No way back? : the implementation of comprehensive peace agreements as an obstacle to sustainable peace : a case study of Colombia

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No Way Back?

The Implementation of Comprehensive Peace Agreements

as an Obstacle to Sustainable Peace

A Case Study of Colombia

Master’s thesis

submitted on June 28, 2019 for the degree of Master of Science (MSc)

in Conflict Resolution and Governance at the Graduate School of Social Sciences of the University of Amsterdam.

Research Project Conflict Resolution and Governance 7374T201ZY

Supervisor and First Reader: Martijn Dekker, PhD Second Reader: Gijsbert van Iterson Scholten, PhD

M. L. Hohlfeld 12273597 Word count: 56,231

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Abbreviations

CIDH Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos)

CPA Comprehensive Peace Agreement

DCAF Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance DDR Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration

EU European Union

FARC Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia)

FCP Colombia Peace Fund (Fondo Colombiano de Paz)

FCS Sustainable Colombia Fund (Fondo Colombia Sostenible) ICG International Crisis Group

IEP Insitute for Economics and Peace IMF International Monetary Fund

JEP Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial de Paz) NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

OACP Office of the High Commissioner for Peace (Oficina del Alto Comisionado para la Paz)

OHCHR Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights PRIO Peace Research Institute Oslo

SIT Social Identity Theory SSR Security Sector Reform

SWP German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik)

TRC Truth and Reconciliation Commission

TZN Transitional Zone for Neutralisation (Zona Veredal Transitoria de Normalización)

UCDP Upsalla Conflict Data Programme

UN United Nations

UNDP United Nations Development Programme USIP United States Institute for Peace

WB World Bank

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UN Documents Consulted

A/47/277 UN Secretary General. June 17, 1992. “An Agenda for Peace.” A/HRC/37/3/Add.3 UN General Assembly. March 21, 2018. “Annual Report of the

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Situation of Human Rights in Colombia.”

A/RES/70/262 UN General Assembly. May 12, 2016. “Resolution Adopted by the General Assembly on 27 April 2016.”

S/2017/801 UN Security Council. September 26, 2017. “Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Colombia.” S/2018/250 UN Secretary General. March 23, 2018. “UN Annual Report on

Conflict-Related Sexual Violence.”

S/PRST/2001/5 UN Security Council Presidential Statement. February 20, 2001. “Statement by the President of the Security Council.”

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Section 1 – Introduction: Colombia at a Crossroads

Why do some peace processes succeed while other fail? Colombia was once the world’s most violent country. Over the last half century, war and upheaval rampaged the country, leaving approximately 220,000 Colombians dead,1_{more than 25,000 disappeared, and 5,7 million}

displaced. Although no overarching consensus exists on the precise nature and origin of Latin America’s longest war (cf. Gilin, 2015), some commentators observed a shift from political and ideological aims to more pecuniary objectives before the turn of the 21st_{century (cf. Ballentine}

et al., 2003: 6; Cooper, 2003). The resulting ‘criminal inertia’ (cf. Echeverry et al., 2001 quoted in Ibáñez et al., 2009) arguably exacerbated the existing socio-economic and political injustices in the country, thereby making the Colombia’s civil strife one of the most complex and prolonged conflicts of our time. Especially in the peripheral regions of the country, state institutions were all but absent, providing a permissive environment for violent guerrilla and paramilitary groups to compete violently over power and resources (cf. Arboleda, 2010). In 2016, however, peace talks between the Colombian government and the country’s largest insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), culminated in the much-publicised ceremonial signing of the Havana Agreement. Having taken four years of tense negotiations, the conclusion of the peace agreement effectively halted large-scale conflict violence, heralding prima facie the beginning of a new era for the country. Since then, former President Juan Manuel Santos has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in negotiating the settlement and charting a path to sustainable peace. A number of United Nations (UN) political and verification missions are underway in the country (cf. UN, 2018). With implementation steadily progressing (cf. Barometer Initiative, 2018), some observers have noted that “many of the promises made in the peace accords have been kept” (Casey, 2019; cf. ABColombia, 2018; ICG, 2018a). By 2017, almost 7,000 former guerrillas had demobilised and roughly 9,000 weapons were surrendered to the UN missions.

1_{Other estimates, however, indicate a much higher death toll of between half-, and one-million people throughout}

“Peace is irreversible. There is no way back.”

Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Colombia (cf. DW, 2016)

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At the same time, however, the 2018 Global Peace Index indicates that severe challenges remain, with Colombia not only ranking lowest regionally in Latin America, but worsening in terms of perceptions of criminality, access to small arms, homicide rates, and internal replacement (cf. IEP, 2018a). As a matter of fact, in spite of Havana Agreement’s signing almost three years ago, soaring levels of murder, extrajudicial killings, drug trafficking, political polarization, and corruption (cf. IEP, 2018b) have begun to cast doubts about the prospects of lasting peace and stability in post-accord Colombia. A number of these more recent developments deserve our particular attention:

Firstly, although drug production and trafficking is by no means new to the country, only last year, the total land area used for coca cultivation reached an all-time high (cf. UNODC, 2018). It is important to mention in this regard that “much of the FARC’s funding came through the drug trade. But peace did little to make farmers rethink their business model” (Casey, 2019). Secondly, as part of the government’s power-sharing concessions, the former guerrilla group transformed into a political party and was allowed to compete in the 2018 parliamentary election. However, political victories arguably proved harder than military ones, with FARC receiving less than one per cent of the votes and abandoning its presidential bid (cf. CRS, 2018). Thirdly, in spite of an earlier assessment by the UN’s verification mission that the former rebels had fully disarmed (cf. S/2017/801), by late 2018, “experts estimate[d] that as many as 3,000 militants have taken up arms again - a figure equal to more than 40 percent of those who initially demobilised. It includes new recruits” (Casey, 2019; cf. Casey et al., 2018). As a matter of fact, in many areas previously controlled by FARC, the Colombian state is yet to arrive in force which arguably has ex-rebels defenceless against habitual attacks by right-wing paramilitary militias (cf. Casey et al., 2018). Lastly, the resulting lawlessness in rural areas has not only endangered the trust required for reintegrating former FARC guerrillas into society (cf. SWP, 2018: 2), but it has also proven deadly for Colombian human rights activists; with one being killed every 48 hours (cf. Gómez, 2019). Accumulatively, experts estimate that “since the peace deal was signed, at least 500 activists and community leaders have been killed, and more than 210,000 people displaced from their homes amid the continuing violence” (Casey, 2019).

These observations are arguably indicative of the fact that the prospects of a genuine ‘end’ to the conflict, let alone the definite arrival of a ‘sustainable’ form of peace, are far from certain. Thus, in an effort to explain why, subsequent to the conclusion of the Havana

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Agreement, the resulting peace has fallen short of expectations, the thesis is divided into two strands of explanations.

The first centres around the chosen measurement for success or failure of peacebuilding operations. As a matter of fact, the above-described advances and setbacks throughout the agreement’s implementation are arguably suggestive of a rather blurred reality of ‘neither war nor peace’ in the immediate post-settlement context (cf. De Zeeuw, 2001: 11).2_{Yet, in most}

studies of intrastate war and peace, “conceptualisation and measurement are overwhelmingly binary” (Campbell et al., 2017: 93). Therefore, a major aim of this thesis is to challenge the prevalent understanding of war and peace as binary opposites. In fact, as has been suggested elsewhere, “simplistic dichotomies […] must be avoided as the habitual association of violence with disorder, and peace with the return of order, is an oversimplification” (Stepputat 1997: 21). In this context, and keeping in mind that any determination concerning the effectiveness of peacebuilding efforts crucially depends on the chosen measurement of success (cf. Newman, 2009: 27), the first part of this thesis is concerned with both the conceptualisation and operationalisation of peace in more nuanced ways. In particular, section 2.1.5 Measuring

Success: Positive vs Negative Peace draws on an extensive and detailed review of the available

academic literature in an attempt to place different definitions of peace on a scale with a view to account for the ‘thickness’ of existing conceptualisations.

Here, the thesis contends that neither the prominent notions of ‘negative’ nor ‘positive’ peace by themselves reflect a genuinely stable form of peace in which the use of force as a means of conflict resolution has become ‘unthinkable’ (cf. Boulding, 1978: 3). In order to compensate for their individual shortcomings, the notion of sustainable peace is advanced. Although the language of ‘sustaining peace’ has penetrated both academic and policy discourses a while back (cf. IPI, 2017; Lederach, 1997; Fernandez-Taranco, 2016), thus far, no single framework of sustainable peace exists that is equally operational, systematic, holistic, and practically-relevant. The thesis attempts to fill such a gap in the literature by advancing a maximalist definition of peace that, when employed as a benchmark to measure peacebuilding success, not only complements the absence of violence in all of its forms with the redressing of causes-of-war, but crucially adds the building and strengthening of conditions-of-peace. As a matter of fact, while war’s aetiology has long constituted a subject of academic interest,

2_{Having acknowledged the rather ambiguous nature of these war-torn environments, the prefix ‘post-conflict’ that}

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‘post-knowledge concerning the conditions-of-peace remains rather rudimentary, with explanatory variables being fragmented among different academic disciplines. Thus, in direct response to the calls by Campbell et al. (2017: 111), Diehl (2016), Jarstad et al. (2017: 9), and Regan (2014) to engage directly with the issue of peace and its causes, the thesis combines Waltz’s levels-of-analysis approach (cf. 1959) with Ohlson’s ‘triple-r triangle’ (cf. 2008) in an effort to identify those institutions, structures, and attitudes on different levels of post-settlement societies that facilitate either the outbreak of violent conflict or the sustaining of peace. In this sense, a framework is advanced that not only has practical utility in the creation and maintenance of peace, but also bridges the main explanatory logics of peace and conflict studies.

To further this thesis’ efforts to better understand why some peace processes succeed while others fail, the second strand of explanation centres around one particular phase of any given peace process that has so far only received scarce scholarly attention. In fact, although negotiated settlements have been around at least since the conclusion of the Egyptian-Hittite Accord in 1259 BC, we still know relatively little about when, why, and how peace agreements produce favourable outcomes (cf. Badran, 2014: 194). Quite on the contrary, in spite of the five-fold increase in the number of peace agreements concluded since the end of the Cold War (ibid.), the signing of these accords has, more often than not, prematurely been mistaken for the arrival of peace (cf. Bell, 2011). Accordingly, it has been estimated that in between 30 and 50 per cent of all ‘ended’ conflicts, civil war reoccurs within five years (cf. Collier et al., 2004; 2006; Call et al., 2007; Doyle et al., 2006: 89; Licklider, 1995; Harbom et al., 2006; Walter, 2004). While these estimates are not only indicative of a high prevalence of intrastate conflict recidivism, they also explain - at least in part - why scholars have struggled to identify a clear example of a negotiated settlement that has led to sustainable peace (cf. Beardsley, 2008; Newman et al., 2006; Pfeiffer, 2015).

In this context, the thesis finds in the implementation phase a kind of ‘missing link’ between the conclusion of negotiated settlements, on the one hand, and the evaluation of peace operations, on the other. Accordingly, a strategic ‘implementation perspective’ is introduced, based on the central premise that the mere signing of a peace agreement is insufficient to bring about the required changes that post-settlement societies will have to undergo in their attempt to institutionalise peace. Yet, notwithstanding the potential impact the implementation phase might bear on the outcome of peace operations, the literature review

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conducted as part of this thesis reveals a lack of systematic studies assessing this crucial aspect of peacebuilding efforts. In fact, the rather limited concern for settlement environments and peace agreement design that characterises contemporary peace and conflict research is thought to miss important considerations pertaining to how stipulations contained in a peace agreement might materialise in practice, and how implementation efforts might affect the attainment of sustainable peace in the long-run. Thus, on a more practical level, the conclusion of a peace agreement in and of itself is thought to constitute only the first step, though arguably an important one, in the much broader attempts at transforming a conflict. In other words, the mere stipulations on paper are thought to be insufficient to bring about the constructive social change needed, and thus the design of a peace agreement must be given effect through implementation.3

However, as perhaps can be inferred from the observations above, peace implementation in general may be regarded as a rather complex undertaking; and even more so in the case of the Havana Agreement which is contains a highly ‘ambitious and complex’ (cf. Casey, 2019) set of 578 separate stipulations.

When stitching these pieces together, the thesis is concerned with investigating whether and

how the implementation of comprehensive peace agreements following violent intrastate conflict may serve as an obstacle to sustainable peace?4

With a view a view to providing answers to this question, the thesis is divided in three major sections. First, it establishes a theoretical framework based on an extensive and detailed review of the available literature. In particular, the theoretical section seeks to provide insights pertaining to three aspects, these being, (1) the notion of sustainable peace; (2) the implementation of peace agreements; and (3) potential ‘causal pathways’ between the two. With regards to the former, in an effort to advance a conceptualisation of sustainable peace that can be utilised as a measurement for peacebuilding success, section 2.2 Towards Sustainable

Peace identifies those institutions, structures, and attitudes that are capable of explaining either

war onset or the sustaining of peace. By means of describing the physical manifestations of these causes-of-war and conditions-of-peace, a framework of sustainable peace is advanced that

3_{For instance, in 1985, a peace agreement was negotiated in Uganda, yet, the accord never materialised and the}

stipulations contained therein were never put into effect.

4_{With a view to providing answers to this main research question, the thesis also seeks to investigate a set of}

sub-questions: What makes intrastate conflicts start and what keeps them from starting? What is sustainable peace, why is it desirable, and how can peace be made durable, stable, and high quality? Is the resolution of conflict issues a necessary precondition for sustainable peace? How do peace accords translate into action? How to assess the success or failure of peace operations in general, and particularly the implementation of peace agreements? What

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not only includes tangible and quantifiable performance indicators, but also has the merit of being equally holistic, systematic, and operational. Having established ‘where we want to get’ (cf. Anderson et al., 2003: 11) with contemporary peacebuilding efforts, section 2.3 The

Implementation Perspective introduces the topical focus of this thesis, namely, the

materialisation of stipulations contained a given peace agreement. Building in large parts on public administration literature, an analogy is drawn between the implementation of public policy, on the one hand, and peace agreements, on the other. Subsequently, section 2.4

Discussion and Hypotheses provides a short summary of the thesis’ theoretical framework and

introduces three distinct hypotheses pertaining to conceivable mechanisms by means of which peace implementation may affect either the redressing of causes-of-war or the fostering of conditions-of-peace.

Second, with a view to investigate these hypotheses, the thesis then establishes a methodological framework. In particular, section 3.1.1 Desk-Based Research reflects on, and subsequently justifies, the thesis’ main methodological choices, including the use of qualitative research methods, its single-case study design, and the triangulation of historical reconstruction with document study. With a number of limitations and ethical considerations being discussed throughout the establishment of the methodological framework, it is noteworthy to mention that the singular focus of this thesis on Colombia’s peace process largely precludes the formal ‘testing’ of hypotheses through process-tracing. Instead, the single-case study is taken to provide a concrete, illustrative example of the practical application of theory, thereby demonstrating the relevance of the previously theorised ‘causal pathways’ as opposed to their validity.

Third, the empirical section of this thesis applies its previous theoretical insights to the case of Colombia. In their totality, sections 4.1-4.3 find that the implementation of peace accords in deeply divided societies is beset by challenges which may destabilise the political process, weaken state institutions, inhibit societal reconciliation, and heighten the security concerns of former belligerents, thereby facilitating the reoccurrence of armed conflict and hindering peace from becoming truly sustainable. In this sense, the thesis finds evidence to suggest that the most difficult part of reaching sustainable peace is not getting the conflict parties together or drafting the broad outline of a peace accord. Instead it is the implementation at the local level (cf. Iqbal, 2016). In fact, the thesis finds that the implementation phase is open to immense challenges that - if worse comes to worse - can unhinge the entire agreement. In other words, there may

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be ‘a way back’ - whence the epigraph from Juan Manuel Santos above and the title of this thesis.

By virtue of not only conceptualising and operationalising the notion of sustainable peace, but also adopting a strategic ‘implementation perspective,’ the thesis aspires to contribute to improving the effectiveness of peacebuilding efforts. In this sense, the thesis explicitly answers to the calls by various authors highlighting the need for increased scholarly engagement with the issue (cf. Anderson et al., 2003: 8-10; Fortna, 2008; Paris, 2004; Tardy, 2017). Thus, keeping in mind the aspired contribution of this thesis, it appears important to foster a more realistic understanding of the ‘prevailing order’ (cf. Cox, 1986: 208) of contemporary peacebuilding, including by identifying and describing the limitations of existing approaches. Against this background, it is hoped that the adoption of an ‘implementation perspective’ enables us to attain a clearer picture of the profound changes that post-settlement societies undergo in their attempt to institutionalise peace and restructure their social contract.

Recalling its main research question of whether and how the implementation of comprehensive

peace agreements following violent intrastate conflict may serve as an obstacle to sustainable peace, the thesis might be understood as an inherently ‘critical’ endeavour by asking “probing

questions about underlying assumptions that might otherwise be taken for granted” (Paris, 2010: 339). In particular, the thesis not only interrogates the concept of peace in and of itself, but it also challenges the hegemonic discourse of peacebuilding theory and practice. Indeed, as others have pointedly argued, “no intervention in a complex system such as a human society can have only one effect. Whenever there is an attempt to bring about change in a complex system, the system reacts in a variety of ways” (Aoi et al., 2007: 3). A major concern of this thesis is thus to pinpoint the potential tensions and contradictions of efforts aimed at building and sustaining peace in post-settlement societies. Accordingly, although a plethora of mechanisms are conceivable by means of which peace implementation may affect the attainment of sustainable peace in the long-run, the scope of this thesis is narrowed to the

unintended consequences of implementation efforts, “in that those planning the intervention

did not mean for these reactions to come about at all” (ibid.).

All in all, the thesis may be understood as a contribution to Roland Paris’ efforts at ‘saving liberal peacebuilding,’ which he advanced as part of an eponymous article (cf. 2010). Noting that the “global experiment in […] peacebuilding has arrived at a crossroad and it is uncertain

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how it will proceed,” Paris specifically cautioned against unfounded scepticism and cynicism, instead highlighting the need for a more balanced debate concerning the meaning, shortcomings, and prospects of peacebuilding (ibid: 339). In this context, the thesis aims to dissect and understand the paradoxes and pathologies of peacebuilding, while being mindful to ensure that any criticism is well-founded and justified as opposed to ‘dogmatic’ (ibid.). Beyond the realm of academia, the submission of this thesis - 34 months after the singing of the Havana Agreement - coincides with the most critical phase of the Colombian peace process, considering that the mean survival time for civil war settlements has been estimated at approximately 42 months (cf. Hartzell et al., 1999: 195). As a matter of fact, noting that “the period immediately after the signing of a peace agreement is arguably the time of greatest uncertainty and danger” (Stedman, 2001), it is hoped that the insights of this thesis, including knowledge regarding the specific challenges of peace implementation and potential early warning signs, may increase the prospects of a genuine end to Colombia’s 54 years of violent civil strife.

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Section 2 – Theoretical Framework

2.1 21st_{Century Peacebuilding after Violent Intrastate Conflict}

2.1.1 Typology of Intrastate Disputes

Following the end of the Cold War, there has been an ‘unprecedented increase’ in the number of violent intrastate conflicts “when several frozen conflicts turned violent” (Reychler, 2017: 3). Notwithstanding this commonplace observation, however, “there is some divergence in research about the rate of recurrence, which is partly due to the difficulty of determining whether any given conflict is better understood as the recurrence of an old fight or the outbreak of a new one […]” (Call et al. 2007: 3). As touched upon in the introductory section, any such determination is complicated by the prevalent understanding of war and peace as binary opposites that characterises contemporary research on the subject. Accordingly, it has often been assumed that “war begins or not; once started, war either continues or falls below standard

thresholds and stops; war either ends or not [….]; and then either peace is implemented

successfully or war recurs by violence again exceeding some threshold” (Campbell et al., 2017: 93, emphasis added). In line with this thesis’ efforts to challenge the habitual understanding of war and peace as dichotomous, the issue of thresholds must arguably already be addressed when establishing a typology of militarised intrastate disputes.

There appears to exist a plethora of different categories of non-peaceful conflicts within the boundaries of a given state. Most typologies categorise intrastate conflicts by means of advancing intensity requirements. In this context, it is important to note, however, that scholars differ on where such a threshold should be set (cf. Sambanis, 2004). For instance, Small et al. designate the term ‘civil war’ to an intrastate conflict if, amongst other things, the conflict produced a minimum of 1,000 battle-related deaths a year (cf. 1982). A considerably lower threshold has been advanced by the Uppsala Conflict Data Programme (UCDP), whereby a civil war is understood as “a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory over which the use of armed force between the military forces of two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, has resulted in at least 25 battle-related deaths each year” (cf. Pettersson et al., 2015: 536). In other typologies, such as from the Correlates of War project, the intensity requirement of 25 battle-related fatalities would qualify only as a ‘minor conflict,’ as opposed to civil wars which must “involve sustained combat,

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involving organised armed forces, resulting in a minimum of 1,000 battle-related combatant fatalities within a twelve month period” (Gleiditsch, 2004: 238).5

Noting the apparent discord regarding an appropriate intensity requirement for civil wars, this thesis is hesitant to prescribe a ‘threshold’ for violence. Instead, it follows in the footsteps of Miall et al. in differentiating between ‘armed’ and ‘violent’ conflicts, whereby the former denotes a reciprocal resort to violence and the latter term includes one-sided violence (cf. 1999: 21). Accordingly, violent intrastate conflict has been defined as “armed conflict fought within internationally recognised boundaries to establish who will rule without indicating a specific level of violence” (Von Hehn, 2011: 14-15). This type of dispute, according to Stedman et al., includes all conflicts that are political in nature and centre around control of a central government, those fought to secede and to create new government, and those that challenge the balance of power between centre and periphery (cf. 2001: 22). It is important to note, however, that while violent intrastate conflicts may originate and play out within the boundaries of a particular state, “they also have regional origins, spill-over effects and involve numerous external actors” (De Zeeuw, 2001: 11). All in all, for the remainder of this thesis, the terms ‘civil war’ and ‘violent intrastate conflict’ will be used interchangeably without, however, necessarily implying intensity. It thus lies in the discretion of the reader to determine whether the findings presented here can be applied to their case at hand irrespective of the intensity of the preceding conflict.

By virtue of the previously mentioned estimates indicating that almost half of all ‘ended’ intrastate conflicts relapse into violence within five years, most ‘new wars’ of the post-Cold War era may arguably be better understood as the resumption of older ones (cf. Call, 2012: 2; Wallensteen, 2015: 3).6_{As will be elaborated on in more detail throughout the subsequent}

sections, in the face of such high recidivism rates for violent intrastate conflicts, “the focus of international conflict management has increasingly shifted from peacekeeping, which intended to maintain the status quo, to peace operations, which are intended to manage change” (Aoi et al., 200: 5). In this context, the notions of peace processes, peace agreements, and peacebuilding have become central in the efforts to construct stable and lasting peace (cf. Joshi et al., 2018). Each of these terms therefore deserves its own conceptualisation.

5_{The rather excessive intensity requirement of 1,000 battle-related fatalities annually is subject to debate, however,}

considering that The Troubles in Northern Ireland or Apartheid-era South Africa would not classify as ‘civil wars.’

6_{For the scope of this thesis, ‘new wars’ are not understood in terms of the (perceived) revolution in the type of}

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2.1.2 Peace Processes and Negotiated Settlements

Various ways exist in which violent intrastate conflicts may ‘end’ including one-sided victory, the ebbing of organised violence below a certain threshold, or the ‘resolution’ of the dispute through a peace process. As a matter of fact, while UCDP data indicates that military victory was the most common way of terminating civil wars taking place between 1946 and 1989 (cf. Kreutz, 2010), the vast majority of violent intrastate conflicts in the post-Cold War era have ended through formal peace processes, with only 28 per cent and 19 per cent ending in government or rebel victory respectively (cf. Wallensteen, 2015). If ‘minor’ armed conflicts as per the typology of the Correlate of Wars are taken into account, almost 90 per cent of all post-Cold War civil wars were ‘resolved’ through peace processes, usually culminating in the conclusion of a negotiated settlement (cf. Joshi et al., 2018). Thus, for the scope of this thesis, peace processes “are taken to mean persistent peace initiatives involving the main antagonists in a protracted conflict” (Darby et al., 2002: 2). In this sense, the term refers to all “measures deployed to resolve differences, and settle disputes or conflicts, through diplomacy and other methods of peaceful settlement rather than violence” (Ramcharan, 2009: 228).

However, as Achim Wennman reminds us, peace processes are not exclusively ‘backward-looking,’ but instead “usually address two critical elements: the resolution of an existing armed conflict and the creation of an order that manages future conflicts such that they do not become new armed conflict” (2018: 109). Against this background, Jarstad et al. pointedly observe that peace processes need to manage a number of dilemmas, “between inclusion and exclusion of warring and political elites; between demands by warring actors in exchange for laying down their weapons, and other desirable and long-term objectives of justice and democracy; between legitimacy and efficacy in terms of public participation at different stages and in different activities; between local and international participation in peace process; and between short-term needs for stability and security and long-term needs for building the capacity for peaceful change” (2017: 2).

As we can perhaps infer from the above, peace processes are a rather precarious endeavour that require actors to take a number of far-reaching decisions which have the potential to either hinder or advance the attainment of peace. Peace processes are best grasped by looking at the different stages that accompany a negotiated settlement, amongst others “the opening of multilateral talks; negotiating to a settlement; gaining endorsement; implementing its provisions; and the institutionalisation of the new dispensation” (cf. Guelke, 2002: 56). As a

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matter of fact, a number of scholars have advocated for the use of stages as an analytical tool to assess peace processes (cf. Darby et al., 2000; 2008; Ohlson, 2008; Walter, 2002; Zartman, 1995). Although an elaborate description of said stages remains outside the scope of this thesis, it nonetheless appears useful to place specific emphasis on the stages leading up to the conclusion of a settlement: While dialogue or ‘pre-agreement contacts’ (Ohlson, 2008: 144) between warring factions usually commence in informal, sometimes even secretive, arenas in order to explore avenues for ending the violence, the subsequent negotiations often acquire a more formal, multilateral character when the parties are convinced that substantive question can be tackled and a political compromise looms on the horizon. To this end, Guelke explains that “formality is necessary to provide a public assurance of the commitment of the parties to the successful outcome of the process […] Other parties need to be drawn into the process if the objective is to achieve a lasting settlement,” (2002: 59) not least in order for third-parties to engage in shuttle diplomacy where there is unwillingness to engage in face-to-face talks. Where successful, negotiators are required to take a strategic choice “whether the parties should seek to arrive at a comprehensive and detailed blueprint for the future government of the entity in question or simply the outline of a settlement” (Guelke, 2002: 60). The choice between these two ‘opposite ends of a spectrum,’ will have important ramifications in terms of implementing the negotiated settlement, some of which deserve our particular attention.

2.1.3 Peace Agreements: Enough for Peace?

Peace agreements are arrangements or ‘contracts’ between a minimum of two warring parties intended to regulate or resolve their basic incompatibility with a view to significantly transforming a violent conflict in a constructive and sustainable way (cf. Yawanarajah et al., 2003; Wallensteen et al., 1997: 342). While the UN differentiates between various types of peace agreements that may be reached during a peace process, including ceasefire-, pre-negotiation, interim-, framework-, and implementation agreements, the scope of this thesis is limited to the materialisation of comprehensive peace agreements, which are defined as “containing provisions to transform the country’s political, security, judicial, and social service institutions” (Campbell et al., 2017: 96). Due to their comprehensive nature, these peace agreements are understood explicitly to include all major issues up for negotiation and all major actors involved (cf. Joshi et al., 2018: 6). In this sense, we focus on only ‘one end of the spectrum,’ that is, the implementation of a detailed ‘blueprint’ for the transformation of post-settlement society. Comprehensive peace agreements are inherently connected to the notion of ‘negotiated settlements,’ denoting a situation in which the parties to a conflict (at least

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temporarily) ended the violence and laid a foundation for constructive change through preceding face-to-face talks, that is, the discussion of “issues relevant to resolving the war” (Walter, 1999: 127). Albeit third-party actors may participate in the negotiation process, the conceptualisation here requires for antagonists to have met themselves to discuss those issues that are believed to be relevant to ending the war (cf. Hartzell et al., 1999: 194). Crucially, this conceptualisation of negotiated settlements excludes those situations where third-party actors ‘impose’ the terms of an agreement (think Cyprus or Korea), while at the same time avoiding to spell out the precise content or outcome of the discussions.

Within the field of peace and conflict studies, early research has pointed to the central role of negotiated agreements in ending intrastate conflicts. Such scholarly focus was arguably underpinned by the results of empirical studies showing that conflicts ending through a process of negotiation are more likely to result in stable peace than conflicts that did not end with the conclusion of a peace agreement (cf. Fazal, 2014; Fortna, 2004b).7_{Accordingly, the ceremonial}

signing of peace accords and the well-publicised pictures of handshakes between erstwhile adversaries were - more often than not - prematurely mistaken for the arrival of peace (cf. Bell, 2011). However, we should note that, in spite of the fivefold increase in the number of peace agreements concluded since the end of the Cold War, “there is still little that we scientifically understand about how, when and why peace agreements produce their favourable effects” (Badran, 2014). In this context, it is important to note that there have also been pessimistic voices regarding the ability of peace agreements to end civil wars (cf. Licklider, 1995; Stedman, 1991). Such pessimism seems reasonable if we consider that only half of all negotiated settlements survive the five-year mark (Licklider, 1995: 685), with most conflicts resuming after three-and-a-half years following the signing of a peace agreement (cf. Hartzell et al., 1999: 195). Thus, in contrast to the prominent assumption regarding peace agreements “providing the solution to an often long lasting conflict,” (Von Hehn, 2011: 1) the track record of negotiated settlements reveals that “peace agreements have proven to be volatile and fragile, and even the most ambitious negotiations have often failed prevention of repetition of violence” (cf. Paffenholz, 2016). This view is supported by Wennmann who notes that “the experience of many negotiated settlements suggests that peace processes do not end when the belligerent parties agree on a peace settlement” (2018: 116).

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To this end, Peter Wallensteen repeatedly stressed the necessity to understand the limits of peace agreements and highlighted the fact that these accords merely reflect a step in the direction of conflict resolution (cf. 2015). As indicated by the above, neither the negotiation nor the signing of a peace agreement necessarily translates into a stable peace for post-settlement societies (cf. Bekoe, 2008: 1). Instead, as Crocker et al. pointedly observe, the signing of negotiated agreements is often accompanied by a rather ‘turbulent peace’ (cf. 1996) if not even the outright resumption of large-scale organised violence. In an effort to explain the high recidivism rates for armed violence notwithstanding the preceding conclusion of peace agreements, academics have focused on the characteristics of the settlement environment, as well as on the quality - or ‘strength’ (Werner et al., 2005: 261) - of the agreement itself (cf. Badran, 2014; Hartzell et al., 1999; 2007; Walter, 2002).

Importantly in this regard, John Paul Lederach reminds us that “we tend to attach to ‘agreement’ the idea that negotiations are over when in fact they are just beginning, and to continue they require a shift from a temporary effort to negotiate an agreement to a context-based, permanent, and dynamic platform capable of regenerating solutions to on-going episodes of conflict” (in Borer, 2006: 4). In other words, and borrowing from Crocker’s terminology from above, the ‘turbulent peace’ that characterises the immediate post-settlement environment needs to be ‘nurtured’ into a more stable form throughout the implementation of a peace agreement (cf. 1996). Thus, only recently, academics extended their focus beyond the negotiation phase (cf. Jarstad et al., 2008), perhaps based on the insight that the potential obstacles of implementing an agreement “may present a much larger challenge for the parties and external mediators than arriving at the broad outlines of a settlement had been” (Guelke, 2002: 61). In particular, other authors have cautioned that “conflict will continue to have to be managed through the implementation and institutionalisation of the accord” (Darby et al., 2008: 4). As Fen Hampson eloquently concludes in his book Nurturing Peace: Why Peace Settlements

Succeed Or Fail:

“A settlement indicates the direction the parties must move if they are to consolidate the peace, but it usually does not tell them how to get there, except in very general terms” (1996: 221).

To continue the example from above, although we might find promises of power sharing or stipulations regarding security sector reform in a given peace agreement, the mere signing of the accord bears little practical relevance for the lives and experiences of post-settlement

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societies given that “all political and military concessions remain to be fulfilled” (Bekoe, 2008: 2). To this end, Guelke noted that “the less detailed the terms of the negotiated settlement, the greater the difficulties are likely to be at the stage of implementation” (2002: 61). Accordingly, he argued that only when implementers attempt to “put flesh on the bare bones of the original settlement,” disputes regarding the interpretation of the terms of the agreement are likely to arise (ibid.). Thus, subsequent to the signing of a peace agreement, both violent and non-violent conflicts over the specification of the original design need to arguably be regarded as the norm rather than the exception if we consider, for example, that while these accords may “stipulate for legislation to be enacted, [they] do not in themselves provide for said legislation” (Von Hehn, 2011: 1).

As was implied by the above, the implementation of peace agreements presents opportunities for failure (cf. Darby et al., 2002: 3). The practical implications of such failures can be far reaching when considering the claims by critical scholars that negotiated settlements may underpin exclusion and patriarchy in post-settlement societies (cf. Chandler, 2000; Mac Ginty, 2011; Richmond, 2014). However, as these studies are arguably little concerned with the processes by which implementation itself may have affected the quality of the resulting peace, it appears just to conclude that peace agreements create “a new set of opportunities that can be grasped or thrown away” (Rothstein, 1999: 224). Thus, in sum, the signing of a negotiated settlement is best understood as an early step towards peace - it does not, however, mark its definitive arrival (cf. Von Hehn, 2011). Instead, peacebuilding efforts need to continue and the stipulations of the peace agreement need to be implemented if conflicts are to be transformed and peace is to be sustained.

2.1.4 Peacebuilding

In order to ‘nurture’ peace, constructive social change is needed which can be brought about through peacebuilding. The idea of transforming conflicts, as opposed to freezing them, arguably dates back to the 1992 Agenda for Peace report, which proposed a number of recommendations on how to foster the capacity of the UN in preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peacekeeping (cf. A/47/277). As part of the report, former UN Secretary General (UNSG) Boutros-Ghali introduced the concept of ‘post-conflict peacebuilding,’ which he defined as the “action to identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict” (Boutros-Ghali, 1992). Essentially resting on the rationale that “proactive violence prevention is more cost-effective than reactive

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conflict prevention,” (Brown et al., 1999, emphasis added; cf. Reychler, 2017) the Agenda for

Peace thus marked a shift from an exclusive focus on short-term conflict ending (peacemaking)

and management (peacekeeping) to longer-term conflict transformation (peacebuilding).

In accordance with the 1990s’ conceptual framework, peacebuilding was understood as a set of centrally coordinated programmatic and technical interventions aimed to address the ‘root’ causes of conflict (cf. Ramalingam, 2013; cf. De Coning, 2016: 166). The intellectual origins of such a linear cause-effect problem-solving model may arguably be traced back to Johan Galtung - often deemed the principal founder of modern peace and conflict studies (cf. Brewer, 2010: 7) - who famously posited that “peace studies are so similar to health studies that the triangle diagnosis - prognosis - therapy can be applied” (1996: 1, emphasis in original). Accordingly, the identification of ‘root’ causes of conflict provided the basis for an assessment by international actors that ‘self-restoration’ of the conflict-ridden state was either unfeasible or unlikely. Often times, diagnosis and prognosis then created a permissive environment for these states to be ‘treated’ by means of those liberal and neoliberal prescriptions that had proven successful in the Western state-formation experience (cf. De Coning, 2016: 166). In this context, outside actors sought to primarily strengthen state capacity - perhaps analogously to the immune system in health studies - while “relying heavily on ‘democratic’ institutions building and economic recovery through free market-oriented policies” (Jeong, 2005: 2).

This approach - dubbed by some as the ‘standard operating procedure’ of the international community (Miall et al., 1999: 186) - largely rested on the rationale that “the fastest and most expedient route to development and modernity is to adopt the ‘forms’ of those countries further along this path” (Pritchett et al., 2010: 5). Thus, lying at the heart of the theory of change of the liberal peace doctrine (cf. De Coning, 2018: 302), this ‘curative’ take on therapy - as Galtung might call it - has shaped international peacebuilding interventions for more than two decades. However, in spite of peacebuilding becoming mainstream and increased scholarly and policy attention being devoted to improving intervention strategies, high recidivism rates for violent intrastate conflict persist to the current day. As a matter of fact, earlier peacebuilding interventions in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa’s Great Lakes, and Horn regions have widely been regarded as ineffective (cf. Smith, 2004; De Coning, 2016). Accordingly, notwithstanding the considerable efforts by outside actors, the ensuing peace in these

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post-settlement societies has often proven to be ‘provisional, fragile, and fleeting’ (Backer, 2018: 125).

Against this background, it may come as little surprise that peacebuilding, especially in its liberal embodiment, has attracted a lot of criticism. As a matter of fact, the above-described conceptual framework and understanding of peacebuilding that dominated the academic discourse for the past two decades is often said to ‘suffer from too many internal contradictions’ (Richmond, 2015); some of which deserve out particular attention. For instance, David Chandler pointed to the prevailing misperception that ‘objective experts’ of international organisations, such as the UN, were thought to possess the necessary scientific knowledge, practical expertise, and agency to ‘build’ peace (2016; cf. Ramalingam, 2013). A number of researchers have echoed such criticism, tracing the failure of many preceding peacebuilding interventions precisely to their centralised top-down design and flawed cause-effect assumptions (cf. Mac Ginty, 2011; 2006; Richmond, 2011; Leonardsson et al., 2015; Fjelde et al., 2011; Chandler, 2014). As indicated earlier, one consequence of such ‘deterministic design’ (Eriksen, 2009: 662) was the prevalent assumption that “each instrument or activity is equally appropriate in each war-torn country” (De Zeeuw, 2001: 15). Accordingly, many critical scholars stressed that international peace operations were seldom demand-driven and only marginally build on local capacities, thereby ignoring context-specific conditions, approaches, and agency for peacebuilding (Chandler, 2004; Richmond, 2006; 2015; Mac Ginty, 2008).

In 2010, Roland Paris acknowledged these points in his seminal article Saving Liberal

Peacebuilding, but stressed that “although much of this criticism is warranted, a number of

scholars and commentators have come to the opinion that liberal peacebuilding is either fundamental destructive, or illegitimate, or both. On close analysis, however, many of these critiques appear to be exaggerated or misdirected” (2010: 337). In this context, the author warned against unfounded scepticism and cynicism, instead highlighting the need for a more balanced debate concerning the meaning, shortcomings, and prospects of peacebuilding. The debate envisioned by Paris may arguably profit from the persistent calls, by academics and policy-makers alike, to improve the effectiveness of contemporary peacebuilding operations (cf. Fortna, 2008: Anderson et al., 2003: 8-10; Paris, 2004; Tardy, 2017). However, as Anderson et al. importantly note, “to talk about improving effectiveness, we need first to know where we want to get” (2003: 11).

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In recent times, this endeavour has arguably been complicated by the emergence of a new discourse: In 2016, the UN General Assembly and Security Council introduced a ‘new understanding’ of peacebuilding centred around the notion of ‘sustaining peace’ (cf. S/RES/2282; A/RES/70/262). In this context, Cedric De Coning observed the surfacing of a “more open-ended or goal-free approach towards peacebuilding, where the focus is on the means or process, and the end-state is open to context-specific interpretations of peace” (2018: 301; cf. Call et al., 2017: 262). As has been touched upon above, whereas peacebuilding operations had previously been understood as rather technical and programmatic interventions, De Coning notes that “by 2017, the view that peacebuilding is essentially political and local had gained considerable ground” (2018: 304). In more practical terms, this has meant that instead of merely identifying and addressing the ‘root’ causes that led to the eruption of organised violence in the first place, contemporary peacebuilding seeks to also support those local political and social capacities that sustain peace; the aim being to avoid a relapse into conflict (cf. Mahmoud et al. 2017). In this sense, the ‘new understanding’ of peacebuilding arguably pertains a (decade-old) double focus on ‘ending violent hostilities,’ on the one hand, and ‘building peace,’ on the other. As a matter of fact, as early as 1975, Johan Galtung noted that peacebuilding - “unlike other approaches to the management or resolution of conflict” (Cockell, 2000: 16) - is based on an associative approach, denoting that efforts to advance genuine peace must go beyond ensuring the absence of warfare (cf. 1975; 1978: 297-298). In a similar vein, shortly after the turn of the millennium, the UN Security Council reiterated that “peacebuilding is aimed at preventing the outbreak, the recurrence or the continuation of armed conflict” (S/PRST/2001/5).

This initial conceptualisation clarifies, to a certain extent, ‘where we want to get’ (Anderson et al., 2003: 11). It does not, however, provide us with an operational definition that is mindful of peacebuilding’s double focus on ‘building peace’ beyond the immediate absence of armed violence. In this context, we may turn to a definition by Aoi et al., according to which “peacebuilding systems facilitate several simultaneous short-, medium-, and longer-term programmes at multiple levels, with a broad range of partners and from a wide range of disciplines, to prevent disputes from escalating, to avoid a relapse into violent conflict and to build and consolidate sustainable peace” (2007: 5). Such conceptualisation appears more suitable for the scope of this thesis as it understands peacebuilding efforts to be concerned with more than simply ‘ending violent hostilities.’ As a matter of fact, with a view to ‘building

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peace’ beyond the immediate absence of violent conflict, peacebuilding is understood to include longer-term attempts to cultivate those institutions, structures, and attitudes that sustain peace in civil-war affected societies. But what does it mean to ‘sustain peace’? And how can we measure the success of peacebuilding efforts?

2.1.5 Measuring Success: Positive vs Negative Peace

While academics and policy-makers alike have advanced a plethora of different factors to assess the success or failure of peacebuilding endeavours, a commonality between them is arguably found in the requirement “that operations must meet to increase the chances that they successfully contribute to durable peace” (Van der Lijn, 2009: 46). For instance, Kenneth Boulding famously argued that the objective of peace policy is to be found in the pursuit of stable peace, denoting “a situation in which the probability of war is so small that it does not really enter into the calculations of any of the people involved” (1978: 13). Yet, even within the two common requirements of stability and durability (cf. Klein et al., 2008: 88-89), many different degrees or gradations in the quality of peace are conceivable.

The issue of peace arguably represents “an important topic in and of itself, not merely a means to another end, and one that has […] been virtually overlooked” (Klein et al., 2008: 78). In fact, as might have become apparent throughout the previous section, peace and conflict research in general, and particularly the literature on peacebuilding, has thus far devoted relatively more attention to the issue of conflict vis-à-vis that of peace (cf. Gleiditsch et al., 2014). As a consequence, there appears to exist “a lack of knowledge and understanding of how to comprehend peace conceptually, how peace varies between different contexts and what explains variation” (Jarstad et al., 2017: 2). It is important to note, however, that such ‘gross under-conceptualisation’ (Mac Ginty, 2006) is not a recent phenomenon: As early as 1955, W. Fred Cottrell noted that a “review of previous efforts to deal with the problems of peace shows […] that peace means many different things to those engaged in studying it, and that very widely divergent (and sometimes mutually exclusive) conditions for peace are postulated” (1955: 13). More than sixty years later, it appears to remain true that “many analysts […] leave the end state vague and implicit and make no systematic differentiation between different types of peace” (Reychler, 2017).

Indeed, as we have seen above, even the concept of peacebuilding has habitually been defined in relation to war and conflict as opposed to peace; which is arguably ironic considering the

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concept’s very name. In more practical terms, the relative disregard for the issue of peace in its own right may carry about very real-life implications. For instance, as the determination of an intervention’s effectiveness crucially depends on the chosen measurement of success, (cf. Newman, 2009: 27) it is conceivable that the apparent under-conceptualisation of peace has distorted the track record of peacebuilding interventions outlined above. As a matter of fact, it may even be argued that “without an understanding of the systemic nature of peace and the factors that support it, it is impossible to determine what policies actually work and what programmes need to be implemented to support them” (IEP, 2013: 5). Such an assessment is supported by Cottrell who noted that “the probability of peace can be predicted only if there is agreement, in terms of specific conditions or social relationships, as to what peace means” (1955: 13).

Against this background, and agreeing also that “the key to understanding war lies in understanding peace” (Vasquez, 1993: 263), the subsequent section is concerned with outlining a number of different conceptualisations of peace; the aim being to enable us to more accurately assess the success or failure of a given peacebuilding mission. In doing so, the thesis follows in the footsteps of critical theorists such as Lambourne (2004) and Mac Ginty (2006) by interrogating the concept of peace and challenging the hegemonic discourse of peacebuilding theory and practice. As such, this thesis might also be said to contribute to Roland Paris’ above-mentioned endeavour to ‘save liberal peacebuilding,’ referring specifically to the continuous effort to dissect and understand the paradoxes and pathologies of peacebuilding, while - and this is the crucial point - being mindful to ensure that any criticism is well-founded and justified as opposed to ‘dogmatic’ (cf. 2010). While, due to its limited size and scope, this thesis cannot offer a full typology of peace in all of its shapes or forms,8_{it nonetheless isolates, introduces,}

and outlines the most prominent conceptualisations in the larger discourse.

Peace, understood not only as an ‘operational reality,’ (cf. Reychler, 2017) but also as a dynamic social construct (cf. Boutros-Ghali, 1992; Röling, 1973: 87), has different meanings and interpretations ranging from thin to thick(er) conceptualisations. Although the ‘thickness’ of different conceptualisations is not a measure that has commonly been employed in the academic literature, some scholars, such as Klein et al., have attempted to place peace on a scale in an effort to account for variations or ‘gradations’ in its quality (cf. 2008: 78). While their focus on ‘dyadic’ peace - a concept central to democratic peace theory - reflects an International

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Relations bias that is all too common to peace and conflict studies, the authors nonetheless show that it is possible to establish a systematic continuum of different ‘peaces,’ including corresponding criteria and indicators - in spite of the lack of a plural of the word (cf. Van Iterson Scholten, 2018: 17). Moreover, it appears important to emphasise that the meaning of peace has evolved over time: In fact, the notion has been the focus of intellectual attention from the Classical Antiquity (cf. Thucydides in Warner, 1971) to the Middle Ages (cf. Augustine, 2010: 212-220) to the thinkers of the Enlightenment (Kant, 1976), to the present (cf. Morgenthau, 1948; Gilpin, 1981). Only quite recently, before the turn of the millennium, Emanuel Adler asked himself, “if […] future wars will be fought in and by computers, will peace only exist in cyberspace?” (1998: 165). While in the interest of time, the answer to this interesting question remains outside the scope of this thesis, a review of previous efforts to conceptualise peace seems in order.

For centuries, realist scholars and thinkers have juxtaposed peace with war or violence. The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, for instance, advanced a notion of peace as the ‘absence of war,’ referring specifically to situations in which war is neither imminent nor fought (cf. 2003: 101). Their immense prevalence in intellectual circles throughout time has, however, met considerable resistance, with some authors arguing that negative definitions of peace are “epistemologically speaking an oxymoron; we cannot positively define something as the opposite of something else” (Adler, 1998: 165). Importantly for the scope of this thesis, Klein et al. have noted that defining peace in negative terms is “inadequate […] if the goal of research is to understand and explain peace” (2008: 67). Adapting an example from their article to our particular case, if we want to explain why some countries are ‘peaceful,’ (as part of our endeavour to identify those institutions, structures, and attitudes that sustain peace in civil-war affected societies) it might not be useful to define them as ‘not violent.’ Thus, in line with our attempt to assess the success or failure of peacebuilding missions, we are arguably in need for a benchmark for success that is framed in positive terms. The necessity of having a yardstick that reflects an ‘event,’ as opposed to a ‘non-event,’ is further substantiated if we consider that the entire international peacebuilding architecture finds its raison d’être in the understanding of peace as a positive phenomenon, as something that can be build and sustained through intervention.

The issue of whether peace is to be regarded as a positive or negative phenomenon was also the subject of a debate between Johan Galtung and Kenneth Boulding in the 1960s and 70s (cf.

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Boulding, 1977). For his part, Galtung defined ‘positive peace’ as the absence of latent, structural violence (1969: 168) and ‘negative peace’ the absence of conflict (1964: 2) or, in his later work, overt physical violence (1969: 168). In response, Boulding brought forward the familiar-sounding argument from above that ‘negative peace’ is a ‘complete misnomer,’ noting that “peace […] is not just ‘not-war’ any more than water is ‘not-ice’" (1977: 78). While Boulding himself soon incorporated the concept of ‘negative peace’ in his own work (cf. 1978: 3), he defined ‘positive peace’ not in terms of the absence of something else - as Galtung did at prima facie - but as the presence of a “condition of good management, orderly resolution of conflict, harmony associated with mature relationships, gentleness, and love” (1978: 3). To be fair though, by means of defining ‘positive peace’ as the absence of structural violence (1969: 168), Galtung arguably also implied the presence of social justice (cf. Galtung, 1969: 171; cf. Joshi et al., 2018: 9). This interpretation is supported by a review of his earlier work in which he spoke of ‘positive peace’ as the presence of integration and cooperation (1964: 2).9

While this thesis does not presume to close the debate between Galtung and Boulding, other authors seem to agree that “positive peace is not about the absence of things, but about the presence of certain concepts namely, tranquillity, harmony, well-being, shared human values, human bonds and shared feelings of humanity” (Herath, 2010, emphasis added). Others have added the notions of justice, tolerance, the deeper transformations of perceptions (cf. Ben-Porat, 2008), the rule of law, or the respect for human rights (Brata Das, 2004: 265) to this list. Moreover, and notwithstanding their use of the distinct yet related label of ‘strong’ peace, Webel et al. also define peace in positive terms as the presence, within society, of a (perceived) equal distribution of resources and power (cf. 2007: 9). Yet, given the apparent discord regarding those conditions that are constitutive of ‘positive peace’ other than those defined in relation to violent conflict, it should come as no surprise that a plethora of ‘more positive’ and ‘thick’ conceptualisations of peace have been advanced in recent years. In this context, Gijsbert van Iterson Scholten lists a number of these in his introductory chapter (cf. 2018: 17): ‘liberal peace’ (Richmond, 2006); ‘hybrid peace’ (MacGinty, 2011), ‘post-liberal peace’ (Richmond, 2011b), ‘quality peace’ (Wallensteen, 2015; Joshi et al., 2018), ‘agonistic peace’ (Shinko, 2008; Aggestam et al., 2015), and ‘everyday peace’ (Mac Ginty, 2014).

9_{Also in his later academic career, Galtung spoke of positive peace as either a situation in which “individuals and}

society are in harmony” (cf. 1985), where individuals within a society “cooperate for mutual and equal benefit,” (cf. 2012) or where we observe “the presence of mutually beneficial cooperation and mutual learning” (cf. Galtung

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While this multitude of different concepts is indicative of considerable academic interest in peace ‘as a phenomenon in and of itself’ (Rasmussen, 2010: 177; Van Iterson Scholten, 2018: 17), it arguably also points to a “lack of an agreed-upon framework for what constitutes the success or failure of peace efforts beyond the absence of war” (Joshi et al. 2018: 4). In fact, it is the inability to agree on the meaning or content (in terms of empirically measurable conditions) of ‘positive peace’ that shifted the focus of peace studies to negative definitions (cf. Regan, 2014: 348; Van Iterson Scholten, 2018: 45), with most peace scientists nowadays conceptualising peace as a ‘non-event,’ that is, as the absence of armed conflict (cf. Campbell et al., 2017: 95; Gleditsch et al., 2014). Given the prevalence of such a ‘thin’ conception in the academic discourse, peacebuilding has usually been assessed in terms of avoiding a relapse into violent intrastate conflict (cf. Diaz, 2001: 2), with the non-reoccurrence of armed violence within a timeframe of two to five years becoming the ‘standard measure’ (Jarstad et al., 2017: 10) or “the most readily visible indicator of success for efforts to consolidate peace” (Call et al., 2007: 5).10_{This focus makes sense, to some degree, considering that the absence of violence}

in the short-term constitutes a benchmark that is arguably tangible and therefore viable for measurement. On the other hand, by itself, the durability of non-violence in the short-term - arguably the ‘thinnest,’ most ‘minimalist standard’ (cf. Call et al., 2007: 5) - may be regarded as inappropriate to measure the success of peacebuilding efforts for a number of reasons:

Firstly, as mentioned above with regards to the rather blurred reality of ‘neither war nor peace’ in many post-settlement societies (cf. De Zeeuw, 2001: 11), it has been argued that “the binary conceptualisation and measurement of war and peace hinders our ability to account for the complexity of these attempted war-to-peace transitions” (Campbell et al., 2017: 93). As a matter of fact, Klein et al. observed “tremendous variation within the category of ‘nonwar,’ ranging from those actors who are still hostile toward one another but not actively fighting to those that have an integrated web of cooperation” (2008: 67). Moreover, by taking the absence of war as a benchmark for success of peacebuilding missions, we may run the risk of ignoring the crucial role of residual forms of violence in post-settlement societies; a focus which Doyle et al. have advocated should be considered in conjunction with levels of conflict violence (cf. 2000). Thus, if we recognise the importance of other forms of violence, such as sexual violence in the private sphere, peace may be elusive for some segments of society even if large-scale conflict violence does not return.11_{Importantly in this regard, as Campbell et al}

10_{See, for example, Licklider (1995: 685), Walter (2004; 2002), Joshi et al. (2011) or Martin (2013).}