This paper uses approaches to everyday peace as a means of exploring the questions of who is peace for, who creates it and why? More specifically, it examines the issue of restraint during civil war in Sierra Leone and Cote D’Ivoire. Whilst much of the existing literature focusses on the drivers of conflict and violence, this paper examines the idea of dynamics of islands of peace. Why is it that in the midst of civil wars some areas exercise restraints on violence? Following literature examining restraints during genocide established by Strauss (2012) and also the idea of Colombian peace zones (Idler et al, 2015), the paper argues that whilst these areas may still have drivers that lead other areas to be affected by violence, there are also specific sets of drivers that lead to restraint, even within geographic spaces that are subject to the same structural pressures. This paper establishes a proposed set of drivers of peace deriving from this literature based around leadership, legitimacy and the likelihood of success. It then goes on to examine three cases from each of the two countries to deconstruct the dynamics of everyday peace.
