ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Gehrmann looks at the concept of Sustaining Peace and then analyzes in three sections the ways in which actors try to achieve and sustain peace through an elimination of the reasons for engaging in political violence. The first section considers peace and the promotion of political institutions that reduce political violence. This approach goes beyond simple democracy promotion in that it distinguishes between the impacts on peace of different forms of democracies. The basic intuition is that power-sharing mechanisms and power-splitting mechanisms prevent political groups from using political violence to further their goals. The second section considers peace and investments which tackle an individual’s incentives for political violence. The underlying idea is to raise the opportunity costs of appropriation (of goods produced by others). This can be achieved either through an increase in the gains from production, i.e. the potential salary in the local labor market, or through a reduction of the gains from engaging in appropriation (political violence, but also commercial violence). The third approach, peace and information, relies on information and communication, with the aim of establishing inter-group trust. Gehrmann concludes that there is need for more investment in theoretical and empirical research into the causes and consequences of, and respective remedies for, war.
