Top-Down Peacemaking: Why Regional Peacemaking Begins with States, Rather than Societies

Open to the Public

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Date: Thu, Mar 3, 2011 Time: 12:15pm - 02:00pm Location: Littauer Building - Belfer Center Library, Room 369

U.S. President Bill Clinton, center background, applauds as soldiers from the Jordanian army, left, and the Israeli army move together in a show of goodwill at the conclusion of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty signing ceremony near Eliat, Oct. 26, 1994.

This seminar will examine three successful peace settlements (of varying degrees of success), Franco-German reconciliation after World War II, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979, and the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty of 1994, to determine what brings regional rivals to bury the hatchet and what accounts for variations in the quality of peace. The central argument is that successful peacemaking starts as a realist, statist endeavor, based on reasons of state and the interests of governments. Nonetheless, settlements are more likely to endure when they are socialized by liberal, societal mechanisms after the initial agreement is reached.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.