How can external actors help post-conflict countries to sustain peace? Besides the finding that multidimensional peacekeeping reduces the risk of civil war recurrence, little systematic knowledge exists on the effects of international efforts to foster peace. The question of how effective different types of peace support are and which combinations of support are most conducive to sustain peace in countries emerging from violent conflict has so far remained open. This paper disaggregates international support to post-conflict countries and employs configurational analysis (using fuzzy-set QCA) to identify patterns of support that are associated with sustained peace after civil war. We distinguish between five areas of engagement: peacekeeping, non-military security support, support to politics and governance, to socio-economic development and to societal conflict transformation. Analysing 36 episodes of countries coming out of major civil wars after 1990, we find that 1) international support can clearly make a difference in post-conflict situations, 2) peacekeeping is but one important component of effective post-conflict support and 3) supporting governance can be an alternative international strategy of effective peace support.
