At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict
Cambridge University Press, 7/22/2004
EAN 9780521541978, ISBN10: 0521541972
Paperback, 304 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
All fourteen major peacebuilding missions launched between 1989 and 1999 shared a common strategy for consolidating peace after internal conflicts: immediate democratization and marketization. Transforming war-shattered states into market democracies is basically sound, but pushing this process too quickly can have damaging and destabilizing effects. The process of liberalization is inherently tumultuous, and can undermine the prospects for stable peace. A more sensible approach to post-conflict peacebuilding would seek, first, to establish a system of domestic institutions that are capable of managing the destabilizing effects of democratization and marketization within peaceful bounds and only then phase in political and economic reforms slowly, as conditions warrant. Peacebuilders should establish the foundations of effective governmental institutions prior to launching wholesale liberalization programs. Avoiding the problems that marred many peacebuilding operations in the 1990s will require longer-lasting and, ultimately, more intrusive forms of intervention in the domestic affairs of these states. This book was first published in 2004.
Part I. Foundations
1. The origins of peacebuilding
2. The liberal peace thesis
Part II. The Peacebuilding Record
3. Introduction to the case studies
4. Angola and Rwanda
the perils of political liberalization
5. Cambodia and Liberia
democracy diverted
6. Bosnia and Croatia
reinforcing ethnic divisions
7. El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala
reproducing the sources of conflict
8. Namibia and Mozambique
success stories in southern Africa?
Part III. Problems and Solutions
9. Bad theory, bad practice
the limits of Wilsonianism
10. Towards more effective peacebuilding
institutionalization before liberalization
11. Lessons learned and not learned
Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone, and beyond.
'At War's End is the state of the art treatment of the dilemmas of reconstruction and peacebuilding after war, intervention and civil conflict.' Michael Ignatieff, Director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University