There is a growing consensus in the discipline of International Relations that the sovereign nation state, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, is a myth because of the several nations that can be found within one sovereign entity, made so by the Berlin conference of 1885 that partitioned Africa. Regardless of this consensus, international peacebuilding theory and practice is biased towards maintaining these sovereign arrangements that were created during the colonial periods by European colonizers. This bias is caused by several epistemic colonialities nested within a wider colonial matrix of power. Peacebuilding in Somalia presents an example of how these biases affect peace in a multiethnic, multiclan, and diverse society. / Mini Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Political Sciences / MA (Diplomatic Studies) / Unrestricted

Yes / The growing international interest in peacebuilding as a concept and programme area requires a criticalunderstanding if its implementation on the ground. This audit aims to explore the definitions and applicationsof peacebuilding employed by local and international NGOs in Kosovo today.

Yes / Peacebuilding, as a remedy for all the ailments afflicting any society emerging from war, has placed this complex and overloaded concept at the centre of a growing network of actors engaged in its formulation and implementation. This paper critically examines the implications of a growing convergence in definitions and approaches amongst this `international post-war peacebuilding community'.

Yes

There is a growing interest in how to build sustainable peace in the world, preventing countries from relapsing into violent conflict. Recognising that there are several important peacebuilding actors, this Master thesis takes its point of departure in local civil society actors as a peacebuilding force. For this interpretative qualitative study, Colombia is used as the case of investigation. This is as a result of a renewed interest in the country due to the peace negotiations that were initiated between the Colombian government and the largest guerrilla group in the country, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in October 2012. Interviews with diverse civil society actors in Colombia were used as primary data, and in addition literary reviews of primary and secondary information have been added to the material. There are diverging views of what peacebuilding means, and one of the research objectives of this thesis is to draw from previous research to build a general framework for what peacebuilding wants to achieve, i.e., identify the international peacebuilding objectives. The second research objective is to compare the seven activities and functions of civil society in peacebuilding, as described by Paffenholz and Spurk in the Comprehensive framework for the analysis of civil society in peacebuilding, to see how the work of civil society in Colombia compares to the international peacebuilding objectives. The research shows that all seven activities and functions of civil society in peacebuilding: protection, monitoring, advocacy and public communication, in-group socialisation, social cohesion, facilitation/mediation, and service delivery, are performed by the interviewed civil society actors. When the activities and functions are compared to the international peacebuilding objectives, the research demonstrates that the peacebuilding activities carried out by civil society adds to the efforts performed by other actors to achieve stability and security, restore political and judicial institutions, address socio-economic dimensions and transform relations. Acknowledging the particular regional dynamics of the Colombian internal armed conflict and recognising the need for local ownership for peacebuilding to be successful, the conclusion drawn is that peacebuilding in Colombia has to be attained at the local, regional as well as national level. The polarisation and distrust between civil society and the state hinders a joint effort to build peace in Colombia, which further complicates the prospects for attaining sustainable peace in the country. Based on the understanding gained from the conducted research, this thesis affirms that peacebuilding must be adapted to the local realities and requires active participation from both government and civil society.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, / Includes bibliography.

no / The concern of this article is with the legacies that war economies and the discourses surrounding war economies leave for peacebuilding after conflict. In particular, it will be suggested that the concentration on certain pariah actors and certain goods serves to obscure both the breadth of actors and the underlying structures that drive war economies.

No / One of the features of the post-Cold War era has been a remarkable growth in academic and policy attention devoted to the role played by economic actors and economic agendas in the inception and perpetuation of civil conflicts as well as in shaping the prospects for postconflict peacebuilding. This has incorporated a large and diverse range of themes ranging from the trading of specific conflict goods, the conflict dynamics resulting from the interaction of greed, feasibility, and grievance factors at the local level, the broader economic and governance challenges arising from what has been labelled the ‘resource curse’, and the even broader challenges produced by the interaction of local, regional, and global economic structures.

Yes

Yes