| Governments and guerrilla organizations signed successful peace agreements in Colombia (1990 and 1991), El Salvador (1991), and Guatemala (1996). Relying on the method of controlled comparisons, this dissertation analyzes the extent to which the peace accords produced social and political changes in these three countries, and how the various governments and rebel groups reached negotiated settlements.; The first part of the dissertation is mostly concerned with commonalities of the various negotiated settlements across countries. Although the texts of the peace accords as well as their implementation varied from case to case, the negotiated settlements produced some similar effects. To begin with, in El Salvador and Guatemala, but not in Colombia, the negotiated settlements brought the civil wars to an end. Even though the accords did not stop violence in these three countries, patterns of conflict changed according to both quantitative and qualitative indicators. In addition, the various peace accords redressed some major distortions produced by the effects of the dynamics of insurgency/counter-insurgency on the workings of democracy, allowing some hitherto excluded political groups to enter the electoral arena for the first time ever. The dissertation studies the generic impact of civil wars and peace accords on democracy. It also analyzes whether different governments employed electoral incentives to induce the rebel groups to surrender their weapons, as well as the changes in voter turnout and in the patterns of political representation which followed the various negotiated settlements.; The second part of the dissertation is mostly concerned with variations across cases, consisting of in-depth analyses of each peace process. Relying on secondary sources and on interviews with individuals directly involved in the wars and/or the negotiations, this section explores the root-causes and evolution of the various wars, and the crafting of negotiated solutions. This part analyzes both failed and successful attempts to find negotiated solutions, deriving conclusions from the methodology, procedural aspects, and content of the various negotiations. Some of the themes explored comparatively include confidence-building measures, how the negotiators built and maintained support from their respective constituencies, and the sale of the outcome of the negotiations. |
