Peace agreements in armed conflicts: focusing on finding a solution to the conflict incompatibility

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program’s (UCDP) Peace Agreement Dataset was first published in 2006. Its main goal was to provide the research community with a dataset on peace agreements that was not linked to conflict termination, i. e. included both successful and failed agreements. The latest update of the dataset includes 355 peace agreements concluded in the 1975–2018 period. A number of studies have been based on the dataset over the years. The dataset is unique in its strict connection to the UCDP conflict data and in its focus on the conflict dyad, actors, and the conflict incompatibility. The dataset’s focus on only those agreements that involve the dyadic relationship between primary warring parties – between governments and rebel groups or between two governments – has direct policy implications, as it is exactly these parties who need to change their stances on incompatibilities in order to solve a conflict. Also, the Peace Agreement Dataset’s focus on agreements that address the key incompatibilities contested by the parties allow it to distinguish peace agreements on other negotiated deals, including ceasefires, and to differentiate between full, partial and peace process agreements. Finally, the analysis of key trends in peace agreements is presented. It shows that in contrast to the previous historical peak in the number of armed conflicts back in the early 1990s that corresponded to the peak in annual numbers of peace agreements, the new peak in annual numbers of armed conflicts in the late 2010s was not matched by a similar rise in peace agreements.

Peace agreement design and public support for peace: Evidence from Colombia

10.1177/0022343319853603 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 56 (6) ◽

pp. 827-844 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Juan Fernando Tellez

Keyword(s):

Public Sphere ◽

Transitional Justice ◽

Public Support ◽

Peace Process ◽

Peace Agreement ◽

Public Response ◽

The Public ◽

Peace Agreements ◽

The Public Sphere ◽

Conflict negotiations are often met with backlash in the public sphere. A substantial literature has explored why civilians support or oppose peace agreements in general. Yet, the terms underlying peace agreements are often absent in this literature, even though (a) settlement negotiators must craft agreement provisions covering a host of issues that are complex, multidimensional, and vary across conflicts, and (b) civilian support is likely to vary depending on what peace agreements look like. As a result, we know much less about how settlement design molds overall public response, which settlement provisions are more or less controversial, or what citizens prioritize in conflict termination. In this article, I identify four key types of peace agreement provisions and derive expectations for how they might shape civilian attitudes toward conflict termination. Using novel conjoint experiments fielded during the Colombian peace process, I find evidence that citizens evaluate agreements based primarily on how provisions mete out justice to out-group combatants, and further that transitional justice provisions produced sharp divisions among urban voters in the 2016 referendum. Additional analysis suggests that material, distributive concerns were particularly salient for rural citizens. The results have implications for understanding the challenge of generating public buy-in for conflict termination and sheds light on the polarizing Colombian peace process.

Considering concessions: A survey experiment on the Colombian peace process

Conflict Management and Peace Science ◽

10.1177/0738894218787784 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 35 (6) ◽

pp. 637-655 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Aila M Matanock ◽

Natalia Garbiras-Díaz

Keyword(s):

Political Parties ◽

Peace Process ◽

Civil Conflict ◽

Survey Experiment ◽

Electoral Process ◽

Peace Agreement ◽

Popular Support ◽

Peace Processes ◽

Rebel Groups ◽

Peace Agreements

Designing peace agreements that can be signed and sustained can be difficult in civil conflict. Many recent cases of successful settlements include electoral provisions, often for rebel groups to participate as political parties. Engaging the electoral process, however, can also open the peace process to the population at large, potentially derailing a settlement or some of its provisions, perhaps especially those related to politics. In this paper, we examine popular support for peace processes, specific electoral provisions, and potential concessions that provide former rebels with protections, legitimacy, and power. Using a survey experiment in Colombia, we find that the peace process overall is more popular than its electoral provisions, and that rebel endorsement of the provisions further diminishes support. These results contribute to an explanation of why the 2016 Colombian plebiscite on the peace agreement failed and to an understanding of how design matters to agreement effectiveness.

Women, peace and international security: the Havana Agreement for peace in Colombia

Relaciones Internacionales UAM ◽

10.15366/relacionesinternacionales2019.41.004 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 73-90

Author(s):

Elena DE OLIVEIRA SCHUCK ◽

Lívia BRITO

Keyword(s):

International Security ◽

Armed Forces ◽

Civil Society Organizations ◽

Armed Conflicts ◽

Peace Agreement ◽

Peace Negotiations ◽

Peace Agreements ◽

Specific Analysis ◽

The Government

Armed conflicts have different impacts on women. In this regard, women’s civil society organizations are inserted in the international political arenas in order to guarantee their rights in warfare contexts. In the case of conflicts in Colombia, women are identified not only as combatants and victims, but also as members of women civil organizations for peacebuilding. These organizations played a prominent role in the elaboration of the peace agreement between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Havana, Cuba, between 2012 and 2016. This article proposes an analysis of the theoretical production on peace, international security, feminism and subalternity, to present the specific case of the conflict in Colombia and its gender perspectives. The results indicate that peace agreements can be instruments of political inclusion and reparation for women affected by armed conflicts. In highlighting the role of political minorities in the international peace negotiations in Colombia, this research contributes to the development and expansion of critical perspectives —feminist and subaltern— on international security and studies for peace. Moreover, building upon the specific analysis of the Havana Agreement, this paper aims to contribute to the inclusion of a gender perspective in future peace agreements.

Managing the Tension between Inclusionary and Exclusionary Processes: Building Peace in Burundi

International Negotiation ◽

10.1163/138234008x297940 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 73-91 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Elizabeth McClintock ◽

Térence Nahimana

Keyword(s):

Civil Society ◽

Peace Process ◽

Peace Agreement ◽

Peace Processes ◽

Peace Agreements ◽

Peace Accords ◽

Exclusive Processes

AbstractThe tension between inclusive and exclusive approaches is present throughout peace processes. The challenge of facilitators, mediators, and parties alike is to determine how to manage these tensions, how to integrate various processes into a comprehensive whole and ensure that those required to implement the peace agreement have access to the process that creates the peace agreement. In particular, how can civil society, an actor of ever-increasing importance in the implementation of peace agreements, be effectively included in the design of the accords? This article examines the tension between inclusive and exclusive processes within the context of the Burundi peace process and the development of the Arusha Peace Accords.

A persuasive peace: Syrian refugees’ attitudes towards compromise and civil war termination

10.1177/0022343318814114 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 56 (1) ◽

pp. 103-117 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Kristin Fabbe ◽

Chad Hazlett ◽

Tolga Sınmazdemir

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Peace Process ◽

Violent Conflict ◽

Syrian Refugees ◽

Peace Agreement ◽

War Termination ◽

Peaceful Settlement ◽

Critical Phases ◽

Conflict Termination ◽

Wartime Experience

Civilians who have fled violent conflict and settled in neighboring countries are integral to processes of civil war termination. Contingent on their attitudes, they can either back peaceful settlements or support warring groups and continued fighting. Attitudes toward peaceful settlement are expected to be especially obdurate for civilians who have been exposed to violence. In a survey of 1,120 Syrian refugees in Turkey conducted in 2016, we use experiments to examine attitudes towards two critical phases of conflict termination – a ceasefire and a peace agreement. We examine the rigidity/flexibility of refugees’ attitudes to see if subtle changes in how wartime losses are framed or in who endorses a peace process can shift willingness to compromise with the incumbent Assad regime. Our results show, first, that refugees are far more likely to agree to a ceasefire proposed by a civilian as opposed to one proposed by armed actors from either the Syrian government or the opposition. Second, simply describing the refugee community’s wartime experience as suffering rather than sacrifice substantially increases willingness to compromise with the regime to bring about peace. This effect remains strong among those who experienced greater violence. Together, these results show that even among a highly pro-opposition population that has experienced severe violence, willingness to settle and make peace are remarkably flexible and dependent upon these cues.

Conceptual Ambiguity in Coding the Categories of Peace Agreement and Peace Process

Peace Economics Peace Science and Public Policy ◽

10.1515/peps-2020-0003 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Yoav Kapshuk

Keyword(s):

Peace Process ◽

Peace Agreement ◽

Peace Processes ◽

Peace Agreements ◽

Peace And Conflict Studies ◽

Peace And Conflict ◽

Data Production ◽

Core Concepts ◽

Fuzzy Boundary ◽

Complicated Task

AbstractWithin the field of peace and conflict studies, data-production on peace agreements has rapidly increased. One complicated task for scholars and practitioners alike is understanding the relationships between peace agreements and the relationships between agreements and processes. For example, discerning when an agreement establishes continuity with previous agreements and, thus, belongs to the same peace process or when an agreement signals the start of a new peace process is not straightforward. In this study, I highlight what appears to be a fuzzy boundary for categorizing some disciplinary core concepts which, in turn, can cause our data to be unreliable. As a point of comparison, I investigate how two major peace agreement datasets – UCDP Peace Agreement Dataset and PA-X Peace Agreement Dataset – associate peace agreements with peace processes and find differences and ambiguities with respect to how they are coded in both databases. As a result of such inconsistencies, analyses drawn from these data can have different outputs and lead to misunderstandings about peace processes. Here, I demonstrate the disciplinary need for clearer principles to effectively associate peace agreements with peace processes and then argue for developing a disciplinary standard for the criteria used to operationalize peace processes. Crucially, a standard method for aggregating agreements into processes will facilitate consistent data production across databases.

Talks before the talks: Effects of pre-negotiation on reaching peace agreements in intrastate armed conflicts, 2005–15

10.1177/0022343320961152 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 002234332096115

Author(s):

Lindsey Doyle ◽

Lukas Hegele

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Research ◽

Quantitative Research ◽

Causal Link ◽

Interstate Conflict ◽

Armed Conflicts ◽

Intrastate Conflict ◽

Peace Agreement ◽

Negotiated Settlement ◽

Peace Agreements ◽

The Way

Pre-negotiation is widely accepted as a means to convince intrastate conflict parties to negotiate formally; however, research has not yet established a causal link between early efforts to bring warring parties together and the outcome of any negotiated settlement. This gap begs the question: To what extent do activities during the pre-negotiation phase contribute to the signing of a peace agreement? Theory on interstate conflict suggests that pre-negotiation reduces risk, thereby convincing conflict parties that they have more to gain from negotiating than from fighting. However, in conflicts between governments and non-state armed actors, this article argues that reciprocity paves the way for reaching peace agreements. This article introduces a new dataset on pre-negotiation including nearly all intrastate armed conflicts between 2005 and 2015. Confirming previous findings, mediation is significantly and positively correlated with reaching a type of peace agreement; conflicts over government are more likely to end in a negotiated agreement than conflicts over territory or both government and territory. In contrast to existing qualitative research, this study finds little evidence that pre-negotiation increases the likelihood that conflict dyads sign peace agreements. Future quantitative research on this topic requires more nuanced measures of the conditions under which conflict parties shift from unilateral to joint decisionmaking.

The plight of indigenous peoples within the context of conflict mediation, peace talks and human rights in Mindanao, the Philippines

Thesis Eleven ◽

10.1177/0725513618763838 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 145 (1) ◽

pp. 28-37 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Sedfrey M. Candelaria

Keyword(s):

Indigenous Peoples ◽

Indigenous Communities ◽

The Philippines ◽

Armed Conflicts ◽

Peace Processes ◽

Rebel Groups ◽

Peace Agreements ◽

Peace Initiatives ◽

Strategic Role ◽

Philippine Government

Republic Act 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997 (IPRA) was passed by the Philippine Congress in order to address the concerns of the indigenous communities which had received marginal attention through the past decades. Indigenous communities have also been displaced from their lands due to armed conflicts between government soldiers and secessionist groups, particularly the Moro rebels and the communist-led New Peoples’ Army. The Philippines has been privy to peace initiatives with these two groups for some time now. Political circumstances, however, and legal impediments have periodically stalled the peace processes. It is the author’s intention to focus on the predicament of indigenous communities as they seek a strategic role in shaping the content of peace agreements being negotiated by the Philippine government with the rebel groups. How have the indigenous communities made an impression on the two peace processes through the years? And, have the indigenous peoples’ rights been sufficiently protected in the context of the peace agreements? The author will draw from his own insights on the peace processes and agreements which have been negotiated and even tested before the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

Armed Conflicts, Conflict Termination and Peace Agreements, 1989-96

10.1177/0022343397034003011 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 34 (3) ◽

pp. 339-358 ◽

Cited By ~ 46

Author(s):

Peter Wallensteen ◽

Margareta Sollenberg

Keyword(s):

Armed Conflicts ◽

Peace Agreements ◽

The rise of rebel contenders

10.1177/0022343318767497 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 55 (5) ◽

pp. 551-565 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Hanne Fjelde ◽

Desirée Nilsson

Keyword(s):

Armed Conflicts ◽

Limited Attention ◽

Barriers To Entry ◽

Structural Barriers ◽

Rebel Groups ◽

Windows Of Opportunity ◽

Ethnic Networks ◽

The Government ◽

Opposition Movements ◽

Fragmentation of armed opposition movements through the rise of new rebel groups constitutes a significant challenge to conflict termination and peacebuilding. Yet, the question of why some rebel movements remain cohesive whereas others see a number of contending groups during the course of the armed conflict has received limited attention in existing research. This article addresses this gap by analyzing the determinants of the rise of rebel contenders in intrastate armed conflicts worldwide, 1975–2013. The theoretical framework focuses on barriers to entry, that is, variations in the costs and disadvantages that must be borne by nascent rebel contenders that are not borne to the same extent by incumbent rebel groups. The study proposes that strong social networks underpinning incumbent groups create structural barriers to entry for nascent groups by aggravating challenges of organization building. It further suggests that the interaction between incumbent groups and the government influences strategic barriers to entry as changes in government policies produce windows of opportunity for nascent groups to form. Consistent with these arguments, the study finds that when incumbent groups have strong networks – because rebels either tap into ethnic networks or draw on a leftist ideology – the risk of fragmentation is lower. Furthermore, when the government accommodates groups, through either negotiations or democratic concessions, the risk of fragmentation increases.