Conclusions

Efforts to find peaceful solutions to violent conflicts have increased over the last decades, and so has our insight into war-to-peace transitions. Still, there are many unanswered questions about what it is that prompts conflicting parties to change in their attitudes, behaviours and relationships. While conventional wisdom tells us that a ceasefire agreement often is the natural beginning of a peace process aimed at creating momentum and paving the way to peace, the aim of this book has been to provide a better and more nuanced understanding of ceasefire agreements in relation to peace processes in intrastate conflicts. This has been done using a qualitative comparative study of two Asian conflict settings, i.e. Aceh and Sri Lanka. A theoretical framework was developed in order to allow for contextualized understanding and comparison over time and across space. The common factors that I identified in the literature on war-to-peace transitions – i.e. (1) recognition, status and legitimacy; (2) trust and confidence; (3) whether or not claims are being met; (4) external incentives and resources; (5) contextual changes; and (6) intraparty dynamics – have proven useful for increasing our understanding of ceasefire agreements in relation to peace processes. The study has demonstrated how these factors have mattered in different contexts and why this is so. It pointed to the prospect that ceasefire agreements can facilitate war-to-peace transitions, while at the same time illuminating challenges and the risk that such efforts can be counterproductive in the context of intrastate conflicts. The study thus speaks to previous research that stresses the significance of ceasefire agreements as potentially influential for the transition from war to peace (e.g. Fortna, 2004; Smith, 1995; Kolås, 2011). It has contributed to filling the gap in research by developing comparative insights about how ceasefire agreements can be characterized and analysed in relation to peace processes in protracted intrastate armed conflicts. In the cross-case comparative analysis in Chapter 5, I demonstrated how the six factors of influence mattered in different conflict settings and I offered a number of propositions based on patterns found in the empirical analyses. The study has also provided support for previous research on ceasefire agreements, on trends in contemporary peacemaking generally and on developments in the Asian region particularly. In contrast to Fortna’s (2004) study, my focus has been on conflicts within states that can be described as protracted identity-based conflicts with a territorial dimension and

on peace processes in the post-Cold War context. By analysing the conflicting parties’ attitudes, behaviours and relationships in these conflicts, I have been able to explore process dynamics and complexities and to recognize political processes at play. Here, the asymmetric power relations that characterize intrastate conflicts between states and non-state actor(s) have been emphasized throughout the analysis. It has proved to be important for understanding the different meanings various actors ascribe to ceasefire agreements, how a ceasefire operates in different contexts, and its implications on conflict dynamics. While this study builds on comparative insights from two particular conflict settings (i.e. Aceh and Sri Lanka), by informing our theoretical understanding of ceasefire agreements as part of peace processes the insights drawn from this study can be of relevance also to other geographies. I argue that the insights can be particularly useful to inform peace processes in intrastate conflicts with a territorial dimension in the Asian region since these conflicts share similarities as regards the characteristics of violent conflicts and efforts at conflict resolution. Nevertheless, insights from the study might also be relevant to other conflict studies outside Asia. For instance in the war in Syria, while the context differs in many respects, such as the number of active armed groups, the presence of international troops, and the amount of attention devoted to the conflict by the diplomatic society, here one could also find similar reasoning about the value-laden word ‘ceasefire’ and the caution against exerting legitimacy to non-state actors. Furthermore, by comparing ceasefire agreements and peace processes over time in Aceh and Sri Lanka, the study has highlighted the historical legacy of ceasefires, as illustrated by their impact on subsequent interactions and agreements. Indeed, despite the prolonged nature of these conflicts, few agreements were reached during them. This has given ceasefire agreements a prominent place in the conflict histories and allowed them to leave ‘footprints’ and traces for subsequent processes. Thus, a ceasefire agreement reached at an early phase of a conflict may influence the development of later attempts at conflict resolution even if the agreement fails. This also supports claims made in the literature about the importance of widening the temporal scope of analysis for understanding aspects of war-to-peace transitions and taking into account experiences and events in the historical trajectory (e.g. Diehl, 2006; Bell, 2000). The processoriented approach has also revealed how the influence of various factors might shift between different phases of a process. For example, while external incentives through international attention and engagement seem to have been important for making it possible to enter into a ceasefire agreement, international involvement has often become more troublesome as the process has unfolded. This suggests that the importance and influence of different factors changes at different times and in different phases. As this book has demonstrated, in many ways the management of war-topeace transitions can be characterized as a constant balancing act. And while a ceasefire may be a necessary instrument in making a peaceful transition possible, it is not sufficient for embarking on a peaceful path. Based on the insights of this study, it can be proposed that if a ceasefire agreement is to create a momentum

that helps lead the process onto a peaceful path, then this momentum must generate a political space. The nature and structure of ceasefires ultimately entails a risk of maintaining a military focus in the process rather than contributing to bringing about a shift toward a political one. Hence, it entails a risk of reconstituting rather than transforming dividing lines. In contrast to this, political space involves the possibility of generating political alternatives. While changes in behaviour might be made rather easily in the absence of a parallel political process, changes in attitudes and relationships will likely be difficult. This suggests that if a conflict is to move to another arena, it is not enough that the parties refrain from violence, but such a move must also be accompanied by an adoption of non-violent means and interactions. Given this, a ceasefire needs to be action-oriented in order to contribute to the creation of a political space. In addition, in order to create and widen a political space, the parties must give both each other and themselves enough room to change. As this study has demonstrated, in the context of intraparty rivalry, political space is remarkably volatile. While this study has provided important insights into ceasefire agreements and how they can be characterized and analysed in relation to peace processes in intrastate armed conflict, there are still many questions that need further exploration and analysis. First, the fruitfulness of the theoretical framework created in this study should be tested on other empirical cases. The comparative framework has been important for the theory-developing ambition of this study. In future studies, concentrating on a single conflict setting would enable even deeper and more contextualized analysis than what has been possible here. In addition, the results of this study indicate that we should conduct additional analyses over time that focus particularly on prolonged ceasefire agreements in stalled peace processes. While the notion of ‘no war, no peace’ has begun to attract attention in the scholarly literature (e.g. Mac Ginty, 2006), we still do not know very much about the dynamics at play in these processes. A comparative analysis that focuses on ceasefire agreements and explores changes and continuities in particularly long-lived processes might contribute important and interesting insights. In addition, Bell (2000, 2006) has focused on analysing the human rights components of more comprehensive peace agreements from a legal perspective. Considering the characteristics of contemporary intrastate conflicts and the large number of civilian casualties in these wars, an inquiry into ceasefire agreements through the lenses of human security, focusing specifically on the human rights components of ceasefires might also be a fruitful way forward. In this regard, recent initiatives to include the prohibition of conflict-related sexual violence in the ceasefire agreement is one example of interesting venues for further research. In future research it can also be suggested that more attention be given to the characteristics of and changes in national elite politics, particularly in order to understand the initiation and unfolding of ceasefire agreements. Thus, while there is a growing amount of literature on rebel-to-political party transformation (e.g. Dayton and Kriesberg, 2009; Weinstein, 2007), the results of this book point to the importance of also paying more attention to national politics, particularly political culture and leadership.