ABSTRACT
Multilateral peace operations, the international community’s primary mechanism for responding to civil wars, are routinely pushed to prioritise the mediation of national peace agreements between governments and armed opposition movements. Unfortunately, most countries where peace operations are deployed suffer from conflicts with incohesive and weakly structured belligerents, reliant on violent economic predation. Mediation-centric approaches in these contexts often yield many agreements, but little peace, as national agreements, despite strong international support, fail to change entrenched patterns of violence. Rather than framing political progress, repeated failed agreements often serve instead to de-legitimise political engagement and dialogue. In considering strategies, peace operations need to more critically assess belligerents’ capacity to negotiate and implement agreements that serve as a viable foundation for change. To adapt to this challenge, peace operations will often need more inclusive process designs, which decentralise dialogue and negotiation, and ensure progress does not rely principally on agreements with unstable and unstructured belligerents. In many cases, this requires greater emphasis on local negotiations, mechanisms to address economic competition and predation, and the preservation of state institutions and functioning. Rather than agreements between belligerents as the primary objective, peace operations require complementary strategies for reduced violence, political stability and inclusive governance.
