Chapter 1 Introduction

Abstract

This book provides a comparative study of the impact of referendums on conflict resolution and peacebuilding in post-conflict societies. Post-conflict referendums have increasingly been held as part of peace processes. While policy-makers are hopeful that these referendums serve peace and democracy, the burgeoning literature on them has expressed significant reservations about their use, particularly on territorial issues, because referendums do not have mechanisms for compromise. To gauge the actual impact of these referendums on peace processes, the book systematically compares three post-conflict referendums on self-determination held with their respective central governments’ consent, in Eritrea, East Timor, and Southern Sudan. Relying on more than 70 elite interviews, it examines (1) the rationales behind the decision to hold referendums; (2) the referendums’ impact on resolving the original self-determination conflicts; and (3) their impact on post-conflict peacebuilding inside the newly independent states. The three case studies reveal various rationales behind such referendums, and show that referendums play a limited, albeit positive, role in settling the original conflicts. Furthermore, holding referendums after civil wars has various positive, negative, and often unexpected impacts on domestic and international peacebuilding efforts inside newly independent states. This book provides careful, thorough, and well-balanced accounts of these referendums’ impact on peace processes. This book will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, African and South-East Asian politics, and International Relations. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.