Understanding local agreements in intractable conflicts
By Mary Kaldor, Marika Theros and Rim Turkmani
We are pleased to announce the publication of a Peacebuilding Special Issue on local agreements in intractable conflicts. The special issue was edited by our research programme team, Professor Mary Kaldor, Marika Theros, and Dr Rim Turkmani. It includes six journal articles exploring this very under researched topic in several countries including Syria, Somalia and Sudan. Two articles in this special issue by Dr Rim Turkmani are dedicated for understanding the dynamics of local agreements in Syria. One of them explores the local process of local agreements and the other explores the role of external interveners, both unilateral and multilaterals in this process.
The first article in the special issue is this introduction to local agreements in intractable conflicts. Below is the abstract of the introduction and the download link.
Abstract:
The article introduces a Peacebuilding special issue on local agreements in intractable conflicts. By ‘local’, we refer to any type of agreement that covers a geographical area less than the entire national territory although the issues and actors may be national, regional, international as well as local. Our main finding is that local agreements are a pervasive feature of contemporary conflict, owing to the fragmented decentred character of conflicts. . Local agreements are not necessarily about peace ; they may be a form of surrender, or about tactical alliances and deployment of armed groups. The overall conclusion is that local talks can contribute to what the paper defines as a peace logic, if they involve local civilians and multilateral actors, and are based on a detailed knowledge of context. Expanding this type of process on a large-scale may be the best opportunity for addressing the social condition that characterises contemporary intractable conflicts.
To cite this article: Mary Kaldor, Marika Theros & Rim Turkmani (2022): Local agreements – an introduction to the special issue, Peacebuilding, DOI: 10.1080/21647259.2022.2042111
