| dc.description.abstract | Research has, to a large degree, focused on war and its relationship to the absence of war, ignoring the vast variety of non-war that exists and the conditions that define quality peace. Quantitative research has especially shown a lack of effort in this area; most research focuses on war (why it occurs and why it recurs). While there is more to find in qualitative research it is poorly conceptualized; positive peace is either defined as reconciliation or justice, without a clearly formulated theory underpinning the definition. Defining peace as a condition in which violence is not present severely limits our understanding of the world, and impedes any significant progress in reducing war recurrence. Davenport, Melander, and Regan (2018) introduced a continuum theory, in which positive peace and war are seen as two extremes on a continuum. They argue that failing to understand the variety of points on the continuum has consequences on our knowledge and policy approaches. Melander specified a trinitarian definition of war based on von Clausewitz’ On War and extracts a definition of positive peace as the opposite of this: peace is “the conduct of politics with the respect for the physical person of one’s adversary, using consensual decision making, on the basis of strong equality values”. In an attempt to increase our understanding of positive peace and how to reach it in post-conflict societies, I create a data set of 325 civil war peace agreements from 1975-2018 to investigate the relationship between reconciliation provisions in peace agreements and the probability of positive peace. This data set is a combination of the UCDP Peace Agreement data set, the EPR data set, the CIRI PIR data set, the ICRG data set, and variables extracted from V-dem, Freedomhouse, and the World Bank. I ran four regression models: OLS, random effects clustered on country, fixed effects clustered on country, and fixed effects clustered on region. Because of the low number of units and correlation between the dependent variable and the unit effects, fixed effects clustered on region was found to provide the most reliable results. Random effects and fixed effects clustered on country showed similar results; Equal civil liberties increased with increased reconciliation provisions in both models. The effects on press freedom were also similar across these two models: provisions on outlining the implementation process increase press freedom in model 1, and integration of government does so in model 2. Provisions on amnesties decrease press freedom in model 2 for both regression models. The results for fixed effects clustered on region showed varied relationships, such as including provisions on integration of government and integration of civil society decrease the prospects of positive peace with regard to power distributed by social group, but increase the prospect of positive peace with regard to political violence. Much more research is needed on the effects of the specific provisions. | eng |