Building peace
“Put very simply, conflicts end in one of three different ways,” says peace researcher Karin Dyrstad.
Although it may not seem so right now, there has been more peace in the world in the last few decades, with conflict numbers declining. That changed with the war in Syria in 2016.
“Fifteen years ago, we researchers were talking about how to resolve the last remaining old conflicts – the ones that regularly flare up again from time to time, like the Palestine–Israel conflict, which is the epitome of a conflict that is extremely difficult to resolve,” says Karin Dyrstad, professor of political science at NTNU.
Her research focuses on strategies for building peace, how people’s political attitudes are affected by experiencing armed conflict, and their opinions on various strategies for building peace and reconciliation.
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Civil wars
The majority of the conflicts in the world over the past few decades have been and still are civil wars, not conflicts between different states. Over the past 20 years, most research has focused on civil wars.
“A lot of conflict research focuses on what we call ‘conflict recurrence’, i.e. conflicts that keep repeating themselves,” says Dyrstad.
These type of conflicts can be found in South Sudan, Mali, Yemen and Eastern Congo.
Solutions
Uppsala University has collected data on conflicts from 1946 to the present day. Virtually all quantitative conflict research today is based on the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). UCDP data show that the number of conflicts and conflict-related deaths was relatively low from the turn of the millennium until Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the escalating unrest in the Middle East and Africa.
How can conflicts be resolved?
“Put simply, conflicts end in one of three different ways,” says Karin Dyrstad.
1) Through a peace treaty, possibly involving a permanent ceasefire.
2) Through military victory.
3) Through the conflict becoming frozen. The conflict has not been resolved, but there are no acts of war or physical violence.
Peace treaties
“In recent decades, we have seen that most conflicts end in peace treaties or ceasefires,” says Professor Karin Dyrstad. Photo: Thor Nielsen / NTNU
In several prolonged civil wars, peace treaties were developed in the 1990s and early 2000s, which were gradually implemented over time.
“In recent decades, we have seen that most conflicts end in peace treaties or ceasefires,” says Karin Dyrstad.
Some examples of countries that have signed peace treaties after prolonged and bloody conflicts:
Guatemala: Peace Accord signed in 1996 between the rebel factions and the government after 36 years of civil war. The negotiations took place over many years, and during the process, human rights activist Rigoberta Menchú was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her work on the rights of impoverished indigenous peoples.
Northern Ireland: The Good Friday Agreement signed in 1998 between the Unionists and the Republican Sinn Féin/IRA after 30 years of conflict, terror and violence. This period, known as ‘The Troubles’, involved an escalation of several hundred years of British oppression of Ireland.
Nepal: Peace Accord signed in 2006 between Maoist rebel forces and the government after ten years of civil war. Nepal was formerly a Hindu kingdom where high-caste Hindus held most of the economic and political resources, while many of the other 120 different castes and ethnic groups lived in extreme poverty.
Military victory
“The solution that best ensures lasting peace is military victory. But military victory comes at a very high price, as it is often very brutal. Of course, it is better to have a peace treaty where the disagreements are resolved,” says Dyrstad.
Sri Lanka is an example of how military victory can put an end to acts of war. The prolonged and bloody civil war between the Tamils and Sinhalese lasted for 26 years. At times, there were negotiations between the parties, and a peace treaty was even signed, but it did not last. In 2009, the Sinhalese government took control of the country through a military coup and crushed the resistance from the Tamil Tigers.
Frozen conflicts
Then there are conflicts that become frozen. The parties still disagree, but there is very little fighting. Since the conflict remains unresolved, new fighting could still break out at any time.
Nagorno-Karabakh is one example of a frozen conflict. The conflict in the post-Soviet state landscape between Armenia and Azerbaijan over who should govern this border area has reached a stalemate. Almost the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh is Armenian, but the area is formally part of Azerbaijan. There has been unrest in this area since the early 1990s, but the skirmishes have usually ended without a formal ceasefire.
“To summarize, a resolved conflict is one where a peace treaty has been negotiated. And luckily most conflicts end in peace treaties, so that is something positive,” says Karin Dyrstad.
The first step
The road to a peace treaty is usually long, and the process takes place in several stages. Most peace treaties take years to reach. It can be a painstaking process.
“The first step is to decide to negotiate for peace. This is the biggest and most difficult step for the parties to take,” says Dyrstad.
The conflict is then broken down into smaller components, and the parties negotiate one issue at a time.
“This might involve negotiating a partial agreement about land rights, another about how to handle the legal resolution of the conflict, and so on. Then, once all the disputes have been resolved, all the sub-agreements can collectively become a binding, larger peace treaty,” explains Dyrstad.
The peace treaty in Colombia in 2016 is an example of such an agreement, reached after prolonged negotiations between the government and the rebels, with several partial agreements being made along the way.
Between 1990 and 2023, 171 peace treaties were signed around the world. They consisted of 2055 sub-agreements, based on data from the Peace And Transition Process Tracker, developed by the University of Edinburgh.
Pressure from the international community
Karin Dyrstad highlights three key factors that are important for bringing the parties to the negotiating table to discuss peace.
“Pressure from the international community is effective. It can come from international organisations such as the UN Security Council, the EU, and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Pressure can also come from countries that play an important role. For example, the United States holds an important key regarding its influence on Israel. The EU also played a key role in negotiating the agreement in Northern Ireland,” says Dyrstad.
Peacekeeping forces can play a crucial role in ensuring a peace treaty is upheld.
Keeping watch
What kind of mechanisms and measures are important for implementing a peace treaty?
“I believe it largely depends on civil society, meaning that civil society needs to keep an eye on things. When it comes to political reform, interest groups can play an important role. Even if the political leaders have signed an agreement on political reform, they might not be very motivated to implement the reforms themselves. Pressure from various interest groups has proven to be central in the implementation of peace treaties,” says Karin Dyrstad.
She points out that organisations for victims and survivors can play a role in pushing for a judicial resolution.
“It is essential that the international community keeps pushing for a resolution and does not forget,” says Dyrstad.
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The biggest and most difficult step for the parties to take is deciding to negotiate peace. From 1990 to 2023, 171 peace agreements were concluded in the world. Photo: Scanpix
Carrot and stick
International development aid may also be significant to ensure a peace treaty is effective and lasts, for example by helping to improve conditions for impoverished populations in countries where social inequality and poverty are causes of unrest.
“The carrot and stick approach can be used as a means of implementing a peace treaty. The carrot might be the promise of aid, while the stick might be holding back certain benefits.”
For example, in the former Yugoslavia, the possibility of EU membership was used in the process of stabilising the situation and maintaining peace after the bloody war that lasted from 1991 to 1999. The possibility of joining the EU enticed the countries to implement democratic reforms and to extradite war criminals.
Public support
A peace treaty can be seen as a kind of governance document.
“It defines what a society should look like after a war. And it is beneficial if this governance document is perceived as legitimate and has public support,” says Dyrstad.
Broad public support has been important for ensuring that peace agreements last in some countries. In Northern Ireland, Nepal and Guatemala, the peace treaties had strong public support.
In Latin America, uprisings and the formation of guerrilla groups have often been about land reforms, poverty, and social inequalities. If a peace agreement leads to improvements in people’s living conditions and rights, public discontent is reduced or disappears altogether, and with it the legitimacy of rebel groups.
“If land reform issues are resolved, a rebel group can no longer claim to champion the noble cause of land reform, to put it simply.”
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Democracy
“If a peace treaty is perceived as legitimate and has broad support, this can be seen as an indirect indicator that the rebel group no longer has much support. In other words, some of the problems that caused the war have been resolved through the peace treaty. In that sense, public support for the peace treaty is crucial to avoid further conflict.
But even more important is that public support gives legitimacy to the institutions that are to be established in the wake of the peace treaty. Especially in relation to long-term development and democracy,” says Dyrstad.
More peaceful times
The trend that was moving in the right direction with a decrease in the number of wars and conflicts suddenly changed a few years ago, with a resurgence of major unrest in the Middle East, the civil war in Ethiopia, and full-scale war in Ukraine.
“But we must also remember that the world situation may change again for the better. Despite the fact that the world is currently in a period of unrest, more peaceful times might be just around the corner,” Dyrstad says.
