For a small-n research project my research question would have to change once again, this time to, on a general scale, what explains the success or failure of peace processes? More specifically, how does the inclusion of women influence the durability of peace processes? My dependent variable is the success or failure of peace agreements, which the literature usually measures in years; five years is typically the marker used to define the success of a peace agreement, but that is a simpler measurement of my dependent variable than I would like to use.1 After speaking with my mentor, I would like to include, with the durability of a peace agreement, the degree to which its implementation is successful as the measures of success or failure. My mentor pointed me to a database of peace accords, the Peace Accord Matrix, which tracks over 50 peace agreements and includes detailed information on factors that are significant to the durability of an agreement, and gives implementation scores based on how well the agreement is holding up.2
In terms of operationalizing my dependent variable, at the moment it has a couple of different parts. First of all, I can use the length of time the agreement has lasted as a basic measure of its success or failure.3 Secondly, to measure implementation, I will look at what types of enforcement, constitution building, and other parts of the agreement were included in the accord, and then track whether each part was actually implemented using the Peace Accord Matrix. At this point in time I do not have cases selected, but my mentor suggested arbitrarily picking a case in Europe, Africa, and Latin America while I focus on the question and variables to check how feasible and substantial my data is. Therefore, at the moment I’m using the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement, the Accra Peace Agreement, and the Chapultepec Peace Agreement.4 The Good Friday Agreement has an implementation score of 95%, the Accra Peace Agreement a score of 88%, and the Chapultepec Peace Agreement a 96%, all after 10 years of their implementation.5
1.Suzanne Ghais, “Inclusivity and Peacemaking in Internal Armed Conflicts” (Ph.D., American University, 2016), 3.
2.“Peace Accords Matrix,” Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, last modified 2015, accessed November 8, 2017, https://peaceaccords.nd.edu/.
3. Ghais, 3.
4. “Peace Accords Matrix.”
5. Ibid.
Julia — you are right that your research question changes with this new methodology (and that is almost always the case, as each methodology has a particular strength and focus, so we try to ask questions that maximize the leverage that the methodology offers us). However, your question does not necessarily have to change to a more general one. You certainly *could* ask about success/failure in peace processes, similar to what Howard did in her work on PKOs. However, you could also ask a case-specific question like Atzili or Saunders (a question that asks about an explanation for a particularly puzzling case or a couple of puzzling cases; Weyland also did this). Is there perhaps a particular peace process that you would/could analyze in detail? If you are asking about success/failure, what are the examples of success/failure that you propose to analyze (remember that in small-n research you need to *know* the specific case outcomes that you are explaining).
Overall you seem to be on the right track in thinking about the different dimensions that your DV could take and the data that you could use to understand your DV in some cases. But keep working on the case selection aspect as well as this is tied up with knowing the question and DV!