Peace talks are the intricate dance of steps — often choreographed by third-party mediators — through which parties in conflict negotiate a settlement to end their war. They involve navigating dilemmas that pit group security against individual freedom, trading off one for the other, and they are incredibly difficult to begin and sustain. Understanding what factors enable or impede their success is critical to the pursuit of a global norm of peaceful conflict resolution and to finding ways to address the many stumbling blocks to its realization.
The article explores the complex interaction of prenegotiation and negotiation phases in peace processes to offer a more holistic and comprehensive account of their roles in the resolving of protracted and intractable intrastate conflict. The authors show that the information asymmetry and commitment problems underlying most conflicts, including the Israeli-Palestinian and Syrian civil wars, are not adequately addressed by existing approaches to peace negotiations.
Furthermore, there is enormous variation in the actors, procedures, and substantive discussions that occur in peace talks. Governments that make legally binding commitments, publicly communicate key aspects of the process, and include a wide range of stakeholders in nonbinding negotiations are more likely to reach sustainable solutions to their conflicts. Conversely, those that limit the number of negotiators and exclude third-party mediators and civil society create a highly fragile framework that is vulnerable to external shocks, spoilers, and changing political opportunity structures.
Moreover, the timing of peace talks is crucial. Belligerents are more likely to take up the offer of peace when they believe that doing so will make more sense than continuing to fight, and they must weigh whether they can expect to gain more from peace than they would if they simply kept fighting. Nonetheless, these factors are only partly responsible for why negotiations succeed or fail.