The latest round of peace talks aimed at ending the six-year conflict in Syria has garnered significant media attention. Many observers are hoping that the Astana negotiations will prove different from previous attempts, which ended in failure for most of their duration. But what does it take to bring about lasting peace in complex and contested settings?
Bringing about peace requires building trust, listening to grievances, finding creative solutions that give guarantees and allow parties to imagine a shared future, and overcoming mutual distrust. But there are also trade-offs — for instance, how to balance security reform with the needs of victims, and how to address the tension between amnesty and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programs.
The political context also plays an important role in how successful peace processes are. As the recent case of Jewish objectors to the Oslo process illustrates, if compromise is viewed as tantamount to abandoning core values, there is often no room for negotiation (Ginges et al., 2007). The promise of greater material compensation to those who would sign an agreement in exchange for giving up a protected value has also been found to backfire — it increased resistance to the peace process and inspired a willingness to support acts of violence against its realization.
Finally, involving civil society in mediation is important. Despite this, the international community has largely focused on supporting track 1 processes with national and military elites while neglecting local or sub-national ‘track 2’ negotiations that engage civic voices. This approach has tended to miss critical issues such as gender, which is an important contributor to sustainable peace.