ABSTRACT
Since the rediscovery of "ethnic conflict" as a key phenomenon in international relations, the question of how such conflicts end has become an urgent one for both scholars and policy makers. We know that some long-running conflicts have been extremely resistant to peaceful settlement—in Palestine and Kashmir, for example. We also know that some "interminable" conflicts have made real progress towards peaceful resolution (e.g. Northern Ireland, Palestine, Bosnia), but that the future of these arrangements is unclear and a return to conflict could happen. Finally, the end of the Cold War produced a new and frightening set of conflicts—in the former Yugoslavia, for example—that have reminded us of the existence and tragedy of "ethnic cleansing" and the brutality of nationalist conflict.
