Post-conflict peace is fragile, about half of all conflicts break out again during the twelve
post-conflict years. In Africa this risk is even higher. Using survival analysis this paper
suggests that while it is difficult to find correlates of peace stabilization, there are some
policy relevant results. How a conflict ends is important. Negotiated settlements are fragile
but the chances of peace surviving can be significantly improved through the deployment of
UN peacekeeping operations. The data suggest that many operations start before the end of
the armed conflict, thus they should be viewed as ‘peace preparation’ operations. The paper
recommends the use of additional case studies, given that the small sample size prevents
further quantitative examination of these important issues.
