Post-Conflict Referendums and Peace Processes: Pathways to Peace and Democracy? (Routledge Studies in Civil Wars and Intra-State Conflict)

This book provides a comparative study of the impact of referendums on conflict resolution and peacebuilding in post-conflict societies. Post-conflict referendums have increasingly been held as part of peace processes.While policy-makers are hopeful that these referendums serve peace and democracy, the burgeoning literature on them has expressed significant reservations about their use, particularly on territorial issues, because referendums do not have mechanisms for compromise.To gauge the actual impact of these referendums on peace processes, the book systematically compares three post-conflict referendums on self-determination held with their respective central governments’ consent, in Eritrea, East Timor, and Southern Sudan.Relying on more than 70 elite interviews, it examines (1) the rationales behind the decision to hold referendums; (2) the referendums’ impact on resolving the original self-determination conflicts; and (3) their impact on post-conflict peacebuilding inside the