The third Institutions for Sustainable Peace (ISP) network conference took explored institutional reform in post-conflict and divided societies. Presenters analyzed drivers and roadblocks of political change from a variety of perspectives, including long-term effects of reform, peacebuilding, and business actors. A particular focus of the conference was the interaction of institutional reforms and the (un-)successful consolidation of peace after violent conflict, combining quantitative approaches and qualitative case studies, on cases such as Burundi, Colombia, Kosovo, Mexico, and Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda.

The conference took place on 27 and 28 May at the Graduate Institute's Villa Barton and was jointly organized by the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies and the Graduate Institute's Centre on Conflict, Peacebuilding and Development (CCDP). The Institutions for Sustainable Peace (ISP) project is a research network of distinguished scholars from all over the world, dedicated to develop research projects and deliver research results on institutional prerequisites for peace in post-conflict and divided societies.

Conference Program

Conference Day I - Tuesday, 27 May 2014
First Panel: Institutional reforms in divided societies
Chair: Nadine Ansorg
Discussant: Susanne Buckley-Zistel

• Sabine Kurtenbach: The Challenges of Institutional Reforms in the Midst of War

• Artak Galyan: Political Institutions and Political Violence in Divided Societies: towards a Conjunctural Institutional Theory

• Matthias Basedau: Does the Success of Institutional Reform Depend on the Depth of Divisions? A Study on 34 African Countries

• John Laidlaw Grey: Security Sector Reform, Ethnic Representation and Perceptions of Safety: Evidence from Kosovo

Second Panel: Long-term effects of institutional reform
Chair: Oliver Jütersonke
Discussant: Susanna Campbell

• Gerald Schneider: Making it better or worse? Institutional reform in divided societies

• Esteban Ramirez Gonzalez: Armed Groups, Governance and State Building: A Comparative Perspective from 19th Century Mexico

• Julia Strasheim: The Polity, Policy and Politics of Interim Governments and their Impact on Post-Interim Peace

• Roland Schmidt: When We All Know When It Is Going to End: The Impact of Sunset Clauses on Power-Sharing Agreements in Post-Conflict Societies

Keynote speech Donald L. Horowitz: Power Sharing: New Evidence on Two Approaches

Conference Day II - 28 May 2014

Third Panel: Economy and institutional reform
Chair: Andreas Mehler
Discussant: Matthijs Bogaards

• Brian Ganson and Achim Wennmann: Business and institutional reform in hybrid political orders

• Caroline A. Hartzell: Good, Bad, or Ugly? Economic Power Sharing and Post-Conflict Power Relations

• Sergio Gemperle: Anti-Corruption Agencies in Post-Conflict Contexts. An Analytical Framework

Fourth Panel: Institutional reform and peacebuilding
Chair: Sabine Kurtenbach
Discussant: Keith Krause

• Nadine Ansorg, Felix Haaß, and Julia Strasheim: Provisions for Police Reform in Peace Agreements

• Susanna P. Campbell: International Intervention and Informal Governance

• Phil Clark: Clashes between International and Domestic Reformers: Assessing Post-Atrocity Justice Sectors in the African Great Lakes

• Karly Kupferberg and Stefan Wolff: Sudan: “Successful” Constitutional Reform Spurs Localized Violence

Below you find selected impressions of the conference. We're grateful to Mariana Beirao Xavier for taking pictures.