ABSTRACT

The causes and consequences of ceasefires have become a burgeoning area of research. The concept of ceasefire success is integral to this research and plays a key role as either the dependent or independent variable in both qualitative and quantitative work. Despite its importance, it is not clear how ceasefire success should be conceptualized. This critically hampers the progress of theoretical and empirical research on ceasefires. This article offers a conceptual framework based on the central proposition that ceasefire success should be assessed in terms of two inter-related but conceptually distinct criteria: the immediate objective and the underlying purpose. The immediate objective, which is embedded in the definition of a ceasefire, is the cessation of hostilities (either permanently or temporarily). While all ceasefires share this objective, their underlying purpose, which is the reason for establishing the ceasefire, varies widely across cases. The immediate objective and the purpose, while conceptually distinct, are linked since the purpose informs the temporal and geographic scope of the cessation of hostilities. Based on this framework, we argue that researchers interested in ceasefire success need to clearly identify their assumptions and conceptual choices, which should take account of the political context of the ceasefires in question.

摘要

停火的原因和后果已成为一个新兴的研究领域。停火成功的概念是这项研究不可或缺的一部分，并且在定性和定量工作中作为因变量或自变量发挥着关键作用。尽管它很重要，但尚不清楚应该如何将成功停火概念化。这严重阻碍了关于停火的理论和实证研究的进展。本文提供了一个基于核心命题的概念框架，即应根据两个相互关联但概念上不同的标准来评估停火是否成功：直接目标和根本目的。包含在停火定义中的直接目标是停止敌对行动（永久或暂时停止）。虽然所有停火都有这个目标，但它们的根本目的，即建立停火的原因，因情况而异。直接目标和目的虽然在概念上不同，但相互关联，因为目的决定了停止敌对行动的时间和地理范围。基于这个框架，我们认为对停火成功感兴趣的研究人员需要清楚地确定他们的假设和概念选择，这应该考虑到停火的政治背景。