Suchergebnisse

There is a conceptual gap between causes-of-war research and conflict resolution research. This article introduces a macro-level conceptual framework to facilitate analysis of the outbreak, conduct and resolution of armed conflict within states. Three arguments are advanced, linked to the three questions Why do people start fighting?, Why do people stop fighting? and How can peace be made durable? The first argument is that people take to arms because they have Reasons in the form of grievances and goals, Resources in the form of capabilities and opportunities, and Resolve because they see no alternative to violence in order to address grievances and attain goals. Second, the Triple-R concepts also explain the `outbreak of peace', that is, war termination and peace-building. Third, variations in the dependent variable — different degrees of peace; here termed Triple-M (Mutually Hurting Stalemate, Mutually Enticing Opportunities and Mutually Obtained Rewards) — are explained by changes within those three clusters of explanatory factors.

Within the literature on conflict resolution and peace-building, there is a growing awareness about the need to move beyond 'minimalist' (absence of war) and 'maximalist' (absence of different types of structural violence) notions of peace. While the first concept is too narrow-it conceals much human suffering and does not take into account the root causes of armed conflict-the latter is too inclusive, open-ended and difficult to measure. There is, despite this growing consciousness, a lack of midterm definitions of peace that can help peacemakers assess whether a peace process is on the right track, say 10 or 15 years after a civil war has been terminated. In fact, when operationalising and empirically measuring how 'peaceful' post-civil war societies are, many scholars continue to employ indicators based on minimalist or maximalist visions of peace. In this article we introduce the concept of 'legitimate peace', which we argue can function as a midterm benchmark for peacemakers, and outline the benefits associated with its use. Adapted from the source document.