During ten days in July 2008, around fifty students and a dozen professors from twelve different European universities met at the University of Coimbra for the Fifth Intensive Seminar of the European Doctorate Enhancement Programme on Peace and Conflict (EDEN) and discussed the new dimensions of peace and security studies. Their contributions reflect the research agendas of a new generation, who continue to address enduring themes in peace and conflict studies, but whose formative influences are those of a complex post Cold War world.
This book presents new theoretical and conceptual perspectives on the problematique of building just and durable peace. Linking peace and justice has sparked lively debates about the dilemmas and trade-offs in several contemporary peace processes. Despite the fact that justice and peace are commonly referred to there is surprisingly little research and few conceptualizations of the interplay between the two. This edited volume is the result of three years of collaborative research and draws upon insights from such disciplines as peace and conflict, international law, political science and international relations. It contains policy-relevant knowledge about effective peacebuilding strategies, as well as an in-depth analysis of the contemporary peace processes in the Middle East and the Western Balkans. Using a variety of theoretical perspectives and empirical approaches, the work makes an original contribution to the growing literature on peacebuilding. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, peace and conflict studies, Middle Eastern Politics, European Politics and IR/Security Studies.
Written by international practitioners and scholars, this pioneering work offers important insights into peace mediation practice today and the role of third parties in the resolution of armed conflicts. The authors reveal how peace mediation has developed into a complex arena and how multifaceted assistance has become an indispensable part of it. Offering unique reflections on the new frameworks set out by the UN, they look at the challenges and opportunities of third-party involvement. With its policy focus and real-world examples from across the globe, this is essential reading for researchers of peace and conflict studies, and a go-to reference point for advisors involved in peace processes.
Long considered a subfield of international relations and political science, Peace Studies has solidified its place as an interdisciplinary field in its own right with a canon, degree programs, journals, conferences, and courses taught on the subject. Internationally renowned centers offering programs on Peace and Conflict Studies can be found on every continent. Almost all of the scholars working in the field, however, are united by an aspiration: attaining Peace, whether “positive” or “negative.” The telos of peace, however, itself remains undefined and elusive, notwithstanding the violence committed in its name. This edited volume critically interrogates the field of peace studies, considering its assumptions, teleologies, canons, influence, enmeshments with power structures, biases, and normative ends. We highlight four interrelated tendencies in peace studies: hypostasis (strong essentializing tendencies), teleology (its imagined “end”), normativity (the set of often utopian and Eurocentric discourses that guide it), and enterprise (the attempt to undertake large projects, often ones of social engineering to attain this end). The chapters in this volume reveal these tendencies while offering new paths to escape them. Visit http://www.rethinkingpeacestudies.com/ for further details on the Rethinking Peace Studies project.
This book presents a critical analysis of the liberal peace project and offers possible alternatives and models. In the past decade, the model used for reconstructing societies after conflicts has been based on liberal assumptions about the pacifiying effects of 'open markets' and 'open societies'. Yet, despite the vast resources invested in helping establish the precepts of this liberal peace, outcomes have left much to be desired. The book argues that failures in the liberal peace project are not only due to efficiency problems related to its adaptation in adverse local environments, but mostly due to problems of legitimacy of turning an ideal into a doctrine for action. The aim of the book is to scrutinize assumptions about the value of democratization and marketization and realities on the ground by combining theoretical discussions with empirical evidence from key post-conflict settings such as Iraq and Afghanistan. These show the disparities that exist between the ideals and the reality of the liberal peace project, as seen by external peacebuilders and domestic actors. The book then proposes various alternatives and modifications to better accommodate local perspectives, values and agency in attempts to forge a new consensus. This book will be of great interest to students of peacebuilding/peacekeeping, statebuilding, war and conflict studies, international security and IR.
How can the United States craft a sustainable national security strategy in a world of shifting threats, sharp resource constraints, and a changing balance of power? This volume brings together research on this question from political science, history, and political economy, aiming to inform both future scholarship and strategic decision-making.
This book presents a critical analysis of the liberal peace project and offers possible alternatives and models. In the past decade, the model used for reconstructing societies after conflicts has been based on liberal assumptions about the pacifiying effects of 'open markets' and 'open societies'. Yet, despite the vast resources invested in helping establish the precepts of this liberal peace, outcomes have left much to be desired. The book argues that failures in the liberal peace project are not only due to efficiency problems related to its adaptation in adverse local environments, but mostly due to problems of legitimacy of turning an ideal into a doctrine for action. The aim of the book is to scrutinize assumptions about the value of democratization and marketization and realities on the ground by combining theoretical discussions with empirical evidence from key post-conflict settings such as Iraq and Afghanistan. These show the disparities that exist between the ideals and the reality of the liberal peace project, as seen by external peacebuilders and domestic actors. The book then proposes various alternatives and modifications to better accommodate local perspectives, values and agency in attempts to forge a new consensus. This book will be of great interest to students of peacebuilding/peacekeeping, statebuilding, war and conflict studies, international security and IR.
This collection of essays questions the adequacy of explaining today's internal armed conflicts purely in terms of economic factors and re-establishes the importance of identity and grievances in creating and sustaining such wars. Countries studied include Lebanon, Angola, Colombia and Afghanistan.
Is global climate change likely to become a significant source of violent conflict, and should it therefore be seen as a national security challenge? Most Northern governments, militaries, think tanks and NGOs believe so, as do many academic researchers, on the grounds that increased temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and rising sea levels will worsen existing social stresses, especially within poor societies and marginal communities across Africa and Asia. This book argues otherwise. The first collection of its kind, it brings together leading scholars of Anthropology, Geography, Development Studies and International Relations to provide a series of critical analyses of mainstream thinking on the climate-security nexus. It shows how policy discourse on climate conflict consistently misrepresents the causes of violence, especially by obscuring its core political dimensions. It demonstrates that quantitative research provides a flawed basis for understanding climate-conflict linkages. It argues that climate security discourse is in hoc with a range of questionable military, authoritarian and developmental agendas. And it reveals that the greening of global capitalism is already having violent consequences across the global South. Climate change, the book argues, does indeed have serious conflict and security implications – but these are quite different from how they are usually imagined. This book was published as a special issue of Geopolitics.
