Foreign support, internal political disputes and mass killings

Abstract

This paper studies the incentives underlying the relations between foreign countries and rival domestic groups. It models the interaction in a infinitely-repeated game between these three players. The domestic groups bargain for a split of the domestic surplus and may engage in violent dispute for power and in unilateral mass killing processes. The foreign country may choose to support one of these groups in exchange for monetary transfers. The paper characterizes the parametric set in which strategies leading to no violent disputes nor mass killings are Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibra in the presence of foreign support, but not in its absence.