ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation BALANCING BELLIGERENTS OR FEEDING THE

Hayden Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Advisory Committee Dean Robert Orr, School of Public Policy, UMD, Chair Professor David Crocker, School of Public Policy, UMD Professor Jack Goldstone, School of Public Policy, GMU Professor Paul Huth. [...] In recent years, scholarly research has improved understanding of the macro-level conditions under which political instability is likely to break out, the dynamics of conflict escalation due to repression and instrumental violence, and the factors that impact conflict duration and termination. [...] Different research perspectives inform the development of theories for the co- evolution of civil conflict dynamics and third-party interventions—that of explaining conflict onset and duration; that of understanding the impact of foreign aid in conflict settings; that of explaining success or failure of peacekeeping operations; and that of understanding post-conflict stabilization and peacebuildin. [...] Figure 3 Theoretical Framework Integrating Structural Interventions in Conflict with Concepts of System Resiliency to Explain Patterns of Persistent Violence and Human Security 19 Overview In 34 cases of persistent conflict in 32 African countries between 1989-2014, the frequency of conflict events recorded in both datasets displays patterns that map to four of the reference behavior modes of syst. [...] For exponential growth (Group C), increase in mean frequency of events significantly exceeds the amplitude of the oscillations; where as in oscillatory behavior (Group D), the amplitude of the oscillations exceeds the annual increase (or in some cases decrease) of the mean frequency of events.