John Darby

The Management of Peace Processes

List of Tables List of Figures List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Introduction: Comparing Peace Processes J.Darby & R.M.Ginty South Africa P.du Toit Northern Ireland J.Darby & R.M.Ginty Israel-Palestine T.Hermann & D.Newman Basque Country L.Mees Sri Lanka P.Saravanamutta Conclusion: The Management of Peace J.Derby & R.M.Ginty Bibliography Index

Guns and government : the management of the Northern Ireland peace process

List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction: A New Departure? PART I: THE PEACE PROCESS: A NARRATIVE The Background to the Peace Process Negotiating the Deal Good Friday and After PART II: THE PEACE PROCESS: ANALYSIS Swinging Door: The Politics and Negotiations of the Peace Process Guns and Government: Violence and the Peace Process Third Parties: External Influences on the Peace Process Peace Dividends and Peace Deficits: The Economics of the Peace Process On the Ground: Public Opinion and the Peace Process Poppies and Lilies: Symbolism and the Peace Process Conclusion: A Broader Perspective on Northern Irelands Peace Process Bibliography Index

Introducing the Peace Accords Matrix (PAM): a database of comprehensive peace agreements and their implementation, 1989–2007

This article presents the Peace Accords Matrix (PAM), a database of comprehensive peace agreements and their implementation, covering the years between 1989 and 2007. PAM identifies more than 51 elements that have appeared in peace agreements and collects data that can be used to analyse and compare peace accords. The matrix also monitors the extent to which the agreements have been implemented. Because of these capabilities, PAM is ideal for researchers who want to examine aspects of peace agreements and the implementation of particular provisions, which either help or hinder peace processes in post-accord periods. PAM is also useful for facilitators and mediators who are engaged in the peace process, both prior to and after an agreement is signed, as it provides information on how other countries have previously attempted peace processes. PAM data can be a very useful tool to design better peace accords and to ensure the implementation of accords.

Northern Ireland: Long, Cold Peace

There were seven failed attempts to broker an agreement between Northern Ireland’s constitutional parties in the years 1972–93. Security-led attempts to ‘win’ the conflict had a similarly poor success rate. A variation on Georges Clemenceau’s observation that ‘military justice is to justice what military music is to music’ comes to mind. The 1990s, however, were dominated by a lengthy peace process. The peace process followed a ‘stop-go’ pattern, with long periods of stasis interrupted by concentrated bursts of political activity. Despite paramilitary ceasefires, it was also punctuated by continuing violence. Nevertheless, in April 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was reached.1

Introduction: What Peace?What Process?

Just as the past two decades has seen a significant number of civil wars, it has also seen a significant number of peace processes, peace agreements, post-war reconstruction programmes, and efforts to reach intergroup reconciliation. Many international organizations, governments, militant groups, NGOs, and communities have gained vast experience of making, keeping, and building peace. Much of this experience has come the hard way: through trial and error, fire brigade-style emergency reactions, or because – forced into a corner – they had little choice but to strive for accommodation with an opponent. But some of this experience has been able to build on lessons learned from other peace processes. Political parties, government officials, and United Nations personnel in Nepal, for example, were keen students of the ways in which peace agreements were reached and implemented in other locations. Peacemaking processes cannot be lifted wholesale like templates and applied to other locations; the variations in civil war contexts are too great. Quite simply, some peacemaking environments are more benign than others. But the very fact that peacemaking efforts are underway in one location may encourage peacemaking in another. Techniques used in one location may be investigated and adapted for use in another location.

Conclusion: Peace Processes,Present, and Future

Christine Bell reckons that more than 441 peace agreements have been signed since 1990 in 73 conflicts.1 Most of these agreements relate to disputes operating within state boundaries and, although the vast majority of them addressed relatively minor segments of the disputes, together they reflect an astonishing number of peace processes. However, if the 1990s was the decade of the peace agreement, there is a growing concern that the 2000s may become the decade of agreements of disillusion. It is true that new peace accords, including innovative agreements in Sudan (2005) and Nepal (2006), were agreed, but the number of uncompleted, stalled, or collapsed agreements – in Sri Lanka, East Timor, Lebanon, the Basque Country, Kosovo, for example – is raising questions about the viability of approaches which were accepted as successful a decade ago.

Introduction: Comparing Peace Processes

Westphalia was a peace, not only the end of a war. In itself, it was an extraordinary, drawn-out business, much more of a ‘peace process’ than a rapid treaty. These days, we are suddenly very interested in how peace is made. The delegates in Westphalia had been negotiating for four long years before the documents were ready to sign, during which many more thousands died. The process was handled by something like our own ‘proximity talks’, the technique used at Dayton for Bosnia, in Northern Ireland before Good Friday, in some of the Israel-Palestine talks. The combatants sorted themselves out into two sides. The ‘Imperialists’, broadly Catholic and pro-Habsburg, settled into the cathedral city of Muenster, while the northerners and Protestant rulers housed their delegations at Osnabrueck, a few miles away.

Conclusion: The Management of Peace

A peace process is often compared to climbing a mountain, but a mountain range is a better metaphor, and the first peak is usually the ending of violence. All previous expeditions have failed. There are no obvious tracks to the top, nor any maps to provide guidance. The climbers, previously preoccupied with the arts of war, are unaccustomed to compromise and must pick up the skills as they go along. They must rely on each other’s co-operation for survival. To make matters worse, the mountaineering team is composed of people who have previously been at each others’ throats, often literally, and who must now overcome their suspicions and fears to accomplish a common task for the first time. For many, the ending of violence is more than enough.

Peace Dividends and Peace Deficits: the Economics of the Peace Process

The prospect of a peace dividend is constantly presented as an incentive to end hostilities. The economic benefits of peace in Northern Ireland and in other conflicts are clear. It has been estimated that the cost of the war in Sri Lanka, for example, amounted to US

Guns and Government: Violence and the Peace Process

723000000 in 1999 alone, 13.26 per cent of the state’s budget.1 It is no coincidence that the first approaches to the ANC in South Africa came from white businessmen. The business community in Northern Ireland was also at the fore in urging an agreement. Delivery is another matter, however, and the expected peace dividends are often disappointing, as they were in the Palestinian Authority and in South Africa.2