Abstract:  One unexpected outcome of some peace processes is the rapid political empowerment of women in the post-conflict state. This outcome, however, appears only intermittently and often fleetingly. We might expect, from the extensive Women, Peace, and Security literature, that these gains in women’s political empowerment would arise when women are involved in the peace process. But there remains significant variation in changes to women’s political empowerment after conflict even among the collection of peace processes that include women. This study argues that how women participate in peace processes matters for the effects of peace processes on women’s access to positions of political authority. Using three case studies (Nepal, Philippines, and El Salvador), this study finds that local women’s active participation in both the formal (Track I) and informal (Track II) components of peace processes results in the greatest and most durable expansion of women’s political empowerment in post-conflict states.