A project of the International Peace Institute

This groundbreaking book brings the insights of organization and public administration theories to the analysis and enhancement of complex peace operations. Focusing on three essential and interrelated aspects of organizations—coordination, learning, and leadership—the authors bridge the gap between research on UN peacekeeping and the realities confronted both in the office and in the field.

A comprehensive view of the UN Security Council’s internal dynamics, its role and relevance in world politics, and its performance in addressing today’s major security challenges.

Explores the many challenges involved in forging effective international responses to acts of genocide and mass atrocity.

The absorbing story of the UN peace mission in Guatemala’s ten-year effort (1994–2004) to build conditions that would sustain a lasting peace in the country.

Uniquely assesses five decades of UN peacekeeping efforts in Africa.

Realistically assesses the promise and shortcomings of integrated security-development policies as a strategy for conflict prevention.

How can legitimate and sustainable states best be established in the aftermath of civil wars? And what role should international actors play in supporting the vital process? Addressing these questions, the authors of Building States to Peace explore the core challenges involved in institutionalizing postconflict states. The combination of thematic chapters and in-depth case studies covers the full range of the most vexing and diverse problems confronting domestic and international actors seeking to build states while building peace.

A systematic investigation of the role, and performance, of rule of law programs in efforts to achieve security and development in conflict-ridden states.

The inside story of how the UN mission in Sierra Leone was transformed from an embarrassing failure into what is now widely considered one of the most successful peacekeeping missions in UN history.

Liberia's Civil War offers the most in-depth account available of one of the most baffling and intractable of Africa's conflicts. Adekeye Adebajo unravels the tangled web of the conflict by addressing four questions: Why did Nigeria intervene in Liberia and remain committed throughout the seven-year civil war? To what extend was ECOMOG's intervention shaped by Nigeria's hegemonic aspirations? What domestic, regional, and external factors prevented ECOMOG from achieving its objectives for so long? And what factors led eventually to the end of the war? In answering these questions--drawing on previously restricted ECOWAS and UN reports and numerous interviews with key actors--he sheds much-needed light on security issues in West Africa. The concluding chapter of the book assesses the continuing insecurity in Liberia under the repressive presidency of Charles Taylor and its destabilizing effect on the entire West Africa region.

The authors grapple with the requirements for a successful peacebuilding enterprise in Iraq, grounding their conclusions in a nuanced analysis of the sources of the country’s internal conflicts.

Reflecting a growing awareness of the need to integrate security and development agendas in the field of conflict management, the authors focus on the case of the Pacific Islands region.

Uniquely representing all sides in the conflict over Kashmir, this innovative new book provides a forum for discussion not only of existing proposals for ending the conflict, but also of possible new paths toward settlement. Contributors from India, Pakistan, and Kashmir explore the national and subnational dimensions of the ongoing hostilities, the role of the international community, and future prospects. The result is an informed overview of the present state of affairs—and a realistic examination of the potential for peaceful resolution.

Explores the sources of conflict in Africa’s troubled Great Lakes region, as well as local and international attempts to rebuild political authority and reduce the scale of human suffering.

Explores the challenges that the war economy posed, and continues to pose, for peace operations and reconstruction efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Providing both a means and a motive for armed conflict, the continued access of combatants in contemporary civil wars to lucrative natural resources has often served to counter the incentives for peace. Profiting from Peace offers the first comprehensive assessment of the practical strategies and tools that might be used effectively, by both international and state actors, to help reduce the illicit exploitation of natural resources and the related financial flows that sustain the violence.

Jensen explores the long-standing conflict over the sovereignty of Western Sahara—from its colonial roots to its present manifestation as a political stalemate.

Among the world’s most unstable regions, West Africa in the last decade has experienced a web of conflicts with profound and wide-ranging effects. West Africa’s Security Challenges is the first comprehensive assessment of the resulting mix of setbacks and progress. The authors provide a context for understanding the region’s security dilemmas, highlighting the link between failures of economic development, governance, and democratization on the one hand and military insecurity and violent conflicts on the other. The role of key regional and external actors in foiling—and sometimes fueling—conflicts is also examined. The result is an analysis that is not only academically rigorous, but relevant to current policy debates.

An exploration of the subregional dimensions of internal conflicts in the interest of developing more effective prevention strategies.

A comprehensive view of the UN Security Council both internally and as a key player in world politics.

Confronting the corrosive influence that war economies typically have on the prospects for peace in war-torn societies, this study critically analyzes current policy responses and offers a thought-provoking foundation for the development of more effective peacebuilding strategies. The authors focus on the role played by trade in precipitating and fueling conflict, with particular emphasis on the regional dynamics that are created by war economies. Their analysis highlights the darker side of the commitment to deregulation, open markets, and the expansion of trade routes that are key features of globalization. In each of three case studies—-Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, and Bosnia—they examine the nature of the war economy, the regional networks developed to support it, its legacies, and the impact of initiatives to transform it. That transformation, they argue, a process central to the transition from violent conflict to sustainable peace, can best be achieved through approaches that recognize critical regional factors.

The most comprehensive, systematic study to date of the implementation of peace agreements—of the factors determining the successes and failures that occur after the treaties are signed.

An in-depth assessment of the evolving security relationship between China and India.

Globalization, suggest the authors of this collection, is creating new opportunities--some legal, some illicit--for armed factions to pursue their agendas in civil war. Within this context, they analyze the key dynamics of war economies and the challenges posed for conflict resolution and sustainable peace. Thematic chapters consider key issues in the political economy of internal wars, as well as how differing types of resource dependency influence the scope, character, and duration of conflicts. Case studies of Burma, Colombia, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea, and Sri Lanka illustrate a range of ways in which belligerents make use of global markets and the transnational flow of resources. An underlying theme is the opportunities available to the international community to alter the economic incentive structure that inadvertently supports armed conflict.

How can the United Nations, regional and subregional organizations, government donors, and other policymakers best apply the tools of conflict prevention to the wide range of intrastate conflict situations actually found in the field? The detailed case studies and analytical chapters in From Promise to Practice offer operational lessons for fashioning strategy and tactics to meet the challenges of specific conflicts, both potential and actual.

From the ongoing war in Angola, to sporadic instability in Zimbabwe and Lesotho, to the conflict in Congo, to issues of land reform and the ravages of AIDS, southern Africa faces varied and complex threats to its peace and security. The authors of From Cape to Congo assess the region's major security challenges, as well as the roles of local, regional, and external actors in managing them. Their theoretically informed—but practical—approach encompasses the political, economic, and military arenas.

Following on the publication of The Sanctions Decade—lauded as the definitive history and accounting of United Nations sanctions in the 1990s—David Cortright and George Lopez continue their collaboration to examine the changing context and meaning of sanctions and the security dilemmas that the Security Council now faces. Cortright and Lopez note that, despite widespread disagreement about the effectiveness of UN sanctions and the need for reform, the Security Council continues to impose sanctions, and it maintains ongoing measures in eight countries. Exploring the dynamics of recent developments, the authors assess a range of new multilateral approaches to sanctions and economic statecraft, review the heated debate over the humanitarian impact of sanctions, and consider the increasingly important role of NGOs in UN policymaking. They conclude with a framework for future policy, as well as specific recommendations for enhancing the viability of "smart sanctions" strategies.

A detailed study of West Africa’s unprecedented efforts to establish a regional security mechanism.

Though the prevention of conflict is the first promise in the Charter of the United Nations, it is a promise constantly betrayed by international organizations, governments, and local actors alike. At the same time, and in a more positive vein, recent studies provide much-needed information about why and how today's conflicts start and what sustains them. This ground-breaking book presents some of the best scholarly and policy-relevant work on the practical challenges of conflict prevention within the UN system. The authors consider the causes and dynamics of war, the tools that are being developed to predict the eruption of conflict, and what is being done—and what could be done better—in the effort to move from promise to practice.

Bruce Jones investigates why the wide-ranging efforts to forestall genocidal violence in Rwanda in 1994 failed so miserably. Jones traces the individual and collective impact of both official and unofficial mediation efforts, peacekeeping missions, and humanitarian aid. Providing theoretical and empirical evidence, he shows that the failure of the peace process was not the result of lack of effort, or even the weakness of any particular effort. Rather, it was due to a combination of factors: the lack of connections among the various attempts at conflict resolution; the intransigence of the warring parties; the lack of a coherent strategy for managing spoilers in the peace process; and weak international support. Peacemaking in Rwanda generates critical insights into the limits of our contemporary systems for conflict prevention and management, serving as a sobering argument for reform of the international conflict management system.

Current scholarship on civil wars and transitions from war to peace has made significant progress in understanding the political dimensions of internal conflict, but the economic motivations spurring political violence have been comparatively neglected. This pathbreaking volume identifies the economic and social factors underlying the perpetuation of civil wars, exploring as well the economic incentives and disincentives available to international actors seeking to restore peace to war-torn societies. The authors consider the economic rationality of conflict for belligerents, the economic strategies that elites use to sustain their positions, and in what situations elites find war to be more profitable than peace. They strive consistently for policy relevance in both their analysis and their prescriptions.

Though its national life often has been characterized by violence, Haiti has not been victim of a full-fledged internal conflict, or civil war. Why, then, is the international community conducting "postconflict peacebuilding" operations there? Addressing that question, Chetan Kumar examines the course of international involvement in Haiti through the prism of the country's unique past and present. His narrative is grounded in a discussion of the nature of peacebuilding and the role of civil society in building a functioning state. A basket of nonmilitary activities designed to address some of the primary causes of violence—weak institutions, underdevelopment, poverty—have come to be referred to as postconflict peacebuilding in the Haitian context. How do these activities differ from the numerous development schemes launched from the mid-1960s onward? Is peacebuilding essentially about successful development? Kumar engages the recent heated debate about these issues. Haitians have struggled among themselves to define the nature, structure, and power base of a state that can best provide for its constituents—and their conception frequently is at odds with the one promoted by the international community. Building a lasting peace, Kumar emphasizes, will be possible only if Haitians themselves support any given understanding of what a successful polity and economy should look like, and if they participate in bringing it about. He concludes with recommendations aimed at encouraging that participation.