Harvesting an underdeveloped fruit : How decapitation affects ripeness in civil wars

Abstract: How does the killing or capture of rebel leaders affect the ends of conflict? Although decapitation scholars argue that it reduces the duration of conflict by disrupting rebel group organizational capacity, few have ever researched what effects decapitations could have on peace negotiations. After reviewing the literature within the field of decapitation and the ripeness theory of negotiation this paper tests the hypothesis that Successful decapitations are likely to increase the duration of time it takes for the government to agree on seeking a negotiated end to their conflict. This small n-study uses Mill´s method of disagreement to compare the civil wars in Colombia and El Salvador where decapitations did and did not take place respectively. Although a weak correlation exists the casual mechanism did not find support and therefor the hypothesis was rejected. There was however a relation between the presence of decapitation and government perception of stalemate that could affect how a conflict reaches the point of ripeness.