Description
The time-related aspects attributed to references of peace within the preambles of peace agreements can either create or remove potential obstacles to building peace. This suggests that the opening words of peace agreements can be potentially problematic for a peace building process. In particular, this paper suggests that the articulations of long-term historical time perspectives within the preamble of a peace agreement have two noteworthy consequences: 1) they attribute specific perennial and ephemeral aspects to an agreement’s sought after peace and 2) they can set a potentially (in)conductive stage for a peace building process. To unpack this relationship, this paper first conceptualises long-term historical time perspectives and distinctions between perennial and ephemeral peace as articulated within peace agreements. Second, the paper then uses these conceptualisations to analyse of the preambles of peace agreements addressing interstate/interstate and interstate/intrastate conflicts from 1990 to 2018 as found in the PA-X Peace Agreements Database maintained at the University of Edinburgh. From this analyse, readers gain insights into the unique role long-term historical time perspectives play in embedding perennial peace within a peace agreement and the possible obstacles these time perspectives can potentially create for a peace building process. The paper concludes with broader implications these three conceptualisations have on future research in peace studies.
