Working Paper: Varieties of Peace, Presentation of a Research Program

Anna Jarstad, Malin Åkebo, Patrik Johansson, Philippa Barnes, Niklas Eklund,  Malin Eklund Wimelius, Elisabeth Olivius, Abrak Saati, Dzenan Sahovic,  Veronica Strandh, Johanna Söderström

The Varieties of Peace research program aims to analyze long-term effects of peace processes in conflicts that ended in the 1990s. The central research questions are: What characterizes peace after the peace processes initiated in the 1990s and how does it vary? How can this variation be described and explained? Peace processes have been studied using short time perspectives, usually in ”lessonslearned” evaluations five years after conflict termination, and usually with theories of conflict as a starting point. The Varieties of Peace research program is an ambitious initiative, which starts from a theoretical understanding of peace, its quality and character, and views peace and peace processes as dynamic and transformative. It will investigate and evaluate different types of peace processes from a comparative perspective and 25–30 years after they started, with the ambition of producing generalizable knowledge about peace, what it is and how it can be achieved. As a starting point, the program studies explanatory factors in five areas: 1) the actions, capacity and resilience of civil society, 2) the interests and strategies of the elites, 3) the aims and character of the agreements, 4) the societies’ institutions and resilience, and 5) international involvement. These issues will be studies in at least ten projects, with the ambition to capture and explain variation, internal dynamics and ultimately the results and effects of peace processes, studied over a longer period of time. The Varieties of Peace program is funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond: the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences, 2017-2024.

Journal Article: Sites of Repression and Resistance: Political Space in Refugee Camps in Thailand

Elisabeth Olivius

Refugee camps are frequently perceived as spaces of emergency and exception. However, they are also spaces where millions of people live their everyday lives, sometimes for extended periods of time. As such, refugee camps are political spaces where struggles over the right to influence life in the camps and shape how they are governed are continuously ongoing. In this context, what are the opportunities for political participation for refugees living in camps? How and to what extent are refugees able to carve out political space where they can engage with and affect their lives and their situations? This paper addresses these questions through an analysis of refugee camps in Thailand. Drawing on Foucauldian analytics, the analysis demonstrates how key strategies employed to govern refugees, namely spatial confinement and development interventions are also creatively subverted by refugees and appropriated as bases for resistance and political mobilization. The article provides new insights into the relationship between power and resistance, demonstrating how specific technologies of governance create opportunities for subversion, reinterpretation, and appropriation.

Annual Report for Varieties of Peace, 2017

Varieties of Peace

One year into the program, our first annual report outlines all the activities conducted in 2017, including research, organisational matters, joint activities, and dissemination of results. 

Journal Article: Making and Keeping Promises: Regime Type and Powersharing Pacts in Peace Agreements

Anna Jarstad and Desirée Nilsson

Power sharing is increasingly recognized as an important tool for creating sustainable peace in war-torn societies. However, we have limited knowledge concerning why political, territorial, and military power-sharing pacts are reached and implemented. This article addresses this gap by providing a global study examining the signing and implementation of powersharing pacts in intrastate armed conflicts. We focus on how the type of political regime can influence these choices and theorize about the strategic incentives for warring parties in different types of regimes to sign and implement different pacts. Our large-N analysis is based on data on power-sharing provisions in eighty-three peace accords in forty intrastate armed conflicts between 1989 and 2004. In line with our theoretical expectations, we find that political and military pacts are more likely to be signed in autocracies, whereas territorial pacts are more common in democracies. Somewhat surprisingly, we find no difference in the implementation patterns across regimes.

Working Paper: Peace Processes of the 1990s

Viktor Johansson

The working paper, written by Varieties of Peace intern Viktor Johansson, is concerned with characterizing and comparing civil war peace processes that were initiated during the 1990s. The paper also offers a long-term analysis of the peace that has (or has not) ensued after these civil wars.