Demilitarizing Politics: Elections on the Uncertain Road to Peace

Abstract

Demilitarizing Politics: Elections on the Uncertain Road to Peace. By Terrence Lyons. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005. 232p. $49.95.When a peace agreement is negotiated in civil wars today, there is a seemingly reflexive turn toward democratization as a way to move social conflicts from the battlefield to the halls of parliament; such agreements invariably entail a political transition requiring divisive and inherently difficult electoral processes. Terrence Lyons captures the complex and often contradictory dynamics of elections in the wake of civil war peace agreements in his well-designed, thoroughly researched, and coherently argued book. The principal argument of Demilitarizing Politics is that the conduct of war itself creates institutional structures of conflict that linger into the postwar period and that critically inform postwar electoral politics.