This paper examines the driving factors and transitional stages of conflict transformation in protracted social conflicts, in order to generate more accurately focused criteria for the design, timing and nature of peacemaking and peacebuilding interventions. It successively presents the stages of transition from violence to peace, a systemic model of analysis of the drivers of escalatory and resolutionary change, and possible entry-points for peacemaking/peacebuilding intervention during each stage of the conflict resolution cycle.