy innovation" and "the short run" can be accurately measured ex ante, it would be easy to recommend partition for some
[End Page 437] countries while trying to patch up others. However, neither the first nor the second wave of theorists was able to produce operational criteria for applying the theory consistently across cases.
Despite this lack of operational applicability and clarity, partition theory, with its intuitive appeal, has been shaping scholarly and policy opinion on how to end ethnic civil wars. To help policymakers make informed decisions about the usefulness of partition as a strategy to end civil war, I compiled a new data set of all civil wars in the post-World War II era and used that data set to empirically test the set of hypotheses that constitute partition theory.
I focus on the second wave of partition theorists, who have had the greatest impact on the debate. According to them, ethnic violence implies that civil politics cannot be restored unless "ethnic groups are demographically separated into defensible enclaves. . . . Solutions that aim at restoring multi-ethnic civil politics and at avoiding population transfers--such as power-sharing, state re-building, or identity reconstruction--cannot work because they do nothing to dampen the security dilemma." 3
The so-called security dilemma lies at the core of partition theory. The dilemma in its purest form arises when one community faces a distrustful other and one's actions to increase one's own security are perceived as threatening the security of others. 4 Posen argues that this dynamic is intensified when the opponents belong to different ethnic groups. 5 Ethnic civil wars, argue partition theorists, are characterized by strong and fixed identities, by weak ideological and strong religious overtones, by the dissemination of tales of atrocities to strengthen mobilization, and by easy recognition of identities and the existence of only limited scope for individual choice. Therefore, once war starts, the theory goes, all members of the group must be mobilized because other ethnic groups will inevitably recognize them as enemies. 6 This inescapable destiny reinforces the dynamics of war and must lead to partition, since "once ethnic groups are mobilized for war, the war cannot end until the populations are separated into defensible, mostly homogeneous regions. . . . Ethnic separation . . . allows . . . cleansing and rescue imperatives [to] disappear; war is no longer mandatory." 7
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However intuitive that reasoning may be, it is nothing more than a series of unsubstantiated assertions. Beyond a handful of self-selected cases, partition theorists have not presented proof that partition is the only viable and credible solution to ethnic civil war. They have not even proven that partition outperforms other war outcomes in terms of peace-building potential. The theory is indeed plausible under strict assumptions, but are these assumptions realistic?
This paper poses a serious challenge to partition theorists by providing a rigorous test of the theory with a comparison of post-civil war realities in both partitioned and nonpartitioned states. It focuses on countries that have experienced civil war; it does not consider cases of peaceful partition. 8 I begin by summarizing other authors' critiques of partition theory in the next section. I then identify the main determinants of war-related partition and test the three core hypotheses of partition theory: (1) that partitions facilitate postwar democratization; (2) that they prevent war recurrence; and (3) that they significantly reduce residual low-level ethnic violence. My tests lead me to reject the most critical tenets of partition theory. I find that partitions do not help prevent recurrence of ethnic war and that they may not even be necessary to stop low-level ethnic violence.
