Do ceasefires during peace negotiations facilitate reaching a peace agreement in internal armed conflicts? Existing case studies offer diverging arguments and mixed empirical evidence for whether ceasefires should precede or come after the more political settlements. In this regard, I argue that ceasefires facilitate that the combatant parties will reach a political deal by increasing mutual trust, alleviating the impact of two critical uncertainties in the negotiation stage: the uncertainty on whether the other party is willing to reach a negotiated settlement, and the uncertainty on whether the other party has the capacity to control their respective armed forces. Using new data on negotiation processes in internal armed conflicts in Africa, between 1989 and 2013, I examine the effect of having a ceasefire during negotiations on the probability of reaching a negotiated accord, while controlling for the levels of violence during the talks as a crucial conditioning factor, as well as for the presence of peacekeepers, and the intervention of a mediator. The results show that early ceasefires have a significant effect on the conclusion of political agreements at the talks, and that this effect is stronger when the talks are surrounded by decreased or null levels of violence.

This paper aims to answer the question Why do some ceasefires de-escalate conflict better than others? By applying a theory-driven empirical comparative approach, a theoretical argument focused on compliance provisions is presented. The argument holds that more comprehensive compliance provisions in ceasefire agreements are more likely to de-escalate conflict than limited ones. The causal mechanism argues that more comprehensive compliance provisions will increase transparency and raise costs for non-compliance. This will result in an increase of trust between conflict parties, leading to greater de-escalation. The thesis studies two ceasefires, one in Colombia from 2017, and one in Nicaragua from 1990. Through a structured focused comparison, the study finds that the Nicaraguan ceasefire, which has more comprehensive compliance provisions, de-escalated violence more compared to the Colombian case, which has limited compliance provisions. Therefore, the study finds support for the hypothesis with the caveat that compliance provisions do not appear to influence agreement resilience for long-term goals in the agreements.

Gender provisions have the overarching goal of enhancing gender equality, however few peace agreements include strong gender provisions. The presence of strong gender provisions in ceasefire agreements has crucial implications in the immediate and post-conflict phase in improving women’s situation. I use structured, focused comparison in this study to explore when and how strong gender provisions on violence against women are adopted. I focus on conflicts with a high prevalence of sexual violence and contexts where women mobilize in the conflict to advocate for women’s rights. I demonstrate the relationship between international involvement and strong gender provisions. I argue that in civil wars with a high level of international involvement in support of peace, ceasefire agreements are more likely to include strong gender provisions on violence against women. This is possible through the mechanism of international actors serving as brokers for the women’s movement that is already mobilized to access and influence the peace process. This mechanism is particularly crucial for autocratic countries where women’s mobilization is not sufficient to lead to strong gender provisions. However, the findings are applicable to countries with other regime types.