The Impact of Protracted Peace Processes on Identities in Conflict

Front matter

» Joana Ricarte

Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies

Series Editors Oliver P. Richmond University of Manchester Manchester, UK

Index

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joana Ricarte is a researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (CEIS20) of the University of Coimbra (UC), Portugal. Previously she was a post-doctoral researcher at the same institution, as well as invited assistant professor at the Department of History, European Studies, Archeology and Arts (DHEEAA). Her background is in History (BA, University of Brasilia—2010), International Relations, specialized in Peace and Security Studies (MA, University of Coimbra—2013) and International Politics and Conflict Resolution (PhD, Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra—2020). Her work has been interdisciplinary, in the intersection between International Relations, History, European Studies, Political Psychology and Sociology. Her overall work has sought to explain how dynamics of identity, power and otherness shape protracted social conflicts in both domestic and international levels and how these are related with the maintenance and perpetuation of conflict through time.

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ABBREVIATIONS

CEIRPP United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People

CSO Civil Society Organization

EU European Union

IDF Israel Defense Forces

IR International Relations

NGO Non-Governmental Organization

OCHA oPt United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Occupied Palestinian Territory

PA Palestinian Authority

PLO Palestine Liberation Organization PNC Palestine National Council

PPP Protracted Peace Process

PSC Protracted Social Conflict

RES UN Resolution

UN United Nations

UNDP United Nations Development Program UNEF United Nations Emergency Force UNGA United Nations General Assembly

UNISPAL United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine UNRWA United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East

UNSC United Nations Security Council

UNSCOP United Nations Special Committee on Palestine UNTSO United Nations Truce Supervision Organization USA United States of America xvii

Picture Al

List OF PICTURES

Gaza Strip Isolation Fence. (Source: Gaza isolation fence, Ashkelon, Israel) (color online)

Gaza Separation Wall “Path to Peace”. (Source: Gaza Separation Wall, Netiv HaAsarah, Israel) (color online) Aida Refugee Camp Wall “We Can’t Live”. (Source: Separation Wall, Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, Palestine) (color online)

Bethlehem Separation Wall “Concrete Proof of Apartheid”. (Source: Separation Wall, Bethlehem, Palestine) (color online)

Haifa Landscape: Contrasts. (Source: Haifa Port, Haifa, Israel) (color online)

Ramallah Landscape: Rooftop Water Tanks. (Source: Ramallah City View, Ramallah, Palestine) (color online) Movement Control “Dangerous to Your Lives”. (Source: Road Sign, West Bank, West Bank, Palestine) (color online) Separation Wall Graffiti. (Source: Separation Wall, Bethlehem, Palestine) (color online)

Separation Wall Graffiti “Make Hummus Not Walls”. (Source: Separation Wall, Bethlehem, Palestine) (color online)

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List OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Protracted peace processes 42 Table 2.2 Categories of identity 50 Table 3.1 Dimensions of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation 84 xxi

Introduction

This research was born out of the desire to understand the relationship between the existence of long-term peace processes and the persistence— and often increase—of violence among societies involved in protracted conflicts. In this book, I attempt to address the relationship between the protracted nature of conflicts and peace initiatives, focusing on the reinforcement of processes of dehumanizing the ‘other’, which is a central feature of most cases of multigenerational conflicts—although underexplored in protracted conflicts literature (Azar et al. 1978; Azar 1978, 1986, 1990; Bar-Tal 2000; Burton 1990; Ramsbotham 2005). Dehumanization is a type of cultural violence! (Galtung 1990) that fuels conflict and contributes to its perpetuation over time. It is defined in this book as an element of identity that is constructed and reinforced within societies in the form of discursive and material practices. However, limiting the object of this study to an analysis of the dynamics sustaining dehumanization and its effect on relationships between societies would l! The concept of violence that is used in this book draws from Johan Galtung’s (1969) framework that goes beyond the idea of direct violence, introducing the concepts of structural violence and cultural violence. Cultural violence is “the intellectual justification for direct and structural violence through nationalism, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination and prejudice” (Galtung and Fisher 2013: 12). This book identifies dehumanization as a central, although frequently forgotten, dimension of cultural violence in the context of protracted conflicts. For more about this, see Chap. 3.

© The Author(s) 2023 1 J. Ricarte, The Impact of Protracted Peace Processes on Identities in

Conflict, Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16567-2_1 fail to reflect the complexity of protracted conflicts. Although dehumanization is the dominant aspect in many ongoing conflicts, there exist empirically observable alternative practices and policies that counteract its effects on identities in conflict. This observation justified a twofold approach that considers reconciliation as the other side of the coin. Reconciliation is a term that traditionally refers to post-conflict environments, meaning scenarios of formal peace in which a written agreement between the parties has been reached (Lederach 1997, 1999; Last 2000; Bar-Tal 2000; Bloomfield et al. 2003; Bar-Tal and Bennink; 2004; Philpott 2006). For this reason, the terminology ‘peace-less reconciliation’ (Biletzki 2013) is used here, in order to refer to practices of reconciliation in ongoing conflicts.

Against this backdrop, the book’s main research question is how different representations of success and failure of protracted peace processes, as well as the policies, narratives, norms and practices associated to them, have impacted identities in conflict by affecting the maintenance and/or transformation of the cultural component of violence, defined as dehumanization or peace-less reconciliation processes. It then takes the Israeli- Palestinian conflict as a case study, which evidences strong dynamics of both protractedness and dehumanization.

Methodologically, this work deals with the role of discourses, narratives and practices associated with the Israeli-Palestinian protracted peace process with regard to the conflict and its transformation. It aims to analyze how these dimensions interact with the identities of and relations between the societies involved in the conflict. Exploring how dehumanization processes have developed and are addressed highlights the importance of culture, history and identity for conflict and peace. Thus, this book develops a historically based account of the genealogy’ of both dehumanization and reconciliation in the Israeli-Palestinian protracted conflict. This is done by

?T am using here “somewhat freely an expression of Foucault” (Laclau and Mouffe 2001: 1), when I refer to genealogy as a method of conceptualization. My approach to genealogy sees it as a method of historiographic production that aims at studying the origins of a concept or process in a context-related manner in order to determine the conditions that allow for certain discourses, practices and norms to become possible in a specific timeframe. This approach allows me to unveil the genesis of the processes of dehumanization and reconciliation, focusing on the specific dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian case through an analysis of both languages and practices associated with the protracted peace process that help us understand the contemporary origins of dehumanization and reconciliation processes in this conflict.

mapping discourses and practices over diverse levels through the analysis of political discourses; official documents and reports; data on wars, violence and social mobilization; and media at key moments of the peace process since the beginning of the twentieth century.

This book is situated in the field of Peace and Conflict Studies and its epistemological perspective is fundamentally critical and interdisciplinary, relying on constructivism as its theoretical bias and also taking into account insights provided by studies on social psychology. This book aims at contributing to the thought and practice about peace by analyzing through a historiographic approach the relationship between protracted peace processes and the persistence of violence within societies affected by conflict.

l.l RESEARCH OVERVIEW

The puzzle of this book is the contradiction between the existence of long-term peace processes and the development of dehumanization processes within societies experiencing protracted conflicts. It stems from the understanding that not only direct violence but also cultural violence tends to be legitimized and normalized in intergenerational conflicts (Galtung 1969; Burton 1990; Azar 1990). Dehumanization processes are an important dimension of cultural violence and become a particularly visible effect of this kind of conflict. They affect how representations of the ‘other’ are constructed and, therefore, the relationships and interactions between societies. Consequently, they simultaneously cause the conflict to be prolonged and allow for renewed cycles of violence, insofar as cultural violence tends to “legitimize violence in its direct or structural form” (Galtung 1990: 291). Hence, this work builds on many others which identify the role of identity, and more specifically processes of othering, as central to transform or deepen a conflict (Northrup 1989; Kelman 1973, 2004; Slocum-Bradley 2008; Strömbom 2013; Rumelili 2015, among others). It aims to explore the role protracted peace processes, either in their symbolic or material dimensions, have played in the reproduction, reinforcement or transformation of the representations made of the ‘other’ in the course of conflict.

To operationalize this proposal, this book analyzes the construction of both Israeli and Palestinian identities since the dawn of the twentieth century in light of their relationships and interactions in the context of the several peace initiatives—understood here as a part of a process in their whole—that were developed ever since, focusing on the inevitable negative interdependence? between them. Through the identification of continuities and change, it approaches the Israeli-Palestinian peace process since 1947 as being constituted by three distinct phases corresponding to the Cold War period, the Oslo Era in the 1990s, and the turn to the twenty-first century. Although some might argue that the Israeli- Palestinian peace process did not initiate until the beginning of negotiations for the Oslo Accords, this book considers instead that it formally begins with the Partition Plan. Those who argue that the peace process initiated only in the 1990s and that have declared it dead in its contemporary phase take a different stand for its definition than the one I assume in this book. As we shall see in Chap. 2, I join the chorus of voices that consider that “the reality of peace processes is often a stop-start dynamic and a complex choreography whereby the sequencing of initiatives or concessions is timed to suit local circumstances” (Darby and Mac Ginty 2003: 1). Accordingly, this book approaches the peace process through a teleological perspective that allows for a deeper understanding of its dynamics, continuities and changes, as well as its continuous—symbolic and material—impacts on social identity through time.

By mapping the literature and practices on peace processes in the context of protracted conflicts, it is possible to realize that it lacks studies on how protracted peace processes affect identity by reinforcing or transforming dynamics of dehumanization and/or peace-less reconciliation in societies experiencing protracted social conflicts. The recognition that identity disturbances, in the form of dehumanization processes, are one of the main fuels for the perpetuation of protracted conflicts is already part of the narratives about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Bar-Tal 2007; Kelman 1973, 1999, 2007, 2017; Rouhana and Bar-Tal 1998; Oelofsen 2009; Lang 2010). These works have identified the obstacles to conflict transformation from various perspectives, ranging from a criticism of the peace process and its design (Darby 2001; Said 2003; Darby and Mac Ginty 2008; Slocum-Bradley 2008; Khalidi 2013) to the asymmetric character of the dispute—which puts into question the very usage of the term conflict (Khalidi 2017; Pogodda 2016; Bruneau and Kteily 2017)—and also questioning the ontological anxieties that are connected with the idea of peace in a protracted conflict (Rumelili 2015; Lupovici 2015). However, it lacks studies about the role the protracted peace process has played in the

3 For more on the concept of negative interdependence between identities (Kelman 1999), see Chap. 2.

positive transformation or reinforcement of existing dehumanizing processes.

Against this backdrop, this book examines the mutual constitution between peace processes and the identities of societies, seeking to explain the dual process of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation that work in parallel in protracted conflicts. Taking Israel and Palestine as a case study, it traces different representations of success and failure of the protracted peace process, as well as its associated policies, narratives, norms and practices, to analyze its impact on identity and its contribution to the maintenance and/or transformation of the cultural component of violence. This book addresses three aspects that derive from the research problems set out above. In order to understand the ways in which protracted peace processes affect identity, it begins by exploring the dimensions of identity that are influenced by the lingering peace process; then, it analyzes through a historiographic approach the role cultural violence is playing on the protracted nature of conflict via processes of dehumanization; and, finally, it discusses how reconciliation has been incorporated into narratives and approaches regarding the conflict, as well as its changing meaning.

As I will explain further in this chapter, the research design presented herein has evolved deeply during the first phases of this investigation, due to the vital importance of the fieldwork performed for this book to its very formulation. Unstructured exploratory interviews and participant observation (Lichterman 2002; Snow and Anderson 1991) have proved to be useful methods for the (re)construction of the research design of this book. The former has the potential to promote the appearance of issues that structured interviews might suppress, and the latter is useful to understand internal dynamics and helps us see the social process in action, which is ideal for complex contexts in which there is a diversity of opinions, motivations and behaviors (Savin-Baden and Major 2013: 375). In fact, it was the direct observation of this case on the ground; the interactions with local scholars, activists, organizations and politicians; the two advanced training courses I took in both Israel and Palestine; and the exploratory interviews I made, that led me to a profound and more interesting reorganization of my research questions and arguments.

The field research to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories* was conducted in two parts: one in 2015 and another one in 2016, aiming to establish first contacts, discuss the preliminary versions of this project with local scholars and practitioners, and identify groups and organizations that developed peace initiatives; to make preliminary unstructured interviews with members of the organizations and groups, local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), leaders of communities and staff of UN agencies; to participate in academic and practitioner-led short-term courses in order to learn from them and to map what is the local knowledge produced about the case study; and to preliminarily explore the field, check points and refugee camps through group-visits.

Fieldwork was a very important source of data collection for this project, although most of the information is incorporated in this book in the form of its epistemological direction and not as much as directly analyzed data." In any case, most of the information I was looking for is available in the UN, governments, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and NGOs websites, and interesting testimonies are already documented in several ethnographic works about Israel and Palestine. For all those reasons, I decided to focus on document analysis and literature review to draw a historiographic analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The data I obtained, and in fact used, through the fieldwork were mainly personal notes and insights from informal conversations and lectures I had with

* Although the internationally recognized borders of Palestine include both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, due to the obstacles imposed by the Israeli government over Gaza, including the permanent situation of instability and the territorial blockade, this research refers to Palestine always as the West Bank unless otherwise noted. Therefore, it is important to highlight that no field research was conducted in the Gaza Strip. The closest I was able to get to the Strip was during a study tour to the Gaza perimeter in which I visited and talked to people in the Israeli villages of Ashqelon and in the moshav Netiv HaAsarah, both in the northern border of Gaza with Israel (see Picture Al. Gaza Strip Isolation Fence and Picture A2. Gaza Separation Wall “Path to Peace” in Appendix C of this book).

5 The exploratory interviews and informal conversations were conducted with people from different backgrounds and regions both inside Israel and Palestine that bring diverse views and contributions to the peace process. The choice of the interviewed took into consideration an equitable distribution of people that differ in gender, age, ethnic groups, religions and geographic location, as well as a sense of opportunity, since many of those encounters were in fact provided in the context of the two advanced courses I took in 2015 and 2016. This wide range of relevant actors with whom I talked include representatives of the Palestinian Liberation Movement (PLO), the PA, members of the Knesset, employees of the UN, the EU, NGOs and INGOs, as well as participants of local civil society organizations. See the list of interviews and the categories of interviewees in Appendix B.

local scholars, both in the Galilee International Management Institute, Israel, advanced training course “The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: Understanding both Sides” (July 15-27, 2015) and in the Al-Haq Centre for Applied International Law, Ramallah, Summer School “International Law and its Applicability in the occupied Palestinian territory” (July 24th- August 7th, 2016); printed pamphlets and promotional materials from several groups and organizations that deal with peacebuilding and reconciliation about their work; reports and studies from NGOs, INGOs, CSOs, the UN and both governments about the situation on the ground; as well as other materials also produced by these agents that portray several types of narratives about the conflict and the ‘other’.

I encountered groups situated in the cities of Haifa and surroundings, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron. This choice takes into consideration geographic and political criteria. Haifa, in the north of Israel, is considered to be the city of coexistence while Tel Aviv is not only the capital of the state but also a city where most organizations are situated due to better perspectives on financial support. Jerusalem is in fact a bi-national city that is divided in East and West, respectively the Palestinian and the Israeli parts although it is controlled by Israel. Also, most international organizations have placed their headquarters in this city due to the tensions between different religious groups. In the West Bank, Ramallah is the capital of Palestine, while Nablus is the most important city in the north and Hebron is its homologous in the south. All three cities have important international organizations and vibrant civil society.

This research aims at analyzing the relationship between protracted social conflicts, peace processes and identity, focusing on processes of othering that lead to dehumanization and/or peace-less reconciliation. In order to do so, I relied on a variety of primary data which includes a series of documents from official and non-official sources related with the protracted peace process since 1947. To develop a genealogy of dehumanization and reconciliation (see Sect. 1.3 of this chapter), I decided to focus on the main moments of the peace process in order to perceive how the representations of success and failure of this process reflected in governmental speeches, policy formulations, and media reports have impacted the relationships between the societies involved in the conflict. I compared the evolution of the levels of direct violence during these key moments of the peace process with the discourse analysis of speeches, agreements and reports focused on the dimensions of dehumanization and reconciliation. The documents used in this analysis include (1) legislation, Prime Minister and Presidential discourses (from both Israel and Palestine but also from relevant actors to the peace process), and ministerial documents available online in the governments’ website and also obtained during fieldwork; (2) reports prepared by the United Nations and civil society organizations about the situation on the ground right before, during and after important peace initiatives (looking for changes in the indicators of violence— direct, structural and cultural); and (3) press and public opinion articles from main regional newspapers such as Haaretz and Al Jazeera and also from international media.

Finally, recognizing that a wide range of actors are relevant for this process—considering that all people exercise power in some degree, insofar as their practices have always the potential of reinforcing or undermining meanings—this book approaches the research questions through a multilevel analysis. On the one hand, it looks at the systemic level in order to understand how the protracted peace process has affected dehumanization and/or promoted reconciliation within societies. To this aim, I drew from the international organizations reports, resolutions, mandates and policy formulations to assess their impact to manifestations of violence among societies in each of the four periods under analysis. I also analyzed official statements, documents and discourses developed at the level of political elites (as they are privileged actors for reinforcing or changing narratives and perceptions that construct and transform relationships), such as members of governments and political parties, to assess how their representations of the protracted peace process have affected identity and interactions within societies. On the other hand, I analyzed the impact of policies, practices and discourses connected to the peace process on identities and interactions of societies by focusing on the actions and reactions of local and international media, social movements, universities, NGOs and CSOs to each moment of the peace process. This multilevel approach allows for the identification of practices and discourses that reinforce dehumanization processes as well as the ones that counteract these meanings by promoting peace-less reconciliation.

By closely examining the processes of dehumanization that take place in protracted conflicts, this book sheds light on the unseen and forgotten dimensions of identity, which are central features sustaining some conflicts. It also develops a framework to assess and analyze the elements of identity building in protracted conflicts, providing conceptual tools that may enrich the field of Peace Studies. The relevance of this research also concerns the effects of long-term enmity on the big picture of greater politics. Firstly, this book adds to existing efforts to understand the social dynamics that enable the perpetuation of conflict over time through the investigation of the deepest effects of conflict and protracted peace processes on society. Secondly, and by addressing the co-constitutive nature of violence and identity in conflict situations, this book advocates that it is impossible to address one without taking serious account of the other. As a conclusion, this research places protracted peace processes, their policies and practices associated with them in a central position of the cycle of protractedness.

1.2 PROTRACTED PEACE PROCESSES, PROTRACTING CONFLICT

This book argues that protracted peace processes occupy a central position in the cycle of protractedness® insofar as the policies, narratives, norms and practices associated with them have the double potential of affecting identities in conflict by promoting dehumanization or reconciliation. The former is the dominating feature of othering in protracted conflicts, what tends to be reinforced by the interactions and new grievances sparked by protracted peace processes through time. However, the parallel and coexisting dynamics of both processes point to the appearance of empirically observable activities and practices that have emerged alongside—as a consequence—and within the very framework—as a desired outcome—of the protracted peace process. By exploring the dual process of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation in ongoing conflicts, this book aims to offer a detailed analysis of the conditions that allow for one process to prevail over the other, which points to avenues for positive conflict transformation.

Although the theoretical ruminations of this book were developed based on the observation ofa specific case study, that of Israel and Palestine, this is not an isolated case when it comes to the effects of protracted conflict—and, more specifically, protracted peace processes—in interactions between societies. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program,’ 13 of the 243 conflicts since the end of the Second World War have been active for more than 35 years. The conflicts of Israel/Palestine, Cyprus,

°For a graphic representation of the cycle of protractedness and its elements, see Chap. 3. 7Uppsala Conflict Data Program “UCDP Conflict Encyclopedia” (www.ucdp.uu.se), (January 31st, 2019).

Myanmar/Burma and the Philippines are some examples of ongoing disputes with no sign of significant positive transformation. All of them count on peace processes that have failed to prevent the escalation of violence, and many others were subjected to supposedly successful peace agreements, although there are still high levels of violence within these societies (Call apud Darby and Mac Ginty 2008: 304). Therefore, it seems important to explore the reasons why this apparent contradiction persists in many cases and how we should analyze and deal with conflict in order to proceed toward what some call a sustainable peace (Lederach 1997; Keating and Knight 2004).

As this book shows, this analysis is intrinsically connected with the historical developments of the international peace architecture and its dynamics (see Richmond 2022). Due to the drastic changes in the international world order, the repertoire of approaches to deal with conflict has been evolving fast since the end of the Cold War. Accordingly, academic thinking, terminology and practice on conflicts and the way they should be addressed have also developed over the last decades. While the rationale regarding peace and its promotion before the 1990s focused on the maintenance of a negative peace, the end of a bipolar confrontation marks a shift toward new attempts to build positive peace instead (Sabaratnam 2011: 14-16). Alongside this change is also the formation of a new collective understanding shared by the main actors and institutions involved in the process of building peace about what it means and how it should be achieved, what Oliver Richmond (2004: 91-92) calls “the peacebuilding consensus”. This new policy formulation has dominated the approaches to conflict and peace at the international level since then.

It is important though to look back at the past not with the eyes of the present but putting in context former events as a means to avoid anachronist readings, which might obscure our understanding of history and its connection with the present. During the Cold War, ideological conflict and tensions between the two blocks limited the understanding of how to deal with conflicts to the idea of managing them, as expressed by the limited peacekeeping framework of the United Nations (Bellamy et al. 2010: 170-175). This approach was developed in the belief that conflict management was the best that could be achieved given the anarchical nature of an international competitive system (Ramsbotham et al. 2011). Although this is essentially a realist understanding, it can be linked to early stages of the nowadays commonly accepted and widely disseminated proposals of the ‘liberal peace’ theory (Paris 2004: 5). Moreover, it has promoted a

1 INTRODUCTION Ill reactive and episodic approach to peacemaking that, even though differs greatly from the paradigm of peace processes that emerged in the 1990s, cannot be undervalued or set aside if one intends to look at the historiography of peace processes as a whole in the course of protracted conflicts which precede the end of the Cold War.

Conceptually and practically, this proposition tended to imply a very narrow and state-centric understanding of peace, as it was essentially focused on state-related matters, excluding non-state actors. The policies developed in this period were mostly limited to diplomatic efforts to mediate negotiated agreements between political elites and mechanisms designed to observe the application of cease-fires such as peacekeeping missions (Darby and Mac Ginty 2008; Richmond 2011; Campbell et al. 2011). Therefore, the root causes of conflicts and identity issues connected to them were not taken into a serious account. In practice this implied a rationale about peace that was directed toward negative peace (Richmond 2008) as most of the literature of this period was focused on ‘problem-solving’ (Cox 1981)—in this particular case, ending direct violence. Yet, as we shall see, this does not mean that peace processes during the Cold War did not unintendedly impact the identities in conflict by legitimizing one’s claims in detriment of the ‘other’s’, or by turning into another arena for conflict insofar as each actor perceived in these processes an opportunity to underscore its positions and gain recognition for its cause domestically and internationally. Although episodic, non-coordinated and, sometimes, even uncoordinated, these peace initiatives developed after the Second World War have remained part of the conflicts and their episodes of violent manifestations during the Cold War, turning into a symbolic and a material structure that, overall, has played an important part in informing the construction of interests and identities, understandings about the ‘self? and the ‘other’, both in the state and societal levels, thus contributing directly to the reinforcement of conflict narratives.

Those approaches have been challenged over time by scholars, practitioners and policy makers who perceived the contradictions that rely upon the possibility of a scenario of formal peace in which social conflict remains as a featured variable (Bellamy et al. 2010). Thus, a radically different view was developed by the so-called second generation approaches to conflict and peace, that is represented by the assumption that conflicts can be and should be resolved rather than managed (Richmond 2002: 75). This is not just an issue of nomenclature, as it represents a specific way of dealing with conflict that corresponds to an “ethos of thinking that ‘we’ can intervene to resolve ‘their’ conflicts” (Mac Ginty and Wiliams 2009: 24). Furthermore, most of the mainstream International Relations (IR) scholarship and policies dealing with conflicts after the end of the Cold War agreed that all states should resemble liberal democracies and that the international efforts toward peace should be transformed accordingly (Paris 2004: 16-24). This framework drew on Johan Galtung’s (1969) conceptualization about peace and violence, recognizing that the deprivation of basic human needs and potential were the main causes of protracted violent conflicts (Azar 1990). This approach goes further from the previous, as it is concerned with overcoming not only direct violence but also structural violence, being also directed toward the societal level rather than just state and international levels (Richmond 2008: 99-102).

As a consequence, the debate about peace and its implementation into other spheres flourished, including in its agenda issues and expanded concerns such as development and political participation, as well as including other actors into the debate, for example, the civil society and NGOs (Sabaratnam 2011: 16), creating the idea that building peace was necessarily a process. Although this approach was still limited in terms of its practical implementation and its Eurocentric bias, it was able to push the discussions about peace beyond the state’s concerns and security issues. Nevertheless, alongside the recognition of the urgency to focus on positive approaches to peace came the understanding that this objective should be pursued in ‘post-conflict’ scenarios, meaning that it should be deployed after the signature of a cease-fire and the conclusion of the negotiated agreement phase (Lederach 1997). Thus, the principle of the peace process as efforts directed at maintaining negative peace in the international system persisted.