Abstract
This article examines the issue of peace and restraint within ongoing conflicts. While the vast majority of the literature on civil wars in Africa concentrates on drivers of conflict and instances of violence, there are zones of peace where locally peace processes have developed despite conflicts around them. These spaces have been neglected in both the academic literature and the major datasets on conflict and war, which mostly focuses on the belligerent, or sometimes the victims. The literature that does exist is concentrated in Latin America (especially Colombia) rather than Africa. This paper records six different episodes in Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone and seeks to understand the reasons why these spaces were able to maintain some level of peace. The paper discusses the practicalities of exercising peace on the ground and the implications for subsequent peacebuilding, along with drawing conclusions about differences in the nature of warfare regionally.
Original language | English |
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Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Peacebuilding |
Early online date | 18 Jul 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 18 Jul 2018 |
Keywords
- peace
- conflict resolution
- restraint
- conflict
- civil society
- Côte d’Ivoire
- Sierra Leone
- West Africa