Lessons from peace processes in five flashpoints captured during two-year study

When violence ends, the study says, the shrinkage of the security industry – army, police, prison officers, private security guards – brings on to the unemployment register many people skilled in the use of arms. Similarly redundant are paramilitaries whose lives have been devoted to armed resistance. Their speedy return to civil society is essential, less because they deserve compensation than because they have the means to destabilize the peace process.