Figure 1 displays the democracy scores after civil
wars, based on data from Fortna and Huang,50 and arrayed along the commonly used Polity scale of regime
types; that scale ranges from -10 to +10 with end points
representing extreme values of authoritarianism and
democracy respectively.51 Scores are examined at 2,
5, 10, and 20 years following civil war under several
different treatments, including comparing peacekeeping versus no peacekeeping, and whether there was
a decisive victory in the war, with consideration also
given to the identity of the winner (rebel or government).52
Overall, the prospect for democracy in countries
that experience civil wars is bleak. Most predicted
values are near or below zero, more indicating more
authoritarian characteristics than democratic ones;
conventionally, scholars consider a state to be a democracy only when its score exceeds +6 or +7 on the
scale. On average, the level of democracy in a postwar state that receives peacekeeping is about three
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