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Introduction
This book uses approaches and concepts from conflict resolution literature to answer two related questions concerning civil war peace agreements. First, it seeks to explain why some peace agreements are signed while others do not get signed, and second, why some of those that do get signed do not hold to bring an end to protracted civil wars.
To improve our understanding of the process through which civil war agreements are concluded and why some settlements hold while others do not, the book looks at empirical evidence from three mediated sets of peace agreements. The focus is first a series of fourteen agreements that finally ended the first civil war in Liberia in 1997; second is the 1993 Arusha peace accord that failed to prevent the escalation of conflict into genocide in Rwanda; and third, a series of three agreements that were signed but did not initially hold to end the conflict in Sierra Leone.
The book examines four independent variables that are key to understanding why peace agreements succeed or fail. These are the role of third parties in peace agreements; conflict dynamics; the role of regional politics in conflict resolution; and the structure of settlements in peace agreements.