Alliances in the Shadow of Conflict

Victorious alliances often fight about the spoils of war. This
paper presents an experiment on the determinants of whether
alliances break up and fight internally after having defeated a
joint enemy. First, if peaceful sharing yields an asymmetric rent
distribution, this increases the likelihood of fighting. In turn,
anticipation of the higher likelihood of internal fight reduces the
alliance’s ability to succeed against the outside enemy. Second,
the option to make non-binding declarations on non-aggression in
the relationship between alliance members does not make peaceful
settlement within the alliance more likely. Third, higher
differences in the alliance players’ contributions to alliance
effort lead to more internal conflict and more intense fighting.