Civil society plays an increasingly powerful role in the global landscape, emerging as key actors in preventing and managing conflict, and building more peaceful and sustainable societies . The multiple case studies featured in this volume illustrate the growth of civil society involvement in national, regional, and international peacebuilding policy. The focus is on multi-stakeholder, systems-based approaches to peacebuilding and human security that involve diverse civil society groups (NGOs, religious organizations, media, etc.), government agencies, intergovernmental organizations, and security forces. This unique comprehensive approach encompasses diverse stakeholders seeking to understand the drivers of conflict and the possibilities for working together to build peace. The book illustrates how the involvement of civil society can result in better informed, more inclusive, more accountable government decision making, and more effective peacebuilding policies. Importantly, a number of the case studies provide a gender perspective on peacebuilding and civil society issues, voicing and giving attention to women’s perspectives without being focused only on gender issues. Further, authors from the Global South offer the perspectives of those directly immersed in ongoing struggles for justice and peace.

This Handbook offers a comprehensive examination of the peace, security, and development nexus from a global perspective, and investigates the interfaces of these issues in a context characterised by many new challenges. By bringing together more than 40 leading experts and commentators from across the world, the Handbook maps the various research agendas related to these three themes, taking stock of existing work and debates, while outlining areas for further engagement. In doing so, the chapters may serve as a primer for new researchers while also informing the wider scholarly community about the latest research trends and innovations. The volume is split into three thematic parts: Concepts and approaches New drivers of conflict, insecurity, and developmental challenges Actors, institutions, and processes. For ease of use and organisational consistency, each chapter provides readers with an overview of each research area, a review of the state of the literature, a summary of the major debates, and promising directions for future research. This Handbook will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, development studies, security studies, and International Relations.

An evidence-based analysis of governance focusing on the institutional capacities and qualities that reduce the risk of armed conflict.

The Routledge History of World Peace since 1750 examines the varied and multifaceted scholarship surrounding the topic of peace and engages in a fruitful dialogue about the global history of peace since 1750. Interdisciplinary in nature, the book includes contributions from authors working in fields as diverse as history, philosophy, literature, art, sociology, and Peace Studies. The book crosses the divide between historical inquiry and Peace Studies scholarship, with traditional aspects of peace promotion sitting alongside expansive analyses of peace through other lenses, including specific regional investigations of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and other parts of the world. Divided thematically into six parts that are loosely chronological in structure, the book offers a broad overview of peace issues such as peacebuilding, state building, and/or conflict resolution in individual countries or regions, and indicates the unique challenges of achieving peace from a range of perspectives. Global in scope and supported by regional and temporal case studies, the volume is an essential resource for educators, activists, and policymakers involved in promoting peace and curbing violence as well as students and scholars of Peace Studies, history, and their related fields.

Northern Ireland's Belfast Agreement has faced continual crises of implementation over a variety of security related issues. This book places the implementation of the Belfast Agreement in a wide context to provide an analysis of why implementation has been so difficult.

Since the end of the Cold War in the early ’90s, a multi-track approach to peacemaking has been developed by academics and practitioners to bring political and civil society leaders together from across the divide of contested societies to find ways out of the conflict. Much of the focus up to now has been given to the strategic contribution of Track II conflict analysis and problem-solving workshops. This book puts the spotlight on the role that grassroots leaders and citizens can play at Track III level in the community in building and strengthening a bottom-up approach to conflict transformation following protracted conflicts. In Part 1, the focus is on the post-conflict situation of Northern Ireland twenty years after the Belfast Good Friday Agreement. Part 2 portrays scholarly and practitioners’ perspectives and actions in communities and organizations designed to build partnerships in order to counteract the legacies of active protracted conflict. Plots the role of Track III approaches within a multi-track peacemaking pyramid in the protracted conflict and post-conflict phases of confl ict transformation. Provides case studies on how to engage community leaders in thinking together how to work with deep-seated legacies of protracted conflicts. Explores the contribution of bottom-up models to build intergroup partnerships within and between local communities. Focuses on the interface between research and practice.

“This is a must-read book for anyone searching for insight into the peace process of the divided Korean peninsula. As a peace researcher and activist, the author highlights the role of civil society in making peacebuilding possible and sustainable on the Korean peninsula. This volume opens a new horizon to the study of peace and conflict.” —Koo, Kab Woo, Professor, University of North Korean Studies “This book makes an enormous contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of peace and conflict on the Korean peninsula and expands our understanding of the requirements of sustainable peacebuilding. The emphasis on the role of civil society as part of an inclusive approach to strategic peacebuilding is especially helpful.”—Iain Atack, Assistant Professor in International Peace Studies, Trinity College Dublin “This expertly crafted book makes an original contribution to understanding peacebuilding theory and the critical role of civil society in strategic peacebuilding. It offers valuable lessons and hope for peaceful transformation of the Korean conflict as well as the negotiation of a sustainable peace in other protracted conflict settings.”—Wendy Lambourne, Senior Lecturer, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney The Post-Cold War era witnessed a dramatic rise in breakthroughs for peace processes, including the Korean peninsula, between parties mired in protracted conflict. However, many such processes broke down within a short period of time. This book explores the possibilities for comprehensive and sustainable peacebuilding strategy in the Korean peace process, beyond reaching an agreement, by reviewing diverse peacebuilding activities from government and civil society.

This book explores the meaning of peace according to (some of) the people who make it. Based on some 200 interviews, it empirically studies the visions of peace that professional peaceworkers from the Netherlands, Lebanon and Mindanao (Philippines) are working on. As such, it seeks to add a strong empirical element to the debate on liberal peacebuilding. The main argument of the book is that amongst practitioners, there is no liberal peace consensus at all. Rather, peace professionals work on a distinct set of peaces, that differ along four dimensions. In five case study chapters, the operational visions of peace held by Dutch military officers, diplomats and civil society peace workers, as well as civil society peace workers from Lebanon and the Philippines are explored and compared to each other. Differences are observed along both geographical and professional lines, but also within each group.

This book investigates the important role of local actors in Sierra Leone in helping to foster peace and provide for the needs of vulnerable populations following the end of the civil war. Despite severe economic, political, and in some cases security challenges, local civil society organizations in Sierra Leone have expanded rapidly over the last 20 years, incorporating their local knowledge and traditions into their work to cater to the needs of war- affected populations. However, the preference of international development donors for funneling resources and technical assistance through civil society groups at the expense of central government has also created some resentment and backlash. This book examines this intersection between civil society, donors, and government in Sierra Leone, considering both the relevance of civil society activities, and their limitations, and what this means ultimately for human security in the country. Highlighting the importance of African civil society actors as proactive agents of change, this book will be of interest to researchers and stakeholders across the fields of African peacebuilding, development, and conflict resolution.

This book explores how and why police reform became an international phenomenon in the era of statebuilding that followed the end of the Cold War. Police reform has become an indispensible element in the spread of liberal democracy. Policing is distinguished by its ability to combine reasonable and forcible methods to preserve and spread liberal values. The book examines the reason police reform was introduced as a method of building consensus in Latin America and the Balkans and documents the development of its use in Africa, the Middle East and the Caucasus region. It illustrates how police p.