The dynamics of restraint in Côte d’Ivoire

Research on conflict prevention has often left the question of how civilians manage to contain violence in conflict environments unaddressed. This article aims to understand how islands of peace emerge during outbreaks of violence in Cote d'Ivoire. The authors state that in order to understand the dynamics of restraint in Cote d'Ivoire, they conducted a number of semi-structured interviews in Abidjan and in other three towns. Findings are that: • the national environment, and in particular the institutions of the army and militias, proved to be a decisive factor in the dynamic of peace-keeping and violence restraint in Cote d'Ivoire • in urban areas, local governance institutions and important personalities have proved to be key figures in the constraint of violence, and the few cases of urban violence are explained by local factors and isolated from the rest of the country • this reveals the specificity of the civil war in Cote d'Ivoire which is unusual in that it took place in a country with strong state institutions - state local institutions were strong enough to contain violence in urban areas • Identically, the paper underscores that the politicisation of the Ivorian conflict as a north/south conflict cannot mask the major problem of the Ivorian crisis: the issue of land ownership Conclusions are that: • the search for peace and national reconciliation must begin in the west, which is the epicenter of violence • the problems of land ownership must be a central concern for the stabilisation of the western region.