International Peacebuilding And Local Involvement

This book interrogates the common perception that liberal peace is in crisis and explores the question: can the local turn save liberal peacebuilding? Presenting a case for a liberal renaissance in peacebuilding, the work interrogates the assumptions behind the popular perception that liberal peace is in crisis. It re-examines three of the cases igniting the debate – Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste – and evaluates how these transitional administrations implemented their liberal mandates and how local involvement affected the conduct of their activities. In so doing, it reveals that these cases were neither liberal nor peacebuilding. It also demonstrates that while local involvement is imperative to peacebuilding, illiberal local involvement restores an elite-centred status quo and reinforces or creates new forms of conflict and violence. Using both liberal and critical lenses, the author ultimately argues that the conceptual and operational departure from the holistic and comprehensive origins of liberal peacebuilding in fact paved the way for the liberal peace crisis itself. Drawing on analysis from in-depth field research and interviews, this book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, peacekeeping, statebuilding, security studies and International Relations in general.

This edited volume empirically examines key theoretical and practical issues relevant to the promotion of local ownership in contemporary international peacebuilding. This book attempts to provide comprehensive understanding of the issue of local ownership in international peacebuilding. By providing an empirical analysis of nine case studies, the volume aims to supplement contemporary academic discussions on local ownership, which have thus far mainly focused on its normative or theoretical dimensions. The case studies included here examine the peace operations in a wide range of countries - Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, Cyprus, Kenya, Uganda, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Sri Lanka. The book seeks to address the weaknesses of conventional studies by:,empirical review of the achievements and limitations of previous attempts to promote local ownership; examination of the key concepts of local ownership; and analysis of structural and practical challenges. The volume concludes by presenting practical proposals for addressing the limitations of contemporary local ownership promotion. Through these means, the book aims to explore a key research question from both theoretical and empirical perspectives: How can international peacebuilding facilitate effective, active local community participation? This volume will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, development studies, global governance, peace and conflict studies, security studies and IR.

Using the case studies of Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Lebanon and Northern Ireland this book dissects internationally-supported peace interventions. Looking at issues of security, statebuilding, civil society and economic and constitutional reform, it proposes using the concept of hybridity to understand the dynamics of societies in transition.

Investigating local responses to EU peacebuilding, this book develops a relational and spatial concept of agency, helping to understand the processes in which peacebuilding actors engage and interact with one another. The focus on cultural actors reveals the contested nature of local agency and its potential to challenge institutional policies.

This edited volume focuses on disentangling the interplay of local peacebuilding processes and international policy, via comparative theoretical and empirical work on the question of legitimacy and authority.

International Peacebuilding offers a concise, practical and accessible introduction to the growing field of peacebuilding for students and practitioners. This new textbook comprises three parts, each dealing with a key aspect of peacebuilding: Part I defines the core concepts and theoretical discussions that provide the philosophical grounds for contemporary peacebuilding activities. Part II divides the procedures of peacebuilding into three phases and examines some of the important features of each phase. Part III examines the key areas of the practice of peacebuilding. The volume approaches peacebuilding from the viewpoints of individual actors or institutions, introducing a range of theoretical discussions with which students can critically examine contemporary peacebuilding practice, as well as presenting detailed case studies for key issues highlighted in the text. In doing so, the book aims to provide more concrete ideas on how peacebuilding programmes are planned and implemented in the field and which major issues should be addressed by peacebuilding practitioners. This book will be essential reading for all students of peacebuilding, conflict transformation and post-conflict reconstruction, and recommended reading for students of international organisations, international security and IR in general.

Local peacebuilding and global accountability -- The country context--Burundi from 1999 to 2014 -- Ingos in peacebuilding--globally unaccountable, locally adaptive -- International organizations in peacebuilding--globally accountable, locally constrained -- Bilateral development donors--accountable for global targets, not local change

This book provides an in-depth analysis into the ways in which local leaders impact internationally-led democratic transition. Using three key case studies, Burundi, Cambodia and Liberia, it re-evaluates current transition paradigms delivering a new framework for understanding the roles of local leaders in democratic transition and peacebuilding.