Terrorists and Peace : A quantitative analysis on terrorist organisations’ effect on the sustainability of peace agreements.

Sammanfattning: Do terrorist organisations have an effect on the sustainability of peace agreements? In this paper, I investigate the potential consequences of including armed non-state actors in peace agreements. Specifically, I focus on the most controversial type of actor: terrorist organisations and how they affect the sustainability of peace agreements. I utilise a unique dataset covering all intrastate peace agreements and designated terrorist organisations between 1998 – 2011, and employ a survival analysis through a cox proportional hazard model. I find strong evidence suggesting that the presence of terrorist organisations – both in conflicts and in peace agreements – have a significantly destabilising effect on the sustainability of peace agreements. I also find evidence which suggest that more complex power sharing arrangements could be a viable option to combat the destabilising effect of terrorist actors, although this effect might not be as strong in peace process agreements.