Despite their many complexities, peace talks aim to bring intractable conflict situations to a sustainable end. The ultimate goal is the signing of a peace treaty, which resolves all issues underlying the conflict and establishes formal political institutions. Peace treaties can be negotiated by governments with their adversaries or by a mediator, often with the participation of regional and international actors as observers, facilitators, and guarantors.
In negotiations for a peace treaty, it is generally accepted that the process is most successful when it includes a broad range of actors in order to increase the chances of an agreement. However, a number of factors can lead to the failure of a peace process and its subsequent collapse. In this article, we draw on the scholarship on the success and failure of peace processes to examine how the choice of a negotiation framework affects the outcome. We use the case studies of Colombia and Turkey to show how different negotiation structures can result in highly divergent processes, outcomes, and lessons learned.
The section on the Negotiation Framework explores a wide variety of aspects of the negotiations, including how they are legally structured and how they are publicly conducted. It also discusses how the choice of mediation structure impacts both the level and the nature of participation.
Another critical component of peace talks is how they deal with the substantive issues that are at the heart of a conflict. This includes both how these are dealt with in the negotiations themselves, as well as in the structural changes that will be needed to address past grievances and provide for a more fair and just future.
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