This book deals with the question how institutional reform can contribute to peacebuilding in post-war and divided societies. In the context of armed conflict and widespread violence, two important questions shape political agendas inside and outside the affected societies: How can we stop the violence? And how can we prevent its recurrence? Comprehensive negotiated war terminations and peace accords recommend a set of mechanisms to bring an end to war and establish peace, including institutional reforms that promote democratization and state building. Although the role of institutions is widely recognized, their specific effects are highly contested in research as well as in practice. This book highlights the necessity to include path-dependency, pre-conflict institutions and societal divisions to understand the patterns of institutional change in post-war societies and the ongoing risk of civil war recurrence. It focuses on the general question of how institutional reform contributes to the establishment of peace in post-war societies. This book comprises three separate but interrelated parts on the relation between institutions and societal divisions, on institutional reform and on security sector reform. The chapters contribute to the understanding of the relationship between societal cleavages, pre-conflict institutions, path dependency, and institutional reform. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, conflict resolution, development studies, security studies and IR.

Since gaining independence from colonial rule, most African countries have been struggling to build democratic and peaceful states. While African multiparty politics may be viewed as a democratic system of governance, in reality it is plagued by ethnic and regional political grievances that undermine meaningful democracy. By examining post-conflict institutional reforms in several African countries, this book sheds light on the common causes of violent conflicts and how institutional design can affect the conditions for peace and democracy in Africa. Focussing on conceptual and practical questions of designing ethnically and regionally inclusive state institutions and the way institutions are perceived by the citizenry Post-Conflict Institutional Design addresses political autonomy and control over resources, issues which are often key sources of ethnic and regional grievances. Crucially, it examines the meanings of institutional reforms as well ethnic and regional representation.

This book examines and compares the diverging security approaches of the UK, China and India in peacebuilding settings, with a specific focus on the case of Nepal. Rising powers such as China and India dissent from traditional templates of peacebuilding and apply their own methods to respond to security issues. This book fills a gap in the literature by examining how emerging actors (China and India) engage with security and development and how their approaches differ from those of a traditional actor (the UK). In the light of democratic peace and regional security complex theories, the book interprets interview data to compare and contrast the engagement of these three actors with post-war Nepal, and the implications for security sector governance and peacebuilding. It contends that the UK helped to peacefully manage transition but that the institutional changes were merely ceremonial. China and India, by contrast, were more effective in advancing mutual security agendas through elite-level interactions. However, the ‘hardware’ of security, for example material and infrastructure support, gained more consideration than the ‘software’ of security, such as meritocratic governance and institution building. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, development studies, Asian politics, security studies and International Relations in general.

International-Led Statebuilding and Local Resistance contributes theoretical and empirical insights to the existing knowledge on the scope, challenges and results of post-conflict international state- and institution-building project focusing on post-war Kosovo. Post-war Kosovo is one of the high-profile cases of international intervention, hosting a series of international missions besides a massive inflow of international aid, technical assistance and foreign experts. Theoretically, the book goes beyond the standard narrative of international top-down institution building by exploring how international and local factors interact, bringing in the mediating role of local resistance and highlighting the hybridity of institutional change. Empirically, the book tests those alternative explanations in key areas of institutional reform – municipal governance, public administration, normalization of relations with Serbia, high education, creation of armed forces, the security sector and the hold of Salafi ideologies. The findings speak to timely and pertinent issues regarding the limits of international promotion of effective institutions; the mediating role of local agents; and the hybrid forms of institution-building taking shape in post-conflict Kosovo and similar post-war contexts more broadly. Addressing challenges of state-building at the intersection of international interventions, local strategies of resistance, and the hybridity of institution-building experience with institutional reforms in Kosovo and in post-conflict contexts more broadly, International-Led Statebuilding and Local Resistance will be of great interest to scholars of international relations, state building and post-conflict societies. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

Violent conflicts today are complex and increasingly protracted, involving more nonstate groups and regional and international actors. It is estimated that by 2030—the horizon set by the international community for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals—more than half of the world’s poor will be living in countries affected by high levels of violence. Information and communication technology, population movements, and climate change are also creating shared risks that must be managed at both national and international levels. Pathways for Peace is a joint United Nations†“World Bank Group study that originates from the conviction that the international community’s attention must urgently be refocused on prevention. A scaled-up system for preventive action would save between US$5 billion and US$70 billion per year, which could be reinvested in reducing poverty and improving the well-being of populations. The study aims to improve the way in which domestic development processes interact with security, diplomacy, mediation, and other efforts to prevent conflicts from becoming violent. It stresses the importance of grievances related to exclusion—from access to power, natural resources, security and justice, for example—that are at the root of many violent conflicts today. Based on a review of cases in which prevention has been successful, the study makes recommendations for countries facing emerging risks of violent conflict as well as for the international community. Development policies and programs must be a core part of preventive efforts; when risks are high or building up, inclusive solutions through dialogue, adapted macroeconomic policies, institutional reform, and redistributive policies are required. Inclusion is key, and preventive action needs to adopt a more people-centered approach that includes mainstreaming citizen engagement. Enhancing the participation of women and youth in decision making is fundamental to sustaining peace, as well as long-term policies to address the aspirations of women and young people.

Countries emerging from armed conflict or authoritarian rule face difficult questions about what to do with public employees who perpetrated past human rights abuses and the institutional structures that allowed such abuses to happen. Justice as Prevention: Vetting Public Employees in Transitional Societies examines the transitional reform known as "vetting"-the process by which abusive or corrupt employees are excluded from public office. More than a means of punishing individuals, vetting represents an important transitional justice measure aimed at reforming institutions and preventing the recurrence of abuses. The book is the culmination of a multiyear project headed by the International Center for Transitional Justice that included human rights lawyers, experts on police and judicial reform, and scholars of transitional justice and reconciliation. It features case studies of Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, El Salvador, the former German Democratic Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, and South Africa, as well as chapters on due process, information management, and intersections between other institutional reforms.

Africa; Sierra Leone; Afghanistan; Bosnia-Herzegovina; Timor-Leste; Sri Lanka; Palestine; Israel; United Nations; Lebanon; Cambodia; Central America.

Security Sector Reform (SSR) remains a key feature of peacebuilding interventions and is usually undertaken by a state alongside national and international partners. External actors engaged in SSR tend to follow a normative agenda that often has little regard for the context in post-conflict societies. Despite recurrent criticism, SSR practices of international organisations and bilateral donors often remain focused on state institutions, and often do not sufficiently attend to alternative providers of security or existing normative frameworks of security. This edited collection explores three aspects that add an important piece to the puzzle of what constitutes effective Security Sector Reform (SSR). First, the variation of norm adoption, norm contestation and norm imposition in post-conflict countries that might explain the mixed results in terms of peacebuilding. Second, the multitude of different security actors within and beyond the state which often leads to multiple patterns of co-operation and contestation within reform programmes. Third, how both the multiplicity of and tension between norms and actors further complicate efforts to build peace or, as complexity theory would posit, influence the complex and non-linear social system that is the conflict-affected environment. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.

Demonstrates how post-conflict elites interact with international peacebuilding interventions to construct hybrid political orders over time. This title is also available as Open Access.

Since the 1990s, internationally-supported peacebuilding interventions have become increasingly prominent. Activities focusing on rule of law and security institutions are a key component of this agenda. Despite increasing calls for more rigorous analysis of the impact of peacebuilding interventions, conceptual advances have been limited. There is little clarity on what is working, what is not, and why. This SSR Paper seeks to address this gap by mapping relevant approaches and methodologies to measuring impact. It examines how international actors have approached these questions in relation to support to rule of law and security institutions in complex peacebuilding environments. Most significantly, the paper demonstrates that measuring impact is not only feasible but necessary in order to maximise the effectiveness of major international investments in this field.