Kindered Peacebuilding: Liberalism and Beyond

Abstract

There are more resources now devoted to the pursuit of peace than at any time in the history of the international system. The participating cast of actors — international, regional, state, and non-state — seek to create a peace that is essentially Kantian in spirit, and thus heavily dependent upon the maintenance of an international liberal order through international governmental organisations, such as the United Nations. The resultant peacebuilding strategies are then often justified in terms of the promotion of human rights, democratisation, and ‘human security’ — concepts that together form the cornerstone of what has come to be termed the ‘liberal peace’. Evidence increasingly suggests, however, that the mechanisms used to achieve such a peace typically fail to secure a sustainable peace, and in particular that they may not adequately take into account those actors whose claims for peace may prove especially intransigent — such as those with ethnic and identity claims, and those, ironically, for whom the achievement of human security is particularly pertinent.