2018
Territorial Power-sharing and Inclusion in Peace Processes
Territorial Power-sharing and Inclusion in Peace Processes
Summary: This research report provides information and analysis on when and how peace agreements provide for territorial power-sharing, and the implications for broader projects of social inclusion.
Key findings:
- Territorial power-sharing in peace agreements includes federal or similar sub-divided forms of government, local or municipal government, autonomy, and other forms of ‘special status’.
- During negotiations on territorial power-sharing, there are critical decisions that have implications for the type of inclusion on offer.
- Territorial power-sharing arrangements have been reached mostly during peace processes relating to intrastate, identity-based conflicts across a variety of geographical contexts, including secessionist disputes.
Recommendations:
- Analysis on how to ensure that power-sharing arrangements enable inclusion beyond the main conflict parties should question the conflict dynamic which the territorial power-sharing attempts to address, and anticipate lines of resistance.
- Symbolic naming of the arrangements may be as contested as substance, and require creative approaches to ‘naming’.
- Sequencing territorial devolution of power in stages, to build incremental agreement, can help build support for territorial power-sharing as a framework for a more inclusive state.
- Creative techniques for formalizing ‘unsettlement’ may present opportunities to promote plurinational solutions to statehood.
Keywords: PA-X, peace agreements, peace processes, power sharing, inclusion, unsettlement
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