The main purpose of this research was to understand the civil war in Sierra Leone and its antecedents, and to analyse the package of reconstruction reforms which came along in the post-war era and their relevance for and impact on the local challenges for longer term peace. Continued corruption among the political class, the persistent disenfranchisement of important social groups, and emerging tensions along political party lines suggested that, ten years on from the Lomé Peace Accord, there may have been a malaise in the peacebuilding plan. To investigate the complex issues, and to support the hypothesis that the model for reconstruction was not best suited to local conditions and local priorities, the work first made a deep interrogation of the historic political, cultural and economic factors which led to the violent conflict. This scrutiny of the local experience allowed the conceptualisation of a germane ¿framework for peace` which represented the most pressing priorities of the local community and the central challenges for peace. The framework reflected the main concerns of the local populace and was used as an analytical tool to better understand the relevance of the model for reconstruction vis-à-vis the local context. Through a critical analysis of the post-war reforms and their impact on the social dimensions of recovery, in particular macro-economic reforms and the promotion of democracy, conclusions were drawn about the appropriateness and efficacy of the model of reconstruction experienced in Sierra Leone and how it supported local priorities for peace. The enquiry found that, in general, the model for reconstruction was not best suited to the local context because of its inflexibility to support the local peacebuilding and its many challenges. In some ways the model for reconstruction heightened residual tensions from the conflict because it failed to address key issues for reform such as governance and social justice. / Economic and Social Research Council

The purpose of this research project is to examine the role of conflict resolution in training programmes for military peacekeepers. It offers a significant contribution to the conflict resolution literature by providing contemporary analysis of where further manifestations exist of the links between military peacekeeping and the academic study of conflict resolution. The thesis firstly provides a thorough analysis of where conflict resolution scholars have sought to critique and influence peacekeeping. This is mirrored by a survey of policy stemming from the United Nations (UN) in the period 1999-2010. The thesis then undertakes a survey of the role of civil-military cooperation: an area where there is obvious crossover between military peacekeeping and conflict resolution terminology. This is achieved firstly through an analysis of practitioner reports and academic research into the subject area, and secondly through a fieldwork analysis of training programmes at the UN Training School Ireland, and Royal Military Training Academy 4 Sandhurst (RMAS). The thesis goes on to provide a comprehensive examination of the role of negotiation for military peacekeepers. This examination incorporates a historical overview of negotiation in the British Army, a sampling of peacekeeping literature, and finally fieldwork observations of negotiation at RMAS. The thesis discusses how this has impacted significantly on conceptions of military peacekeepers from both the military and conflict resolution fields. The thesis adds considerably to contemporary debates over cosmopolitan forms of conflict resolution. Firstly it outlines where cosmopolitan ethics are entering into military training programmes, and how the emergence of institutionalised approaches in the UN to ¿human security¿ and peacebuilding facilitate this. Secondly, the thesis uses Woodhouse and Ramsbotham¿s framework to link the emergence of cosmopolitan values in training programmes to wider structural changes at a global level.

The question of what agenda drives NGO peacebuilding in post-conflict setting has been raised in a number of literatures which make generalized conclusions that NGOs tend to respond to the liberal peace agenda, and in the process co-opt local peacebuilding initiatives. Liberal peace agenda refers to the post-conflict peacebuilding approach based on the promotion of democracy, economic liberalization, human rights and the rule of law. As such, NGOs are seen as privatizing peacebuilding, marginalizing local initiatives and applying unsustainable approaches to peacebuilding in post-conflict contexts. Provoked by these assertions, I conducted field research in northern Uganda, which up to 2006 had experienced 22 years of conflict between the Lord¿s Resistance Army (LRA) and Government of Uganda (GOU). I contend in my findings that while to some extent the generalized observations made by liberal peace critics are true, they fail to fully engage with the micro aspects of post-conflict peacebuilding. The macro-analytic assertions of the liberal peace critics ignore the plurality of the NGO peacebuilding practice, the diverse internal organizational culture, and the complexities and diversities of the contextual dynamics of post-conflict settings. My research was based on a micro level analysis and demonstrated that the peacebuilding process in northern Uganda was interactive, and, as such, engendered diverse encounters of sense-making, relationship building and co-construction of peacebuilding discourse and practice between NGOs, donors and local community. The study shows that peacebuilding was essentially relational and developed through a process of relational constructionism, which denotes social processes of reality construction based on relational encounters.

Efforts to control small arms and light weapons (SALW) in the periods following violent conflict can have positive or negative impacts on peacebuilding efforts. Similarly, peacebuilding activities can both support or endanger efforts to place SALW under greater control. Despite the regular occurrence of SALW control and peacebuilding activities in the same time and space in post violent conflict contexts, there is insignificant analysis of how the two sets of activities interrelate, and how these interelationships can be strengthened to improve the contribution that SALW control efforts make to peacebuilding, and vice-versa. The effects of interrelationships over time (contingency); in the same geographic space (complementarity) and the effects of public perceptions and social construction are particularly important and provide a framework for establishing these interrelationships through analysing a wide universe of cases of SALW control attempted in countries emerging from violent conflict, five mini-cases studies and a major analysis of interrelationships in Kosovo.

This thesis explores the roles of women of faith in peacebuilding in the conflict between the Gusii and Maasai of South-western Kenya. While religion has at times legitimated women’s exclusion and predominantly created male religious elite figures in peacebuilding, I demonstrate how women of faith deploy religious resources for peace. Acting within complex unequal gendered socio-cultural conditions and positions, the women of faith deploy religious faith as an identity, motivation, and legitimating moral authority and voice in peacebuilding. Gendered barriers hinder them from finding status and a place in formal peacebuilding mechanisms alongside males, but still the women of faith struggle and develop an attitude and disposition of moral influence, and faith power that facilitates them to act as agents in peacebuilding. The women of faith deploy religious resources in mourning and burial rituals of healing and reconciliation, in everyday spiritual practices of sharing lives, and through services that provide security and protection especially for children, the elderly, the injured and the infirm. Religion enables women to establish protective infrastructure through women of faith networks and organizations that provide services to the community, mobilize human capital, and conduct outreach and community engagement. I show that even as the women of faith deploy these religious resources for peacebuilding, they recognize the gendered barriers they are faced with and the public peacebuilding mechanisms that they are excluded from. Deployment of religious resources for peacebuilding intersects with gender identities and relations, and in some instances religious faith transcends established gender norms and gendered barriers or even removes them.

The disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants constitutes one of the most crucial activities in a post-conflict peacebuilding context with important effects upon the wider transitional process from war to peace. The efficient implementation of DDR programmes can reassure belligerent parties of the possibility of a permanent cessation of hostilities, as they are often the most visible element of the peace agreement. Moreover, a well-planned and flexible reintegration process can also promote the viability of long-term peace locally, nationally and internationally.1 Since the end of the Cold War, DDR initiatives have been undertaken in more than 25 war-to-peace transition contexts: Afghanistan, Aceh, Angola, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), El Salvador, Eritrea, East Timor, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Liberia, Mindanao, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tajikistan and Uganda. In 2007, over 1,129,000 combatants were taking part in DDR programmes in 20 countries at an estimated cost of US$ 2 billion; one estimate suggests that it worked out to be around US$1,686 per ex-combatant. Some 2/3 of former combatants were from African countries; 42% were members of the armed forces and 58% belonged to armed militias, guerrilla groups and paramilitary groups. Of this statistic, nearly 10% were child soldiers.

This working paper explores reinsertion and reintegration processes and how these connect (or are expected to connect) with donor-led strategies for post-conflict reconstruction and long-term development. DDR has long been recognised as essential for post-conflict stability, but in the 2000s, there has been emphasis on enhancing the linkages between short-term, time-bound DDR process and long-term reconstruction and development programmes and processes in post-conflict states. The importance of situating reintegration into the wider context of long-term development has been stressed by the UN, whose best practice guidelines emphasise that reintegration should: 'support a broader national strategic plan for reconciliation, reconstruction and development.' This does not suggest a restructuring of DDR activities, which aim to establish an environment conducive to long-term economic development rather than fostering long-term development, but a bridging of short- and long-term agendas.

This research develops a new concept for people-to-people contacts, formulates a theoretical model to assess the impact of people-to-people contacts on peacebuilding, and draws theoretical modifications and explanations in the model on the basis of its empirical application on India-Pakistan conflict and Northern Ireland conflict. The new concept of interactive people-to-people contacts (IPPC) is developed and it is differentiated from the similar concepts in peace theory. Then ontological and epistemological foundations of IPPC are determined and the roots of IPPC in peace and conflict theories are traced. To empirically assess the role played by IPPC in building peace, the web approach model is developed from Lederach’s “pyramid” of peacebuilding as formulated in Building Peace (1997) and later improved in The Moral Imagination (2005). The web approach model is applied on Northern Ireland conflict to empirically test the web approach model and make improvements in the model learning from the practice of IPPC in Northern Ireland conflcit. Then web approach model is applied on two selected case studies of PIPFPD and Aman ki Asha to empirically asses the role played by IPPC in building peace between India and Pakistan. The web approach model is used to determine the stage/frame of the web process where IPPC based peacebuilding have reached so far in India-Pakistan conflict. Moreover, theoretical modifications in web approach model are drawn learning from the selected case studies and an attempt is made to find out a way forward for IPPC based peacebuilding in India-Pakistan conflict. / Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in UK

The dominant liberal peacebuilding critiques tends to focus on ‘states’ and the failure of interventions in rebuilding them. Consequently, a standardised critique has emerged largely because the critics apply a broad brush across a diverse range of contexts, programmes, issues and activities as illustrated by the lack of scrutiny on mine action and emerging contexts such as Somaliland. The liberal peacebuilding critics critique the standardised ‘one size fits all approach’ employed by interveners, yet they take the same approach. I therefore argue for the need to broaden the critique to include other elements and contexts of peacebuilding. I demonstrate that as an intervention mine action has intrinsic peacebuilding potential. However, the way mine action is implemented both globally and in Somaliland reflects the same dominant characteristics of the liberal peacebuilding critique i.e.; it is externally led; uses technical and standardised formulaic approaches; disregards local context thus failing to secure local ownership. Attributes that the critics argue have led to the failure and/or limited success of peacebuilding interventions. I therefore contend with the critics and demonstrate how these attributes have contributed to the challenges of implementing mine action activities thereby limiting mine actions ‘peace-ability’ potential in Somaliland. However, beyond the implementation modalities there are other factors that further contribute to limiting this potential; these include the Sector Actors; the Somaliland context i.e. the historical and political context, and the perception of Somaliland people. Thus in conclusion I argue for a nuanced critique that acknowledges the challenging realities of implementing programmes in challenging post conflict environments.

Yes / In human societies there will always be differences of views and interests. But the reality today is that we are all interdependent and have to coexist on this small planet. Therefore, the only sensible and intelligent way of resolving differences and clashes of interests, whether between individuals or nations, is through dialogue. The promotion of a culture of dialogue and nonviolence for the future of mankind is thus an important task of the international community. (His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in a speech to the “Forum 2000″ Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, September 4, 1997)