Pressed to Prolong: Conscription, the Costs of Military Labor, and Civil War Duration

Abstract Existing research has identified numerous explanations for why some civil wars last longer than others. Yet, the type of labor that state militaries recruit has remained unexplored in this context. We consider how a state's military personnel system affects its ex post decision to keep fighting. We argue that conscription renders access to military labor relatively easy and, thus, less expensive. As military wages fall, war becomes less costly, the production of military power becomes more labor intensive, and the hazard of conflict termination declines. In a volunteer force, in contrast, military labor is relatively scarce and, therefore, more expensive. Accordingly, war becomes more costly, the production of military power becomes more capital intensive, and the hazard of conflict termination rises. These effects are reinforced as a conflict persists, leading to an increased divergence in duration across conscripted and volunteer militaries. We test these contentions using a global sample of civil wars, finding robust support for each expectation. We also validate the underlying mechanisms linking conscription to protracted conflict in two illustrative cases. Our results highlight the importance of labor-side determinants of war duration and contribute to a growing literature that explores how the composition of military forces affects conflict dynamics.