"Building Peace is John Paul Lederach's definitive statement on peacebuilding. Lederach explains why we need to move beyond "traditional" diplomacy, which often emphasizes top-level leaders and short-term objectives, toward a holistic approach that stresses the multiplicity of peacemakers, long-term perspectives, and the need to create an infrastructure that empowers resources within a society and maximizes contributions from outside."

Through a comparative analysis of six case studies, this volume illustrates key conflict-resolution techniques for peacebuilding. Outside parties learn how to facilitate cooperation by engaging local leaders in intensive, interactive workshops. These opposing leaders reside in small, ethnically divided countries, including Burundi, Cyprus, Estonia, Guyana, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan, that have experienced communal conflicts in recent years. In Estonia and Guyana, peacebuilding initiatives sought to ward off violence. In Burundi and Sri Lanka, initiatives focused on ending ongoing hostilities, and in Cyprus and Tajikistan, these efforts brought peace to the country after its violence had ended. The contributors follow a systematic assessment framework, including a common set of questions for interviewing participants to prepare comparable results from a set of diverse cases. Their findings weigh the successes and failures of this particular approach to conflict resolution and draw conclusions about the conditions under which such interactive approaches work, as well as assess the audience and the methodologies used. This work features research conducted in conjunction with the Working Group on Preventing and Rebuilding Failed States, convened by the Wilson Center's Project on Leadership and Building State Capacity.

Documents and analyzes the vast array of peace initiatives that have emerged in Colombia. This title explores how local and regional initiatives relate to national efforts and identifies possible synergies. It examines the multiple roles of civil society and the international community in the country's complex search for peace.

Now, 25 years after the end of the Cold War, the global peace order is going through renewed geopolitical changes that are less dramatic than those in 1989 but probably equally important. The post-Cold War Western dominance of global affairs and the singular US superpower status are eroding, making room for a more diffuse multi-polar world with many different global and regional players. Post-Cold War hopes that the winning political system of liberal democracy would spread around the world and bring global peace have turned out an illusion. To the contrary, Western efforts and military interventions to promote liberal democracy have increasingly resulted in the destabilization of countries and whole regions. At the same time, intra-state armed conflicts have, probably for the first time in human history, replaced inter-state wars as the main threats to global peace and security. This has created a completely new global threat scenario. Now, weak and corrupt governments are challenged by powerful belligerent non-state actors, be they Islamic extremist groups, other ideologically-motivated groups, separatist movements, or even transnational crime syndicates. Globalization has turned these local intra-state armed conflicts into international security concerns.

So we'd all like a more peaceful world—no wars, no poverty, no more racism, no community disputes, no office tensions, no marital skirmishes. Lisa Schirch sets forth paths to such realities. In fact, she points a way to more than the absence of conflict. She foresees justpeace—a sustainable state of affairs because it is a peace which insists on justice. Schirch singles out four critical actions that must be undertaken if peace is to take root at any level) — 1.) waging conflict nonviolently; 2.) reducing direct violence; 3.) transforming relationships; and 4.) building capacity. From Schirch's 15 years of experience as a peacebuilding consultant in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. A title in The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding Series.

At turns surprising, funny, and gut-wrenching, this is the hopeful story of the ordinary yet extraordinary people who have figured out how to build lasting peace in their communities The word "peacebuilding" evokes a story we've all heard over and over: violence breaks out, foreign nations are scandalized, peacekeepers and million-dollar donors come rushing in, warring parties sign a peace agreement and, sadly, within months the situation is back to where it started--sometimes worse. But what strategies have worked to build lasting peace in conflict zones, particularly for ordinary citizens on the ground? And why should other ordinary citizens, thousands of miles away, care? In The Frontlines of Peace, Séverine Autesserre, award-winning researcher and peacebuilder, examines the well-intentioned but inherently flawed peace industry. With examples drawn from across the globe, she reveals that peace can grow in the most unlikely circumstances. Contrary to what most politicians preach, building peace doesn't require billions in aid or massive international interventions. Real, lasting peace requires giving power to local citizens. Now including teaching and book club discussion guides, The Frontlines of Peace tells the stories of the ordinary yet extraordinary individuals and organizations that are confronting violence in their communities effectively. One thing is clear: successful examples of peacebuilding around the world, in countries at war or at peace, have involved innovative grassroots initiatives led by local people, at times supported by foreigners, often employing methods shunned by the international elite. By narrating success stories of this kind, Autesserre shows the radical changes we must take in our approach if we hope to build lasting peace around us--whether we live in Congo, the United States, or elsewhere.

"John Paul Lederach's work in the field of conciliation and mediation is internationally recognized. He has provided consultation, training and direct mediation in a range of situations from the Miskito/Sandinista conflict in Nicaragua to Somalia, Northern Ireland, Tajikistan, and the Philippines. His influential 1997 book Building Peace has become a classic in the discipline. In this book, Lederach poses the question, "How do we transcend the cycles of violence that bewitch our human community while still living in them?" Peacebuilding, in his view, is both a learned skill and an art. Finding this art, he says, requires a worldview shift. Conflict professionals must envision their work as a creative act-an exercise of what Lederach terms the "moral imagination." This imagination must, however, emerge from and speak to the hard realities of human affairs. The peacebuilder must have one foot in what is and one foot beyond what exists. The book is organized around four guiding stories that point to the moral imagination but are incomplete. Lederach seeks to understand what happened in these individual cases and how they are relevant to large-scale change. His purpose is not to propose a grand new theory. Instead he wishes to stay close to the "messiness" of real processes and change, and to recognize the serendipitous nature of the discoveries and insights that emerge along the way. overwhelmed the equally important creative process. Like most professional peacemakers, Lederach sees his work as a religious vocation. Lederach meditates on his own calling and on the spirituality that moves ordinary people to reject violence and seek reconciliation. Drawing on his twenty-five years of experience in the field he explores the evolution of his understanding of peacebuilding and points the way toward the future of the art." http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0616/2004011794-d.html.

America may not be at war, but it is not at peace. Recent public and political rhetoric have revealed the escalation of a pervasive and dangerous “us versus them” ideology in the United States. This powerful book is motivated by the contributors’ recognition of continuing structural violence and injustice, which are linked to long-standing systems of racism, social marginalization, xenophobia, poverty, and inequality in all forms. Calls to restore America’s greatness are just the most recent iteration of dehumanizing language against minority communities. The violation of the civil and human rights of vulnerable groups presents a serious threat to American democracy. These deeply rooted and systemic inequities have no easy solutions, and the destructive nature of today’s conflicts in America threaten to impede efforts to build peace, promote justice, and inspire constructive social change. Acknowledging the complexity of building peace in the United States, this volume represents the first step in envisioning a more just, peaceful country—from the grassroots to the highest levels of leadership. The editors have brought together a diverse group of scholars, conflict resolution practitioners, civil society leaders, community peacebuilders, and faith leaders who are committed to pro-social change. Collectively, they examine how best to understand the current issues, deescalate destructive public rhetoric, undermine the “us versus them” polarity, and support those currently working for positive change. Together, the contributors share experiences and perspectives on the past, present, and future of peacebuilding; develop a vision for how we can collectively respond in our communities, campuses, and congregations; and catalyze action during this pivotal moment in America.

In this edited volume, experts on conflict resolution examine the impact of the crises triggered by the coronavirus and official responses to it. The pandemic has clearly exacerbated existing social and political conflicts, but, as the book argues, its longer-term effects open the door to both further conflict escalation and dramatic new opportunities for building peace. In a series of short essays combining social analysis with informed speculation, the contributors examine the impact of the coronavirus crisis on a wide variety of issues, including nationality, social class, race, gender, ethnicity, and religion. They conclude that the period of the pandemic may well constitute a historic turning point, since the overall impact of the crisis is to destabilize existing social and political systems. Not only does this systemic shakeup produce the possibility of more intense and violent conflicts, but also presents new opportunities for advancing the related causes of social justice and civic peace. This book will be of great interest to students of peace studies, conflict resolution, public policy and International Relations.

In the early 2000s, Liberian women wearing wrap skirts and white T-shirts, shouting: ‘We want peace, no more war’, attracted international attention. After almost fifteen years of civil war, the enduring active, multifaceted, and non-violent campaigning for peace by women’s organisations contributed to the end of the fighting and the signing of a peace agreement between the warring factions. Although it is widely assumed that women’s inclusion in peace processes yields greater attention to women’s issues and needs in the aftermath of a conflict, this is only partly the case in Liberia. Thus, this analysis looks beyond the extraordinary commitment by women in Liberia and deals with the questions to what extent their role in the peace process has contributed to gender-sensitive outcomes in post-conflict Liberian society and why greater gender sensitivity was not achieved. By focusing on manifestations of patterns of masculinity in the public and private spheres, Anne Theobald identifies factors at different levels of analysis within different time frames that elucidate the unexpected outcome. Not only does this provide for a more encompassing understanding of dynamics of gender relations and context-specific variables impeding gender sensitivity in post-conflict settings, but it also helps to refine prevailing theoretical approaches on gender in peacemaking and peacebuilding and to develop more holistic, context-specific, and efficient policy approaches, which can effectively lead to gender-sensitive peace.