Sequencing the Peace: How the Order of Peace Agreement Implementation Can Reduce the Destabilizing Effects of Post-accord Elections

Once a set of civil war actors reach a final peace agreement, a number of different implementation sequences are possible as the negotiated provisions are put into practice. We focus on a key but threatening stepping stone in the post-accord period—the holding of the first post-accord election—which has the capacity to be a stabilizing or destabilizing force. We identify effective accommodation provisions that civil war actors can negotiate and implement before the first post-accord election to reduce the chances of renewed violence. Utilizing new longitudinal data on the implementation of comprehensive peace agreements between 1989 and 2012 and a series of survival models, we find that if the first post-accord election is preceded by the implementation of accommodation measures, elections can have a peace-promoting effect. However, in the absence of preelection accommodation measures, elections are much more likely to be followed by peace failure. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden Corresponding Author: Madhav Joshi, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, 100 Hesburgh Center, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA. Email: [email protected] Journal of Conflict Resolution 1-25 a The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0022002715576573 jcr.sagepub.com at UNIV OF NOTRE DAME on April 9, 2015 jcr.sagepub.com Downloaded from