 Avoiding the reignition of armed violence is a key challenge in post-conflict societies where pockets of violence remain, often for long periods of time. How can stability and safety be ensured in these settings? There's no linear trajectory from conflict-affected country to Finland. What we have is a series of moments where interventions can take place that place countries in different trajectories, some more stable and some pretty unstable. My view challenges the assumption that the moment of conflict resolution is the best time to reset the rules. My research has shown that there may be greater opportunities in those moments of calm, even though it may seem like there's no opportunity to put a new set of rules in place. If you can gradually reset relationships gradually in a way that doesn't threaten the system, understand how, for example, security sector and communities work together on governance. You can gradually transform a system from the inside in a way that's less top-down and more likely to succeed. Your starting point is a vibrant, sophisticated, very different form of governance, and that's where you need to start thinking about what are you going to do to make it less violent, to make it more inclusive, to make it more possible to transform into a trajectory that doesn't keep looping back into civil war, essentially. There's not an opportunity for immediate peace and immediate successful state building. What there is during conflict, what we often find is communities get on with their lives and there's a strong desire for peace and a strong desire to recover their livelihoods.