Comparative Peace Processes

This book offers a comparative survey of 18 contemporary peace processes conducted by leading international scholars. There is no standard model of peace processes and all will vary according to the context, type of conflict, timing, national and global economic climate, and factors like natural disasters. Therefore, making comparisons between peace processes is difficult, but it is beneficial – indeed, imperative – and is the principal motivation behind this volume. What works in one context may not work in another, but it can be modified and adapted to fit another context. The book is structured to maximise comparison between processes, and the case studies chosen are topical and span the major regions of the world. The concluding chapter systematically compares the case studies around 11 variables that cover the conflict context, peace process procedures, the responsiveness of the peace process to demands, and levels of participation and inclusion. Each peace process is then given a numeric score according to each of these variables, and the book thereby reaches judgements on whether each case can be termed a ‘success’ or a ‘failure’. This book will be essential reading for students of peace studies, conflict resolution, war and conflict studies, security studies, and IR.

This book is about ending guerrilla conflicts in Latin America through political means. It is about peace processes, aimed at securing an end to military hostilities in the context of agreements that touch on some of the principal political, economic, social, and ethnic imbalances that led to conflict in the first place. The book presents a carefully structured comparative analysis of six Latin American countries--Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia, and Peru--which experienced guerrilla warfare that outlasted the end of the Cold War. The book explores in detail the unique constellation of national and international events that allowed some wars to end in negotiated settlement, one to end in virtual defeat of the insurgents, and the others to rage on. The aim of the book is to identify the variables that contribute to the success or failure of a peace dialogue. Though the individual case studies deal with dynamics that have allowed for or impeded successful negotiations, the contributors also examine comparatively such recurrent dilemmas as securing justice for victims of human rights abuses, reforming the military and police forces, and reconstructing the domestic economy. Serving as a bridge between the distinct literatures on democratization in Latin America and on conflict resolution, the book underscores the reciprocal influences that peace processes and democratic transition have on each other, and the ways democratic "space” is created and political participation enhanced by means of a peace dialogue with insurgent forces. The case studies--by country and issue specialists from Latin America, the United States, and Europe--are augmented by commentaries of senior practitioners most directly involved in peace negotiations, including United Nations officials, former peace advisers, and activists from civil society.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2015 The term 'peace process' is now widely used to describe attempts to manage and resolve conflict. As the nature of conflict has changed, so the range of available tools for producing peace has grown. Alongside a plethora of political actions, there is now a greater international awareness of how peace can be brokered and policed. As a result, peace processes now extend well beyond the actuality of ceasefires and an absence of war to cover legacy issues of victims, truth and reconciliation. This book expertly examines the practical application of solutions to conflict. The first part analyses various political means of conflict management, including consociational power-sharing, partition, federalism and devolution. The second explores the extent to which these political formulas have been applied - or ignored - in a wide range of conflicts including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Northern Ireland, Israel-Palestine, Lebanon, the Basque Region and Sri Lanka. Comparative Peace Processes combines optimism with a realist approach to conflict management, acknowledging that the propensity of dominant states to engage in political experimentation is conditioned by the state of conflict. It will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in general theories of political possibilities in peace processes and the practical deployment of political ideas in conflict zones.

This book analyses and compares ceasefire agreements as part of peace processes in intrastate armed conflicts. Research repeatedly underscores the importance of ceasefire agreements in peace processes but suggests that they can influence such processes in fundamentally different ways. However, despite contradictory expectations, remarkably few studies have so far been devoted to systematic and in-depth analysis of ceasefire agreements in contemporary intrastate armed conflicts. This book contributes to filling this gap by using a process-oriented conflict dynamics approach to analyse and explain how ceasefire agreements are being influenced by and in turn influences the broader dynamics of peace processes. Empirically, the book focuses on the armed conflicts in Aceh (Indonesia) and Sri Lanka. Based on document studies and 57 interviews with key actors, it presents comparative insights and in-depth knowledge about ceasefire agreements in different contextual settings. The book problematizes the common assumption in the literature that ceasefire agreements create momentum in peace processes and pave the way to peace, and it provides a more nuanced analysis and understanding based on two empirical cases analysed within a comparative framework. In contrast to conventional wisdom, it demonstrates how ceasefires on the contrary also can have negative implications on peace processes. This book will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, peace studies, intra-state conflict, security studies and IR in general.

Peace processes are mostly very fragile. This engagingly written book takes a bold new approach to the topic by beginning from the premise that sociology can identify those factors that help to stabilize them. The book draws a distinction between the political and social dimensions of peace processes, arguing that each is dependent on the other. Consideration of the social peace process, neglected in conventional treatments of the subject, is made central to this volume. While complementing current approaches that emphasize institutional reform in politics, law and economics, it pays due attention to sociological factors such as gender, civil society, religion, the deconstruction of violent masculinities, restorative justice, emotions, hope, forgiveness, truth recovery, social memory and public victimhood. These important themes are fully illustrated with examples and in-depth case studies from across the globe. The book locates itself within the growing debate about the positive impact of global civil society on peace and identifies the new forms of peace work engendered by globalization. It will be essential reading for students and scholars of peace studies in politics, international relations and sociology departments.

Contemporary Peacemaking draws on recent experience to identify and explore the essential components of peace processes. The book is organized around five key themes in peacemaking: planning for peace; negotiations; violence on peace processes; peace accords; and peace accord implementation and post-war reconstruction.

This fully updated third-edition of Contemporary Peacemaking is a state of the art overview of peacemaking in relation to contemporary civil wars. It examines best (and worst) practice in relation to peace processes and peace accords. The contributing authors are a mix of leading academics and practitioners with expert knowledge of a wide arrays of cases and techniques. The book provides a mix of theory and concept-building along with insights into ongoing cases of peace processes and post-accord peacebuilding. The chapters make clear that peacemaking is a dynamic field, with new practices in peacemaking techniques, changes to the international peace support architecture, and greater awareness of key issues such as gender and development after peace accords. The book is mindful of the intersection between top-down and bottom-up approaches to peace and how formal and institutionalized peace accords need to be lived and enacted by communities on the ground.

This volume examines the gap between agreements and actual peace by focusing on the different aspects of implementation and of the causes of the success or failure of peace processes. While in the early 1990s the conflicts/peace processes in South Africa, Northern Ireland and Israel-Palestine shared commonalities, a decade later it is all but obvious that they have followed different trajectories and reached different outcomes. This edited volume offers different explanations for the successes and failures of the three processes and provides historical and comparative perspectives regarding their contemporary realities.