Ebook: Peacebuilding as Politics: Cultivating Peace in Fragile Societies

Although the idea of postconflict peacebuilding appeared to hold great promise after the end of the Cold War, within a very few years the opportunities for peacebuilding seemed to pale beside the obstacles to it. This volume examines the successes and failures of large-scale interventions to build peace in El Salvador, Cambodia, Haiti, Somalia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The authors shed light on the unique conditions for and constraints on peacebuilding in each country and examine the quality and coherence of international responses. Arguing that the defining priority of peacebuilding initiatives should be the development of authoritative, legitimate political mechanisms to resolve internal conflicts without violence, they present "peacebuilding as politics" as an effective organizing principle for determining the best range, timing, and priorities of international action.