From ceasefire to cohesion: An integrated review of peacemaking and peacebuilding

Abstract

How can societies escape the conflict trap of violence and distrust between social outgroups? Existing research offers a plethora of tools for reducing conflict through peacemaking, peacebuilding, and reconstruction efforts. Peacemaking tools are often international efforts aimed at reducing violence in the short term by changing the immediate behavior of organized actors. Once violence has been stymied, additional peacebuilding efforts are necessary to foster intergroup trust, tolerance, and a shared national identity, thereby reducing incentives for violence and building resilience against future “shocks” to tolerance in the long term. Such efforts typically occur at the grassroots level, seeking to change the attitudes of individuals in post-conflict societies. We provide an overview of the evidence base on peacemaking and peacebuilding—identifying promising policies and programs, limitations, and shared mechanisms driving positive effects. We integrate these literatures into a framework tracing the path from immediate violence reduction to durable peace, pinpointing critical empirical and theoretical gaps in our knowledge of how to break the conflict trap.