How Future Depictions in Peace Agreements Affect Their Success: A Theoretical and Comparative Exploration

Why do some peace processes succeed and result in stable peace agreements, while others fail, leading to renewed conflict? Among the many explanations in the literature, one element has been overlooked: the treatment of the future within peace agreements. A peace agreement is fundamentally a blueprint for a post-conflict reality, shaped by perspectives on both the past and future. While much attention has been given to how references to the past influence an agreement's success, the role of the future has been largely ignored. Research from other disciplines shows that societies’ shared perceptions of time (social time) reveal needs and sensitivities related to future planning and influence present behaviors. Building on this, the study asks: Does congruence between a society's social time and the way the future is portrayed in peace agreements increase the likelihood of the agreement’s success? To explore this, the study analyzes how the future is depicted in peace agreements, developing a model of future-building parameters and introducing a theoretical framework linking these depictions to societies’ social time. The hypothesis is tested through a comparative analysis of the challenging context of protracted conflicts of three historical case studies: peace agreement efforts in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, and Israel-Palestine during the peace initiatives in the 1990s. While these conflicts share comparable characteristics, their peace processes attempts yielded different outcomes. The study concludes that alignment between the future construction in peace agreements and the social time needs of the societies in conflict is crucial in determining why some agreements are signed and endure, while others fail. Based on the comparison, the study provides insights into the formulation of the future in peace agreements tailored to intractable conflicts and highlights opportunities for further research in this field.