Introduction

Abstract

The Introduction examines the relationship between peacebuilding and democratic legal authority institutionalization, and briefly investigates the track record of international peacebuilding operations since the cold war. It further offers the book's major areas of inquiry, as well as two chief arguments: first, democratic legal authority can create the conditions and framework necessary to mediate competing domestic interests and to address the root causes of a conflict peacefully; second, one overlooked problem of international peacebuilding stems from the divergent conceptions, between international officials and the local population, of authority and its sources of legitimacy (e.g., between an understanding of legitimate authority anchored in tribal and religious norms or sometimes dominant individuals and personal relationships versus norms emanating from principles of democracy and the rule of law).