Peacebuilding

This book is the first to chart the rise and fall of peacebuilding. Charting its beginnings, as an ad-hoc extension of peacekeeping responsibilities, and formalisation, as a UN-supported international project of building liberal states. Twenty years later, the grounding policy assumptions of peacebuilding - that democracy, the rule of law and free markets were a universal solution to conflict-prone states and societies - have been revealed as naïve at best, and at worst, hubristic and Eurocentric.

Here, Chandler traces the disillusionment with international peacebuilding, and the discursive shifts in the self-understanding of the peacebuilding project in policy and academic debate. He charts the transformation from peacebuilding as an international project based on universalist assumptions, to the understanding of peace as a necessarily indigenous process based on plural and non-linear understandings of difference. Is the end of peacebuilding necessarily a cause for celebration? Does this shift result in a realist resignation to the world as it appears? Is it necessary to “marry idealism with realism” – as E.H. Carr once argued - if we wish to keep open the possibilities for social change? This book seeks to answer these questions, making an invaluable reference both for students and practitioners of peacebuilding and for those interested in the broader shifts in the social and political grounding of policy-making today.

“For years, scholars and practitioners have sought to explain why so many international peacebuilding initiatives and programmes have not generated their intended effects, despite significant resources and attention. This masterful book recasts the questions … There is much to commend in this book. It poses a real challenge to peacebuilding practitioners, to scholars, and indeed to anyone who cares about violence and inequality. … Chandler packs a lot of punches in a short, readable, lively book.” (Devon E.A. Curtis, South African Journal of International Affairs, May, 2018) “Who needs Trump? As David Chandler shows in this book, critical peacebuilders began to lose faith in a liberal international order long before Donald Trump won the White House. Read this book if you want to understand better the rise and fall of the liberal peace over the last twenty years, if you want to uncover the roots of our current impasse, and if you want glimpses of what our post-liberal international order may look like.” (Philip Cunliffe, Editor-in-Chief, International Peacekeeping, University of Kent)

“An impressive synthesis of the trajectory of peacebuilding over the past two decades. Chandler's sustained critique of peacebuilding philosophies and practices highlights the perils of good intentions in the absence of critical politics and analysis.” (Keith Krause, Director, Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva)

“For more than two decades, peacebuilder policymakers and scholars in the international community have considered at length the question “How do we build peace after war?”  The simple answer, as David Chandler’s masterful review of the evolution of peacebuilding ontology penetratingly demonstrates, is, “We can’t.”  In this incisive volume, Chandler shows exactly why this is the case and how peacebuilding – if it is to occur – is at the end of the day a primarily internal or endogenous process.  Policymakers and scholars will to well to shelve their off-the-shelf solutionist toolkits, logframes, and task matrices after reading this important book.” (Timothy D. Sisk, Professor of International and Comparative Politics, University of Denver)

David Chandler is Professor of International Relations, University of Westminster. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding and Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses and author or editor of around 20 books and many journal articles and book chapters in the area of peacebuilding and international intervention.