Global Peacebuilding Research Articles

The fragmentation of the security-development nexus: the UK government’s approach to security and development 2015-2022

ABSTRACT The security-development nexus – the belief that security and development policy goals are closely connected and should be aligned – became a core feature of global peacebuilding policy in the 1990s. Over the last decade, however, the continued relevance of the nexus has been questioned. Drawing on analysis of key policy documents, ministerial speeches, aid flows, and key informant interviews, this article examines how the nexus has been articulated and practised in UK policy. We find that the security-development nexus has become less prominent and more fragmented. The ‘mechanistic’ approach to the nexus that existed until 2015, where broad causal links between poverty and (in)security were emphasised, has been replaced by a more diffuse and fractured approach. While this shift is an outcome of the unusually high degree of turbulence in UK politics since 2015, it also reflects international trends in security and development policy.

The Nobel Literature Prize and Peacebuilding

Abstract Organized as part of the Cultural Olympiad for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, “The Nobel Laureates of Literature: An Olympic Gathering” featured the largest ever assembly of Nobel laureates in literature for a single occasion. It was expected that the eight writers in attendance, namely Joseph Brodsky, Czesław Miłosz, Toni Morrison, Kenzaburō Ōe, Octavio Paz, Claude Simon, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott, would singularly promote the values of peacebuilding. Instead, the laureates demonstrated varying degrees of uneasiness. By close-reading the panel discussion transcript in conjunction with the writers’ Nobel lectures, this paper argues for an alternative reading of the Olympic Gathering as a platform where the artistic visions of the eight writers interacted with each other on topics related to mutual understanding, privacy, and communication. Rather than reinforcing the liturgy of global peacebuilding, the Nobel laureates transformed the Olympic Gathering into a critical space that simultaneously promotes and deconstructs its peacebuilding processes.

Restorative Justice, Social Cohesion, and Preventing and Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism: Time for a New Zealand Praxis?

This article assesses the “restorativeness” of New Zealand’s counter-terrorism approach as it is currently articulated after the 2019 Christchurch Mosque attacks. It applies a restorative lens to current policies, activities, and discussions in the New Zealand government’s efforts to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the attacks. Utilising a restorative peacebuilding lens highlights the need for further development of bicultural, binding, bonding, bridging, and linking processes to restore social cohesion and rebuild social capital in the aftermath of acts of terrorism and violent extremism. This expands the conceptualisation of restorative justice articulated in the Royal Commission of Inquiry, advocating for restorative peacebuilding as a key strategy within the broader movement for Te Tiriti-based social justice and cohesion, with Māori resistance and peace-making highlighted as critical processes. Restorative peacebuilding draws on learnings from global peacebuilding to inform Aotearoa New Zealand’s bi-cultural framework for social cohesion in response to terrorism and violent extremism. The article recommends additional conversations, initiatives, and resources enabling restorative responses to extremism and digital harm circulating in and through online-offline ecosystems. Keywords: Restorative Justice, Peace

China’s changing engagement in global peace building and conflict resolution: drivers and trends

The study aims at providing an in-depth analysis of the drivers of China’s peace building engagement and examining the interactive nature of the various drivers and factors that played remarkable role in increasing China’s economic rise and leadership in the international system. To approach the study goals, descriptive-analytical method has been employed along with Hudson’s foreign policy analysis through which China’s aims and motivations of engaging in peace building are illustrated. The paper concludes that China seeks to shape its great power leadership and identity where the case studies revealed that China’s economic engagement as part of its peace building efforts is increasingly being driven by Chinese great power status and geostrategic security interests. Simultaneously, as seen in the Darfur War, Myanmar, Mali, South Sudan, and Afghanistan, China’s policy towards conflict zones has undergone a tangible and salient transition from one of avoidance to one of increasing interest and engagement

Norm Contestation and Normative Transformation in Global Peacebuilding Order(s): The Cases of China, Japan, and Russia

AbstractFocusing on the disconnect between mainstream “liberal” peacebuilding and the discourses and practices of “new” and “alternative” peacebuilding actors, this article develops a nonbinary approach that goes beyond norm localization to capture the ways in which major powers influence the nature, content, and direction of normative change. Within the context of their bilateral and multilateral contributions to the “global peacebuilding order,” what forms and types of interventions are conceived by these actors as peacebuilding? How, in turn, has the substantive content of their peacebuilding practices (re)shaped norms and narratives in international peacebuilding efforts? Based on extensive empirical research of the peacebuilding policies and activities of China, Japan, and Russia, this article analyzes the way in which these “top-top” dynamics between norms embedded in the liberal narrative and major powers with competing visions can influence peacebuilding as practiced and pursued in host states. In doing so, it brings together research on global norms and peacebuilding studies and offers a simple yet analytically powerful tool to better understand the evolution of global peacebuilding order(s) and the role of rising powers in (re)shaping global governance.

The Psychological Legacy of the Lebanese Civil War in Paramilitary Veterans

ABSTRACT The experiences of irregular combatants and the psychosocial impact of their participation in violent conflict are poorly understood in comparison to the body of research available on military veterans in developed countries. The Lebanese civil war (1975–1990) was an archetypal intra-national armed conflict, involving thousands of civilians turned fighters. Fifteen former fighters were interviewed about their active involvement in the war. The qualitative analysis reveals a persistent psychosocial burden decades later. Former paramilitary fighters have needs that overlap only partially with those of regular veterans. Further research on this population would be beneficial to global peacebuilding efforts and conflict prevention.

The Promise and Challenge of Multireligious Peacebuilding in the 21st Century: A Myanmar Case Study

This article explores whether a relational approach to peacebuilding, shared multireligious perspectives and widening networks can bring sources of strength which enable positive peacebuilding and create grassroots, cross-community peace. While religious peacebuilding organizations have become the object of a burgeoning literature, the role of multireligious organisations in peacebuilding has received far less attention. The purpose of this paper is to redress this lack. By examining the influence, challenges and benefits of multireligious approaches to transnational peacebuilding, we hope to develop a sharper and more critically nuanced understanding of the potential role of multireligious organisations in global peacebuilding, and consider what, if anything, distinguishes them from secular and other faith-based organisations. We do so by analysing the impact of a project carried out in Myanmar by Religions for Peace. The project provides three case studies which offer unique opportunities to consider the limits and potential of multireligious grassroots interventions in conflict contexts with very different histories and cultural configurations.

Constructing space for refugee voices in national peacebuilding processes

ABSTRACTThe search for sustainable peace after conflict has pushed refugees onto the global peacebuilding agenda, and these days it is common for national peacebuilding processes to extend their reach to those living in exile. This is significant because ordinarily, our modern political system considers the citizen the proper subject of political life, and refugees typically struggle to be seen and heard in national processes. This article examines two examples of refugee participation in peacebuilding: the state-led Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and a grassroots dialogue group created by Liberian refugees in Ghana. Based on five months’ fieldwork, it considers how refugee narratives concerning harm, loss and recovery differed between the two forums, and draws attention to the role of the state in recognising – or not recognising – refugee narratives. It argues that while the inclusion of refugees in peacebuilding processes is a positive development, greater attention should be paid to the factors restricting or diminishing refugee voices and thus impeding the restorative value of such forums. The article concludes by identifying ways to support more diverse refugee voices in national peacebuilding programmes.

Yoga in Transition

This article draws connections between the complexities of modern postural yoga practices and global peacebuilding efforts, exploring both tensions and possibilities. First, the article engages key yogic texts--such as Patanjali's Yogasastra, which demonstrates how yoga is historically rooted in social justice work and peacebuilding--in order to link yoga philosophy and peacebuilding theories. This is followed by an analysis of contemporary practice-based examples, which consider the theoretical tools of elicitive peacework and transrational peace research. Through an exploration of yoga as elicitive peacebuilding and conflict transformation, this article considers if yoga has the potential to shift societal notions of peacebuilding and questions the implications of this for peace theory and practice.

The business–peace nexus: ‘business for peace’ and the reconfiguration of the public/private divide in global governance

This article explores the implications of ‘business for peace’ (B4P), a new global governance paradigm that aims to put international businesses at the frontline of peace, stability and development efforts in fragile and conflict-affected states. This article argues that B4P entails a shift in the balance between public and private authority across what we coin the ‘business–peace nexus’ and which comprises corporate peacebuilding activities across different spatial scales and institutional settings. We explore B4P’s agency across two distinct nodes in this nexus—in global peacebuilding and development architectures, and in local peacebuilding settings in the Democratic Republic of Congo—to articulate the B4P paradigm’s multiple and contradictory effects on the balance between public and private authority in contemporary peacebuilding. On the one hand, B4P tips institutional scales towards the public by embedding corporations within public accountability structures. On the other hand, by legitimising businesses as peace actors, the B4P framework risks institutionalising asymmetrical encounters between firms and people affected by their operations. We deploy the term ‘asymmetrical governance’ to explain how the amalgamation of global and national, public and private into the operational presence of corporations skews the balance of power in their encounters with local populations.

Dayton +20: beyond ‘lessons learned’

More than twenty years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains a prominent case for peacebuilding in other divided societies. Scholars and policy-makers alike refer to the diverse lessons learned from the Bosnian case. For some, Bosnia’s political arrangement offers a cautionary example of how ethnic differences can become entrenched once they are institutionalised. For others, the top-down nature of peacebuilding strategies has resulted in a peace process that is disconnected from the lives of ordinary Bosnian citizens. The special issue offers a critical, multilevel approach to local, regional and international aspects of peacebuilding that provides a rather sobering picture of the limits and potential for further peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As such, in addition to several important insights about the role of elites, political arrangements and strategies of transitional justice, the articles in this issue highlight the need for further scholarly inclusions of ordinary Bosnians and their experiences in building peace. At the same time, several of the articles also go beyond the Bosnian and Western Balkan context to highlight how dominant liberal peacebuilding approaches have led to similar outcomes in diverse contexts. In other words, the issue interweaves several strands of research to bring forward a rich discussion of Dayton’s legacy that examines its impact on local and regional levels but also situates it within a broader global peacebuilding approach.

The International Order of Liberal Humanitarian Intervention

Governing Disorder: UN Peace Operations, International Security, and Democratization in the Post-Cold War Era. By Laura Zanotti. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011. 180 pp., $59.95 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-271-03761-5). Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Who Should Intervene? By James Pattison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 284 pp., $45.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-19-956104-9). Insurrection and Intervention: The Two Faces of Sovereignty. By Ned Dobos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 236 pp., $85.00 Hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-521-76113-0). A number of recent contributions to the academic literature on contemporary forms of international intervention have sought to outline the distinctive features of what has been termed the “international humanitarian order” (Barnett 2010), the “global peacebuilding, and state-building industry” (Richmond and Franks 2009), or simply “the liberal peace” (MacGinty 2011). These terms attempt to capture the common elements bringing together disparate international efforts involving peacekeeping, state-building, peacebuilding, international policing, and humanitarianism. At the same time, they endeavor to situate such efforts within an analysis of changing patterns of international order and rule. Importantly, they encourage us to consider that, while the political economy of militarism and war continues to vastly outweigh that of international peacemaking efforts, the gap, and more importantly the conceptual distinction between the two, may not be as sharp as traditional approaches to the study of International Relations (IR) would lead us to believe. This is particularly the case when one allows for some portion of the trillions that have been spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to count toward international efforts at state-building and peacebuilding. But even when these cases are excluded from the ledger of interventions with true humanitarian intentions—as the authors under review have done for the most part—the lines between the tools of war and those of peace, as well as the related distinction between international assistance in the fields of security and development, are increasingly blurred. To put it bluntly, the “international humanitarian order,” to use Barnett's terminology, has become big business and with it has emerged a global governance assemblage of state, intergovernmental, non-governmental, academic, civil society, and for-profit actors. Attendant to this assemblage has been a knowledge and report writing industry that draws together a disparate array of research institutes, training centers, not-for-profit, and for-profit research and consultancy …

When Words Matter Most: Stories of Values-Driven Leadership in Critical Context

A senior leader’s values, reflected in everyday words and actions, are brought into sharp focus and often put to the test during critical moments. Understanding the values that underlie leadership is critical to both management consultants and OD practitioners as they work to understand and implement change. Unfortunately, there are many examples today of leadership gone wrong and few examples of leaders who lead with their values to create an organizational culture that optimizes financial performance, ethical practice, social contribution, and environmental impact. To help address this gap, our panelists offer examples of values-driven leadership in three critical contexts: global peacebuilding, healthcare management, and crisis management. As scholar-practitioners, all presenters bring keen insights from the front and help us understand practically and theoretically: how leaders hold on to and communicate their values; how they draw on the power of words to mobilize organizational and global change; and how they use social media in the sensemaking process during crisis.

In love with a lie? On the social and political preconditions for global peacebuilding governance

Revisionist responses to the fallacies of liberal peacebuilding presuppose a commitment to the objective of building self-sustainable peace in war-torn countries. If this cosmopolitan commitment is nothing but an alternating motive of states for self-serving agendas, then the revisionists are in love with a lie, tragically confined to the graveyard of idealistic peace proposals. In this essay, the strategic and structural underpinnings of global peacebuilding governance are therefore explored, interpreting the empirical literature on recent operations through the social theoretical perspective of Anthony Giddens. It is argued that while the revisionist debate fails to recognise the subjective and self-serving preconditions for international peacebuilding, a certain strand of the revisionist literature is well attuned to these. Indicating what it would mean to turn the lie of liberal peacebuilding into more realistic and legitimate peacebuilding strategies, this strand also serves as a source of inspiration for revisiting broader debates on the law and ethics of global governance.

Wangari Maathai's Emplaced Rhetoric: Greening Global Peacebuilding

This article offers new insights into how Wangari Maathai's rhetoric of emplacement may be productively understood as a growing form of postcolonial communication, which is amenable to criticism and theory-building in rhetorical studies. Maathai's emplaced rhetoric (ER) addressed postcolonial oppressions while emphasizing peacebuilding. ER is a form of postcolonial symbolic and discursive message-making found in a variety of communication contexts, often political, intercultural, and international exchanges about the environment. Prevailing literature on environmental communication features rhetorics that relate to colonial caused inequities, but little has been discussed in terms of connecting peacebuilding rhetoric of African women's leadership to environmental sustainability. ER functions as a heuristic move to restore agency, interconnection and wholeness of sentient beings and ecosystems within the postcolonial context; it is the peacebuilder's transcendence over dominant discourses that normalize displacement and fragmentation. This rhetorical analysis of recent texts of Maathai as a major peacebuilder in environmental and social justice activism serves as an antidote to the gap in contemporary criticism of postcolonial and environmental confluences in communication.

The emerging EU peacebuilding framework: confirming or transcending liberal peacebuilding?

The European Union (EU) is now emerging as a major actor in regional and global peacebuilding. Yet its peacebuilding approach and practices are subject to some significant and familiar contradictions. In this article, we identify the basis for what may become an ‘EU peacebuilding framework’ (EUPF), and argue that, while it aspires to a ‘just and durable peace’ including practical tools and a normative framework, these need to be set in critical relief. The EU's nascent approach to building peace is compared and contrasted with the evolving liberal peacebuilding consensus and the much criticized statebuilding project which has recently emerged. This is evaluated against recent research focusing on developing a more sophisticated form of contextually relevant peacebuilding. Finally, we assess how the embryonic EUPF might contribute to the development of a just and durable peace, and ask what sorts of issues and dimensions this raises.

Sociology of Sports Mega Events: Sports Diplomacy and FIFA World Cup; ‘Global Peace Building Initiative’

Sociology of Sports Mega Events: Sports Diplomacy and FIFA World Cup; ‘Global Peace Building Initiative’

The International Community and Peacebuilding

Jenny Pearce enters a plea to learn some of the lessons from the vast amount of resources, human and capital, in peace building. She identifies some of the key lessons emerging from peacebuilding thinking and practice over the last decade. She looks at the three ‘levels’ in which the global peacebuilding project has been developed: the ‘international community’, the ‘nation state’ and ‘civil society’ and proposes the ground rules for future sustainability which prioritizes people, rejects violence and establishes a global economy for peace.