Peacebuilding in Crisis

Tobias Debiel is Professor for International Relations and Development Policy, at the University of Duisburg-Essen, where he is the Director of the Institute for Development and Peace as well as Director of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation Research, Germany.

Written by leading experts, this volume brings together 'liberal' and 'post-liberal' approaches to peacebuilding. Besides challenging dominant peacebuilding paradigms, the book scrutinizes how far key concepts of post-liberal peacebuilding offer sound categories and new perspectives to reframe peacebuilding research. It thus moves beyond the 'liberal'-'post-liberal' divide and systematically integrates further perspectives (democratization research and political economy, conflict resolution, gender, comparative studies), paving the way for a new era in peacebuilding research which is theory-guided, but also substantiated in the empirical analysis of peacebuilding practices.

1. Peacebuilding in Crisis? Debating peacebuilding paradigms and practices Part 1 Reflecting Peacebuilding Paradigms 2. Peacebuilding and Paternalism 3. The Future of Peacebuilding 4. Relational Peacebuilding: Promise beyond crisis Part 2 Revisiting Peacebuilding Practices 5. Peacebuilding and Democracy Promotion: What current challenges to the latter might tell us for rethinking the former 6. Adapted instead of Imported: Peacebuilding by power-sharing 7. Transitional Justice and Reconciliation in Research and Practice: Achievements and shortcomings 8. Truth Commissions, Human Rights and Gender: Normative changes in transitional moments 9. Reforming the Security Sector and Rule of Law: The hidden transcripts of local resistance 10. Corporate Peace: Crisis in economic peacebuilding Part 3 Rethinking Promises and Pitfalls of 'the Local' 11. What do we mean when we use the term 'local'? Imagining and framing the local and the international in relation to peace and order 12. Understanding the "local" in Peacebuilding: Conceptual discourses and empirical realities 13. False Promise: 'Local ownership' and the denial of self-government 14. Rethinking the Local in Peacebuilding: Moving away from the liberal/post-liberal divide