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Key Findings: Peace Processes

Key findings on PeaceRep research on peace processes (2021 – 2026)

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PeaceRep’s peace processes research was led by the University of Edinburgh, the University of St Andrews, the University of Stirling, and LSE CCRG.

Peace processes are structured attempts to resolve radical disagreement between conflict parties and sometimes other civic stakeholders, often supported by third parties that act as mediators, guarantors, or witnesses. Globally, PeaceRep has documented over 180 peace processes that have resulted in over 2,200 peace agreements since 1990.

PeaceRep’s central contribution to the field has been a detailed examination of the evolving nature and practice of peace and transition processes over the last 35 years. Our key findings relate to the non-linear and multi-stage nature of peace processes, their geographic dispersion, varying substance, and the diversity of actors involved.

PeaceRep has studied the evolution of peace and transition processes through data-driven and global-comparative work, combined with qualitative research and surveys conducted in conflict-affected countries. The PA-X Peace Agreement Database and the Mediation Event and Negotiators Database sat at the heart of this research, driving new insights into peace and transition process patterns. Key conflict and peace processes studied included those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Ukraine. The support the programme has provided to peacemakers through in-time advice in live processes has also informed and shaped this research.

Below we summarise the origins of the ‘peace process’, the key changes and continuities over the last 35 years, and how our research suggests peacemaking policy and practice need to adapt. This overview is a high-level summary of peace and transition process trends – other key findings we produced cover data trends and country-specific findings in more detail and are referenced throughout this overview. This summary provides a stepping stone for readers to explore the range of peace and transition process topics we have examined at PeaceRep.

Explore the PA-X Peace Agreements Database
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Origins

The idea and practice of what we now recognise as a formalised peace processes first emerged in the immediate post-Cold War moment in the 1990s, at a time of increasing international consensus around pursuing peaceful resolution of armed conflict (Pospisil 2024).

Since the end of the Cold War, intrastate conflicts have been the prevalent form of armed conflict. Peace processes have thus primarily targeted these conflicts, and have developed four key elements:

  1. First, an emerging practice of negotiating new ‘contracts’ between conflict parties and citizens through peace agreements and constitutions. This practice resulted in ‘grand bargains’ negotiated in contexts such as South Africa (1993), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995), and Northern Ireland (1998) that reconciled different ‘agendas for change’ in comprehensive settlements that sought to tackle the root causes of conflict.
  2. Second, the terms of settlement often included promises of accommodation and inclusion of intrastate armed groups and populations by the state.
  3. Third, this formalised practice was accompanied by the development of a peace process industry and the professionalisation and legalisation of peace mediation.
  4. Fourth, international legal standards, particularly those relating to human rights and humanitarian law, were increasingly shaping the norms of peace processes and the contents of their agreements.
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Changes

We have documented major changes in the context, form, and substance of peace processes over the last two decades, some of which have challenged and transformed the four key elements described above.

Contextual changes

  1. A shift in the geopolitical context—from one in which a norms-based global order was understood to underpin peace and transition processes, often with the involvement of the United Nations and regional organisations, to one where peace interventions themselves have become arenas of normative contestation.
  1. Ongoing regionalisation, and increased diversification, of actors involved in peace processes alongside a decline of ‘liberal’ actors and international organisations as peacemakers (Peter and Houghton 2025; Badanjak and Peter 2024; Adhikari 2023; Badanjak 2023).
  1. Increasingly competitive and fragmented processes in ‘multimediation’ settings with overlapping mediation initiatives (Bell 2024a).
  2. A fundamentally different, multipolar international economic order in which peace processes are increasingly becoming intertwined with the pursuit of commercial interests. Governments and economic blocs are wielding new forms of statecraft in the pursuit of bilateral economic dealmaking with peace outcomes as corollary goals, while economic chokepoints create new arenas of geopolitical competition (Lang and Epple forthcoming, Badanjak et al. 2026)).
  3. A rise in conflict and therefore mediation between states (Badanjak et al. 2026; Peter et al. 2026), and a record number of intrastate conflicts that peacemakers have to respond to.
  4. A new set of challenges for inclusion in peace processes and the Women, Peace and Security agenda due to geopolitical fragmentation (Wise et al. 2025).
  5. A changing role for natural resources , climate change, and decarbonisation in conflicts and therefore peace processes (D’Amico 2025; Epple 2025; Spatz, Sarkar and de Waal 2023).

Changes in form

  1. Peace processes are becoming more ad-hoc, informal and focused on the short-term (Badanjak et al. 2025), resulting in ‘peace processes lite’ in some contexts (Adhikari, Hodge, and Wise 2026) and often addressing specific issues only (Peter et al. 2026).
  2. The rise of ‘power peace’ (Beaujouan 2024) approaches to conflict management in which actors privilege coercive methods over the negotiation of political settlements, such as in Syria (2011 – 2024).
  3. There are new forms of ‘civic’ and local peacemaking attempting to unwind parts of ‘conflict systems’ (Adhikari et al. 2025b; Kaldor and Cooper 2025; Pospisil, Wilson et al. 2025; Wittke 2023; Bell and Wise 2022b).

Substantive changes

  1. Comprehensive peace processes and agreements becoming less frequent, amid a rising number of agreements with limited substantive scope (Badanjak 2022; Badanjak et al. 2025; 2026).
  2. A related decline in peace negotiations dealing with the nature of the state and statebuilding (Whitfield 2026).
  3. A disaggregation of peace processes across (i) local, national, international tracks, (ii) geographies, and (iii) topics (Adhikari et al. 2025a).
  4. An increasing impact of digital peace and war technologies on peace processes and their substance and tools (Bell 2024b).
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Continuities

Apart from the ways in which peace processes have changed, our research has also documented important continuities in how peace processes are organised and how they evolve. An inherent challenge remains how to broker (i) a bargain capable of ending fighting, which often centres armed groups, while (ii) supporting a wider, inclusive social contract between a government and the population. Mirroring this complexity, peace processes have always been non-linear – often talks are started, break down, and restart (see our ‘messy timeline’ visualisation). Similarly, (geo)politics and the ‘political marketplace’ (de Waal, Spatz, and Sarkar 2023) have always co-determined the bargaining logics in peace processes and their outcomes:

  1. Peace agreements in South Africa (1994), Northern Ireland (1998), and Colombia (2016), for example, have reduced some forms of conflict and ushered in political transformations, while other, well-supported, comprehensive peace deals have unravelled (e.g. in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
  2. Peace processes, including successful ones, have also often ‘locked in’ disagreement rather than resolving it. The need to ensure that conflict parties agree to end violence, can often mean that compromise focuses on ending the violence rather than tackling the wider root causes of a conflict. Power struggles are then carried forward into the new institutions, creating a form of ‘formalised political unsettlement’, such as in South Sudan post-2015, in which conflict parties continue bargaining.
  3. Peace processes also often fail to tackle the underlying economic bargains, and as a result can enable forms of ‘predatory peace’ in which autocratic leaders are able to evade accountability and sustain their authority, such as in Sudan (2005) (Benson 2025; Benson-Strohmayer 2026).
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Policy & Practice Takeaways

  1. Our research has challenged established peace process practices and the assumptions that underpin them. As a first step, peace process stakeholders should recognise this changing landscape and understand what it means for their ambitions and practice. PeaceRep has formulated new language and concepts that helps actors reimagine peace processes and their agreements:
  2. Our research suggests that contemporary conflicts require adaptive peace processes that work ‘with the grain’ of conflict fragmentation and multimediation across local, national, and international levels. It is important to fully map and understand the various initiatives at play in a mediation environment (Bell 2024), and to try to support conflict resolution through information-sharing, coordination, and other mediation-related activities (Peter et al. 2026). However, in some cases, rather than trying to cohere peace processes as formal unitary mechanisms, our research suggests that conflict parties, mediators, and civic groups should invest in practical steps towards conflict resolution, as small as they initially may be, that reign in conflict, or parts of a conflict system, and that make a tangible difference in peoples’ lives.
  3. In some cases, these pockets of compromise are reached by supporting civic efforts that nurture a different kind of social contract between the state and its population, even if only in limited ‘islands of agreement’ (Wittke 2023). In all of today’s peace processes this support should start from a position of humility that centres those affected by violence and which is based on an in-depth understanding of the actors’ interests.

PeaceRep research has also foregrounded the need to examine the different stages of peace processes, from pre-negotiation agreements and talks to ceasefires and to substantive, process, and implementation agreements. The research has examined the particular challenges posed by early-stage peace processes, highlighting the need for confidence-building measures and critical assessments of intervention timing, backchannel communications, inclusion, and the relation of early talks to the wider peace process ecosystem (Wise and Adhikari 2025).

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References

PeaceRep’s key findings series presents a top-line overview of findings from the breadth and depth of the consortium’s data-driven and in-country research between 2021 – 2027. To view all PeaceRep publications, visit the publications database.

Researchers and contributors

Monalisa Adhikari, Johanna Amaya-Panche, Sanja Badanjak, Juline Beaujouan, Christine Bell, Matthew Benson-Strohmayer, Fiona Campbell, Luke Cooper, Elisa D’Amico, Alex de Waal, Tim Epple, Adam Farquhar, Heloise Guichardaz, Niamh Henry, Jennifer Hodge, Kasia Houghton, Mary Kaldor, Andrew Lang, Mateja Peter, Z Siwa, Aditya Sarkar, Benjamin Spatz, Teresa Whitfield, Robert Wilson, Laura Wise, Cindy Wittke, S Yusuf

Citation

Epple, Tim. (2026). PeaceRep Key Findings: Peace Processes (PeaceRep Key Findings Series). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

References

Adhikari, M. (2023). Non-Western engagement in peace processes and the rise of ‘hedging’ by elites in conflict-affected states. Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

Adhikari, M., Hodge, J., Bell, C., & Siwa, Z. (2025a). Disaggregated mediation: the localisation of peace processes amid global and domestic fragmentation. European Journal of International Relations, 0(0).

Adhikari, M., Hodge, J., Farquhar, A., & Beaujouan, J. (2025b). Beyond Comprehensive Peace Agreements: The Role of Civil Society in Promoting Liberal Values in Local Agreements. Peacebuilding, 1–17.

Adhikari, M., Hodge, J., & Wise, L. (2026). Peace Process Lite: When Global Fragmentation Meets Conflict Fragmentation (British Academy Discussion Paper). British Academy and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://doi.org/10.5871/globaldisorder/9780856727160

Badanjak, S. (2022). Changing characteristics of peace processes: New findings from the PA-X Database. Blog. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh. https://peacerep.org/2022/11/01/changing-characteristics-pax-database/

Badanjak, S. (2023). Third Parties in Peace Agreements: First Look at New Data and Key Trends (Global Transitions Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh

Badanjak, S. & Peter, M. (2024). Diversification and congestion in international peacemaking: What the data says. In: Still time to talk: Adaptation and innovation in peace mediation, Accord 30, Ed. Whitfield, T. Conciliation Resources, https://peacerep.org/publication/still-time-to-talk-adaptation-and-innovation-in-peace-mediation/

Badanjak, S., Amaya-Panche, J., Beaujouan, J., Epple, T., Farquhar, A., Henry, N., Wilson, R., Wise, L. (2025). Peace Agreements in 2024: Insights from the PA-X Database [PA-X Data Series]. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Badanjak, S., Wise, L., Farquhar, A., Henry, N., Guichardaz, H., Wilson, R., Epple, T. (2026). Peace Agreements in 2025: Insights from the PA-X Peace Agreements Database [PA-X Data Series]. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform. https://doi.org/10.7488/era/7186

Beaujouan, J. (2024). Power Peace: The Resolution of the Syrian Conflict in a Post-Liberal Era of Peacemaking. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 1–20.

Bell, C. (2024a). ‘Multimediation’: Adapting in response to fragmentation. In: Still time to talk: Adaptation and innovation in peace mediation, Accord 30, Ed. Whitfield, T. Conciliation Resources, https://peacerep.org/publication/still-time-to-talk-adaptation-and-innovation-in-peace-mediation/

Bell, C. (2024b). PeaceTech: Digital Transformation to End Wars, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN: 978-3-031-38893-4

Bell, C., & Wise, L. (2022b). The Spaces of Local Agreements: Towards a New Imaginary of the Peace Process. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 16:5, 563-583, DOI: 10.1080/17502977.2022.2156111

de Waal, A., Spatz, B., and Sarkar, A. (2023). Situating the Contribution of the Political Marketplace Framework to Peace Processes (PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Research Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Benson, M. S. (2025). Predatory Peace: Fiscal Fragmentation and Coercive Statebuilding in South Sudan and Beyond. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 1–22.

Benson-Strohmayer, M. S. (2026). From War Economies to Predatory Peace: How Peace Settlements Legitimise Extraction (PeaceRep Policy Brief). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

D’Amico, E. (2025). Conflict in a Warming World: How Climate Shocks Impact Rebel Demands and Peace Agreement Outcomes. (PeaceRep Report: Climate & Natural Resources). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh .

Epple, T. (2025). Peace agreements in a changing climate: Three ways in which climate change and peace processes interact. Environment and Security, 0(0)

Kaldor, M. & Cooper, L. (2025). On the Peace Negotiations Between Russia and Ukraine: Prioritising the Human Dimension (PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Peter, M. (2025). Mediation in 2024: First Insights from the MEND Database [MEND Data Series]. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Peter, M., D’Amico, E., Houghton, K., & Badanjak, S. (2026). Mediation in 2025: Navigating overlapping conflict systems [MEND Data Series]. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform. https://doi.org/10.7488/era/7185

Peter, M. & Houghton, K. A. (2025). The Dayton Peace Process: A Keyhole into Russian and Chinese Engagement with Liberal Peacebuilding. International Peacekeeping, 1–27.

Pospisil, J. (2024). Mediating Peace in a Fragmented World Order: Conceptual Reflections on Challenges and Strategies (ACP Working Paper). Austrian Centre for Peace, No. 4/2024.

Pospisil, J., Wilson, R., Joseph, K., & Magara, Ibrahim. (2025). Local Peace Agreements in South Sudan: Exploring Processes at the Margins (PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Spatz, B., Sarkar, A., & de Waal, A. (2023). Decarbonization and Conflict Resolution: New Patterns of Peacemaking in Political Marketplace Systems and its Implications for the Clean Energy Transition (PeaceRep Policy Brief). PeaceRep: Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Whitfield, T. (2026). Beyond the Deal? Rethinking Statebuilding Amid Conflict Fragmentation and Transactional Peacemaking – Twelfth Edinburgh Dialogue on Post-Conflict Constitution-Building 2025. International IDEA.

Wise, L. & Adhikari, M. (2025). Getting into Talks: Designing a Viable Early-Stage Peace Process (PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Wise, L., Yusuf, S., Houghton, K., & Campbell, F. (2025). Women, Peace and Security in the Age of Fragmentation (SCGA Insight Report). The Scottish Council on Global Affairs, University of Glasgow.

Wittke, C. (2023). Creating ‘Islands of Agreement and Civility’ through Humanitarian Negotiations: A Conflict Management and Disaster-Mitigation Strategy in Russia’s War against Ukraine (PeaceRep Report). Conflict and Civicness Research Group, London School of Economics.

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