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Since 1993, various international donors have poured money into a People-to-People (P2P) diplomacy programme in Palestine. This grassroots initiative - still funded by prominent external donors today - seeks to foster public engagement through contact and therefore remove deeply embedded barriers. This book examines the limited nature of this ‘contact’ and explains why the P2P framework, which was ostensibly concerned with the promotion of peace, ultimately served to reinforce conflict and power relations. The book is based on the author’s own experience of the solidarity activities during the First Intifada and her first-hand involvement as a coordinator of the P2P projects implemented during the 1990s. It provides a much-needed critical account of the internationally-sponsored peace process and develops new theoretical analyses of settler colonialism.

The paradox of war’s legitimacy has long fueled debate over what constitutes a just cause. This article examines the evolving interpretation of just war through the lens of Africa’s 20th‐century decolonization. It examines how struggles for national sovereignty raised questions about the legitimacy of newly formed governments and their ideologies, as well as the efficacy of peace processes facilitated by international bodies amid ongoing interference from former colonial powers in a state‐centric, ideologically divided world order. This article draws on the case studies of Mozambique and Angola to explore the complexities of legitimization. These countries were selected for two reasons: First, both countries share a recent history shaped by their (de)colonization struggle against the Portuguese. Second, parallels emerge in their post‐colonial power struggles and the peace processes that followed. Ultimately, this comparison intends to explain how the protagonists legitimized their struggles and assess the effectiveness of the United Nations’ approach to these conflicts. The differing outcomes in these cases highlight the importance of context‐specific approaches and the critical role of adaptable international support. This exploratory study relies on qualitative methods, drawing data from archival sources, particularly official documents from the United Nations, the Organization of African Unity, and parties involved in the conflicts. The study also employs discourse analysis to examine the narratives developed by various protagonists in their quest to legitimize warfare and articulate grievances during negotiations.

The Israeli-Palestinian struggle is considered to be one of the most entrenched conflicts in the world. Presenting and evaluating interactive models of peacemaking and the phenomenon of intractable conflict, the book takes an in-depth look into specific models for peacemaking and applies them to the situation in Israel/Palestine. The argument centers around the idea that a multifaceted approach to peacemaking has the greatest potential to transform an intractable conflict into a mutually beneficial social order. Encompassing theoretical background, comparative studies of conflict resolution processes in similar circumstances around the world and policy recommendations, the author presents four interactive models of peacemaking to suggest a comprehensive approach to peacemaking that attacks the conflict from various angles, directions and dimensions. Introducing general conditions that have the potential to transform a situation of destructive conflict into a more peaceful social order, Conflict and Peacemaking in Israel-Palestine adds a fresh perspective to the study of destructive social conflicts and should provoke critical discussion among students and scholars of peace and conflict studies, Middle Eastern politics, conflict resolution and management. Introduction Part 1: General Background 1. Intractable Conflict as a Complex Phenomenon 2. The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict 3. Between Conflict-Resolution and Conflict-Management Part 2: Interactive Models of Peacemaking 4. The Strong-Leader Model 5. The Social-Reformer Model 6. The Political-Elite Model 7. The Public-Assembly Model. Summary and Conclusion Sapir Handelman is a visiting professor at the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Wayne State University, an associate at Harvard University and the Lentz Fellow in Peace and Conflict Resolution Research. His research focuses on the study of destructive social conflicts and their resolution, political theory, and applied ethics. He also leads the \"Minds of Peace Experiment\" at various Centers for Peace Studies around the U.S. and the Middle East, a project which offers simulations of a potential Palestinian-Israeli public-assembly, a public negotiating congress, and is the recipient of the 2010 Peter Becker Award for Peace and Conflict Studies.

Despite the associations with conflict, religion is also a site of reconciliation. The limited literature on this, however; is constrained by its case study approach. This article seeks to establish a conceptual framework for theorizing the relationship between religion and peacemaking in conflict societies where religion is perceived to be part of the problem. The key to this is civil society and the four socially strategic spaces that religious groups can occupy within civil society and by means of which they can play a role as ' bridging social capitai' in peace processes. However, religious peacemaking is mediated by the wider civil-society/state nexus. This shows itself in two sets of variables that simultaneously constrain and facilitate the relationship between religion and peacebuilding. We illustrate the framework with evidence from several examples in order to show how comparative analysis simultaneously illuminates case studies.

This study applies a governmentality approach to analyse the European Union’s civil society promotion in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process through the EU’s Partnership for Peace instrument. Contrary to a widespread conviction in earlier academic research, it argues that the EU engagement with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has political substance, and the Partnership for Peace provides a good illustration of this. The governmentality perspective highlights the power of the technical in guiding civil society towards particular visions, activities and goals. It brings to light a set of supposedly neutral definitions and technical instruments related to project applications and project selection that sort out, promote and link together civil society action in a way that manages and reinforces the existing dynamics of the peace process. The technical brings with it a particular idea of civil society, which is encouraged to assume functions that focus on the management of the outcomes of the conflict rather than striving for a transformative vision of peace based on political deliberation and fundamental change. The use of the governmentality approach not only aims to provide a better understanding of the nature of the Partnership for Peace programme, but also contributes to debates over the theoretical merits of governmentality by applying the approach to peace and conflict research.

This book focuses on the September 2000 confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians, examining the characteristics of a confrontation that developed into a protracted low-intensity conflict. Topics addressed include the strategies adopted by both sides, the reasons for the failure of moderation, and the phenomenon of unilateral disengagement.

In both Northern Ireland and Korea, the euphoria following significant breakthroughs towards peace in the late 1990s and early 2000s turned into deep frustration when confronted by continuous stalemates in implementing the agreements. I explore the two peace processes by examining and comparing the breakthroughs and breakdowns of both, in order to identify potential lessons that can be shared for a sustainable peace process. Using a comparative case study, I demonstrate the parallels in historical analyses of why the agreements in the late 1990s and early 2000s in Northern Ireland and Korea were expected to be more durable than those of the 1970s. I also examine the differences between the two peace processes in the course of addressing major challenges for sustaining the two processes: disarmament; relationships between hard-line parties; cross-community initiatives. These parallels and differences inform which lessons can be shared between Northern Ireland and Korea to increase the durability of the peace processes. The comparative case study finds that the commitment of high-level leadership in both conflict parties to keeping negotiation channels open for dialogue and to allowing space for civic engagement is crucial in a sustainable peace process, and that sharing lessons between the two peace processes can be beneficial in finding opportunities to overcome challenges and also for each process to be reminded of lessons from its own past experience.

This article explores the impact of time pressure on negotiation processes in territorial conflicts in the post—cold war era. While it is often argued that time pressure can help generate positive momentum in peace negotiations and help break deadlocks, extensive literature also suggests that perceived time shortage can have a negative impact on the cognitive processes involved in complex, intercultural negotiations. The analysis explores these hypotheses through a comparison of sixty-eight episodes of negotiation using fuzzy-set logic, a form of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The conclusions confirm that time pressure can, in certain circumstances, be associated with broad agreements but also that only low levels of time pressure or its absence are associated with durable settlements. The analysis also suggests that the negative effect of time pressure on negotiations is particularly relevant in the presence of complex decision making and when a broad range of debated issues is at stake.

Since the collapse of the Oslo peace process and the violence that followed, many scholars have reflected upon the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Most of this analysis has focused on official negotiations without considering the substantial role that unofficial peace efforts have played in peacebuilding, both prior to and after Oslo. This article, in contrast, seeks to better understand the application of \"track two\" diplomacy to the Israeli-Palestinian case. It reports on a self-reflection effort by numerous Israeli-Palestinian peace practitioners to better understand what has worked, what has not, and how new initiatives could be more effectively organized and carried out in the future. In this article, the authors seek to better understand two issues: 1. how track two initiatives have changed in scope, organization, and intent; and 2. how track two practitioners have sought to disseminate their work beyond the participants of those initiatives. Their findings present an overall picture of the Israeli-Palestinian second track practice and identify a number of trends and common types of practice.

After 20 years of heavy fighting in Northern Ireland, a peace process started in 1988. The fighting went on, with some interruptions, for another 9 years; but during this time there was a long series o;f back-channel communications and conciliatory signals that led to a cease-fire, negotiations, and a peace settlement. The dynamics of this peace process are analyzed by means of the author's readiness theory, which attributes the process to (a) Irish Republican Army and British discouragement about the likelihood of a military victory, (b) pressure from allies of both these parties, (c) growing optimism about the success of negotiation, and (d) the emergence of a broad central coalition that embraced most of the political groups in Northern Ireland.