Strengthening Peace in Post-Civil War States: Transforming Spoilers into Stakeholders

Civil wars are among the more frequent and most devastating of conflicts. Attempts to bring these wars to an end often fail to establish a lasting peace. Given the inherent fragility of civil war peace agreements, innovative approaches must be taken to ensure the successful resolution of these conflicts. Strengthening Peace in Post-Civil War States provides both analytical frameworks and a series of critical case studies demonstrating the effectiveness of a range of strategies for keeping the peace.

Coeditors Matthew Hoddie and Caroline A. Hartzell contend that lasting peace relies on aligning the self-interest of individuals and communities with the society-wide goal of ending war --- if citizens and groups have a stake in peace, they will seek to maintain and defend it. The rest of the contributors explore two complementary approaches toward achieving this goal: restructuring domestic institutions and soft intervention. The first strategy involves reforming governments that failed to prevent war, while the second includes a number of nonmilitary tactics outside actors can follow to assist in keeping the peace.

"The Scholarship on display in Strengthening Peace in Post-Civil War States is impecable, the data are sound, and the ideas are even better. The essays are well-written and clearly expressed, communicating concepts without jargon. The book broadens and deepens our consideration of the postconflict state-building process, taking an authoritative angle on a hot debate over a topic of core significance."---I. William Zartman, Johns Hopkins University

"Building peace after civil wars end is one of the crucial security concerns of the day: the topic holds relevance for issues from economic growth to terrorism. This cohesive collection brings together some of the leader in the field of civil war research, and the book's framework provides a model that should be emulated by others. The contributors' Scholarship is sound, using case studies and examples that ground their conclusions in reality and practice, and the organization of the book is innovative, rigorous, and interesting."--- Karl Derouen Jr. University Of Alabama

Matthew Hoddie is assistant professor of political science at Towson University.
Caroline A. Hartzell is professor of political science at Gettysburg College. Together they are coauthors of Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars.