Interlocking peace processes: Between competing and complementing peacemaking efforts in interlocking conflicts

Abstract

What is the dialectical influence between interlocking peace processes? The scholarship in the field of conflict analysis has identified the occurrence of “interlocking conflicts”—namely, linked conflicts that affect each other—but less attention has been drawn to the linkages between efforts to resolve them. The article focuses on the phenomenon of “interlocking peace processes,” in which parallel peacemaking efforts take place among interlinked conflicts. This article examines how progress in one peace process can influence an interlocking process, and the conditions under which a breakthrough in one process can trigger progress in a parallel process or undermine its advancement. It offers a theoretical framework for the analysis of interlocking peace processes, outlining three main arguments, which rest on three influence patterns: complementing peace processes, competing peace processes, and a paving-the-way peace process. The discussion considers how the mechanisms of diffusion, identity formation, and legitimization serve as dominant tools in these processes. The article uses the interlocking peace processes in the Arab-Israeli conflict as a case study, examining the relationship between four processes in the Middle East: the Israeli- Egyptian, Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Jordanian, and Israeli-Syrian peace processes.