Transactional peacemaking: Warmakers as peacemakers in the political marketplace of peace processes

Abstract

World politics are changing with important implications for international peace processes. We argue that recent changes in world order have led to transactionalism becoming more pronounced in peace processes. This is because increased geopolitical competition often leads to a conflation of warmakers and peacemakers: States that provide military support to belligerents also engage in peacemaking. This renders peace processes political marketplaces with transactionalism as main modus operandi. Transactional peacemaking has three features: It prioritizes bilateral over multilateral approaches; is interest-based and exclusive rather than value-based and inclusive; and focuses on short-term deals instead of long-term outcomes. Drawing on over 70 interviews, we empirically demonstrate our argument with the peace processes in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. We conclude by discussing the consequences of transactionalism for the global peacemaking landscape. By providing a new conceptualization of an emerging phenomenon in contemporary peace processes, we contribute to the literature on changing peacemaking approaches.