This book focuses on the fundamental questions of how to make peace and make sure that it holds. Miranda Ruwart Melcher patiently dissects two peace processes to glean important lessons on the need for specificity in peace process provisions rather than deferring difficult decisions to a later stage. This book represents a great addition to the Peace and Conflict Studies literature. It is highly recommended.

Roger Mac Ginty, Durham University, UK

A solid study that offers new insights into the peace processes in Angola and Mozambique and thought-provoking suggestions regarding the importance of military reintegration provisions in peace agreements.

Philipp Kastner, University of Western Australia, AUS

Securing Peace in Angola and Mozambique draws our attention to security sector reform as a crucial part of the peace process. The book systematically examines the behind-the-scenes dynamics of how peace treaties come into being, arguing for contextual sensitivity and specificity in treaty negotiations, terms, and implementation. This analysis contributes to the processual turn in the study of civil war and has important implications for our understanding of war-to-peace transitions in general and military integration in particular.

Anastasia Shesterinina, The University of York, author of Mobilizing in Uncertainty (2021)

This decade has seen new civil wars in Africa. Securing Peace in Angola and Mozambique is timely – re-examining two nasty conflicts that ended some 20 and 30 years ago. Miranda Melcher's well written book focuses on the importance of negotiation and peace treaties and assesses why some treaties stick, and others fail. An important resource for practitioners and scholars, examining the stumbling blocks in negotiating peace treaties and why some civil wars last longer than others.

Dr Alex Vines OBE, Research Director, Regions and Risk, Chatham House

The [narrative] that Melcher tells will be interesting to scholars, activists and students with wide-ranging interests such as peace processes, peace agreements, mediation, security sector reform, UN peacekeeping, Southern African history, to name a few … This book tells a compelling and convincing story about how peace processes happen, how they progress, and how any resultant agreements stick.

International Peacekeeping

The book provides a far-reaching analysis and excellent overview of the Angolan and Mozambican peace processes and their challenges.

International Affairs