This volume examines the gap between agreements and actual peace by focusing on the different aspects of implementation and of the causes of the success or failure of peace processes. While in the early 1990s the conflicts/peace processes in South Africa, Northern Ireland and Israel-Palestine shared commonalities, a decade later it is all but obvious that they have followed different trajectories and reached different outcomes. This edited volume offers different explanations for the successes and failures of the three processes and provides historical and comparative perspectives regarding their contemporary realities.