Description
A growing literature explores the role of religion in peace processes. Few studies, though, consider factors that may influence the activities of religious actors beyond their theological tenets. This paper takes the literature in a new direction by exploring how the role of religion during conflict impacts its role after the fighting stops. Applying a relational peace framework, I identify two conflict factors – religion-combatant relations and the salience of religion – that moderate the influence of religious actors in post-conflict settings. When both factors are high, the role of faith-based actors is limited. This is because governments draw lessons about the mobilizing power of religion that limits trust and frames religious and political authority as competitive. When these two factors are low, religious actors have more freedom to influence peace processes. I demonstrate the usefulness of this framework through case studies of civil wars in Algeria (1991 – 2002) and Côte d’Ivoire (2002 – 2007). This paper contributes to peace studies, in general, and the conference theme, in particular, by integrating two phases of conflict typically studied in isolation to show that what happens in the former shapes possibilities for the latter.
