Postconflict Risk: The Path from Violence to Sustaining Peace

Abstract

There are no commonly agreed definitions of either the “postconflict” risk or the “postconflict” situation. The description of the “postconflict risk” relates to the likeliness of conflict recurrence in a postconflict context. Postconflict situations or settings describe the period in the aftermath of violent conflict and war ended by a negotiated peace treaty or the military defeat of one party. The difficulties in determining the term “postconflict” are also due to the uncertainty in defining when a conflict starts or ends, as the formal end of an armed conflict does not mean an immediate or even definitive break with the past patterns of violence, and therefore neither is this the case when postconflict risk situations end. In this respect, assessments, forecasts, and predictions of risks in postconflict countries, based on analytical conflict risk models, are needed to better understand the likelihood of conflict onset and to better anticipate and predict conflicts to...