Studies have shown post-conflict power-sharing as one of the important institutional aspects of post-conflict peace. However, these studies are yet to explain why and how lower-tier insurgents can play an influential role during and after the power-sharing peace deals. The most important aspect about them is that they are the rational actors whose interests in ‘selective incentives’ are more likely to make them weigh post-power sharing terms in terms of their cost-benefit analysis. The central argument of this paper is that conflicts incurring a higher cost for the lower-tier insurgent is more likely to survive a peaceful transition only when their concern of ‘selective incentives’ has been taken care of. With a statistical analysis of the Power-sharing Event Datasets (PSED) of Ottomonn and Vullers (2015), this paper has found support for this argument.

Studies have shown post-conflict power-sharing as one of the important institutional aspects of post-conflict peace. However, these studies have yet to explain why and how lower-tier insurgents can play an influential role during and after the power-sharing peace deals. The most important aspect about them is that they are the rational actors whose interests in ‘selective incentives’ are more likely to make them weigh post-power sharing terms in terms of their cost-benefit analysis. The central argument of this paper is that conflicts incurring a higher cost for the lower-tier insurgent are more likely to survive a peaceful transition only when their concern of ‘selective incentives’ has been taken care of. With a statistical analysis of the Power-sharing Event Datasets (PSED) of Ottomonn and Vullers (2015), this paper has found support for this argument.