Introduction

In this course, we will discuss how we can bring conflicts to a halt and achieve sustainable peace in war-torn societies. This has emerged as an important question in international relations as the international society began peacebuilding operations since the 1990s. Overviewing the historical background of international peacebuilding, this class explains the questions we will address in this course.

【Reading】
 No reading assignment
(Recommended reading: Boutros-Ghali, Boutros. 1992. An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking, and Peace-building. New York: United Nations.)

The Evolution of International Peace Operations

This course will assess the effectiveness of international peacebuilding approaches, but before that, this class discusses why the international society gets involved with peacebuilding and how it can be justified. In the Westphalian system (the sovereign state system), states are basically prohibited to intervene in each other's internal affairs (the principle of non interference). This class reviews how international norms on intervention in countries in conflict have evolved and discusses whether they are justifiable.

【Reading】
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). 2001. The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty.

Peacebuilding, Statebuilding, and Democratization

Since the early the 1990s, UN PKOs have transformed their operations from traditional ceasefire monitoring mission to "peacebuilding," which seeks to remove the root causes of conflict. The class reviews two major principles in the international peacebuilding approaches; statebuilding and democratization. Analyzing the theoretical background of these principles which underlie the peacebuilding policies that will be covered in later classes, this class discuss their effectiveness.

【Reading】
Paris, Roland. 2004. At War's End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge Unversity Press, Chapter 1: The Origins of Peacebuilding.

Designing Peace

Peacebuilding efforts begin with bringing the warring parties to agree to peace. What design of peace agreements are most effective in bringing the conflict to a halt and leading to a long-lasting peace in war-torn societies? This class introduces the most widely employed method in current international peacebuilding, "power sharing," and discusses its theoretical foundations.

【Reading】
Lake, David A. and Donald Rothchild. 1996. "Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict," International Security. 21(2): 41-75.

Constitutional Engineering

Peace agreement thus made becomes the constitution of the postwar state and defines the basic structure of postwar politics. What design of political institutions most achieve sustainable peace in war-torn societies? This class overviews the studies that address this question, so-called “constitutional engineering,” and introduces the two theories that are central to the field, "consociationalism" and “centripetalism.”

【Reading】
Lijphart, Arend. 1977. Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven: Yale University Press, Chapter 2: Consociational Democracy, pp. 25–52.

Electoral Politics

Elections are considered to be a tool to effectively resolve a conflict in a political manner and aimed to be held in the early stage of international peacebuilding. However, elections conduced without sufficient trust in their outcome by the parties may rather trigger a recurrence of conflict. When and under what institutional design postwar elections should be held and how the international society can assist them?

【Reading】
Reilly, Benjamin. 2008. "Post-war Elections: Uncertain Turning Points of Transition," in Anna K. Jarstad and Timothy D. Sisk eds. From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 157-181.

Demobilization and Security Sector Reform

In societies in the immediate aftermath of conflict, how to convince former soldiers to lay down their arms and help them reintegrate into society is critical to preventing the country from returning to conflict. This course overviews the two widely adopted approaches to this issue, Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) and Security Sector Reform (SSR). Especially discussing the issues of child soldiers, this class analyzes the dilemmas in implementing these policies.

【Reading】
Wessells, Michael. 2006. Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Chapter 7: Putting Down the Gun.

Transitional Justice

How to address wartime human rights abuses during conflict and restore justice to society is an essential issue for achieving sustainable peace among former enemies. The policy area that addresses this issue is called "transitional justice." Overviewing the differences between retributive justice and restorative justice, this class discusses the dilemmas that transitional justice faces.

【Reading】
Chesterman, Simon. 2004. You, the People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration, and State-Building. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Chapter 5: Justice and Reconciliation: The Rule of Law in Post-ConflictTerritories.

Civil Society

Civil society is critical to the healthy functioning of democracy. It monitors and restricts the use of power by the state, as well as providing public goods to citizens that cannot be reached by the state. The promotion of civil society has been one of the central approaches in international peacebuilding. This class reviews the theoretical foundations for the promotion of civil society in peacebuilding while also discussing its difficulties.

【Reading】
Belloni, Roberto. 2008. “Civil Society in War-to-Democracy Transitions,” in Anna K. Jarstad and Timothy D. Sisk eds. From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 157-181.

Economic Assistance and Reconstruction

Conflict destroys the economy of a society and damages people's daily lives. The international society has been working to save the lives of people in conflict-affected societies by providing humanitarian assistance to meet their immediate needs, as well as rebuilding the economic systems of the societies. Economic assistance, which at first glance seems to have nothing to do with politics, is in fact affected by politics. This class discusses what is the theoretical foundation for international economic assistance and how it affects the political structure of recipient societies.

【Reading】
Chesterman, Simon. 2004. You, the People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration, and State-Building. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Chapter 6: Relief and Reconstruction: The Politics of Humanitarian and Development Assistance.

Critical Peacebuilding Theories

Since the 1990s, the international efforts for peacebuilding have faced difficulties in many cases. Two types of studies have developed in analyzing the failure of peacebuilding. One is the studies that aim to identify causes and mechanisms of peacebuilding success/failure. Another is the ones that question and critically reassess the underlying assumption of the conventional peacebuilding approaches/studies. The subsequent classes in the course review the latter, the critical peacebuilding theories, and discuss what they problematize in peacebuilding.

【Reading】
Richmond, Oliver P.. 2009. “A Post-Liberal Peace: Eirenism and the Everyday,” Review of International Studies 35 (3): 557-580.

Political Economy of Peacebuilding

“How can sustainable peace be achieved among former enemies?” This central question to peacebuilding research assumes, as the premise for its discussion, that conflicts are fought between unitary social groups (such as ethnic, religious, linguistic, and political groups) and regards conflicts as confrontations between these groups. However, are so-called "ethnic conflicts" really fought between ethnic groups? This class reviews the critical debate that questions the theoretical premise of the conventional peacebuilding studies from political economy perspectives.

【Reading】
Mary Kaldor. 1998. New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era. Stanford: Stanford University Press, Introduction and Chapter 5: The Globalized War Economy.

Gender in Peacebuilding

In 2000, the "Women, Peace, and Security (WPS)" agenda was adopted as the UN Security Council Resolution 1325. The agenda calls for broader participation of women in peacebuilding to address unproportional impact of conflicts, especially on women, and to reaffirm women's agency in peacebuilding. This class reviews how the conventional peacebuilding approaches/studies have been gendered and discusses how the broader participation of women changes the nature of peacebuilding.

【Reading】
Karim, Sabrina and Kyle Beardsley. 2017. Equal Opportunity Peacekeeping: Women, Peace, and Security in Post-Conflict States. New York: Oxford University Press, Chapter 3: Gender Power Imbalances in Peacekeeping Missions.

Local-turn in Peacebuilding

The conventional debates over peacebuilding have been mainly focusing on the internationals' initiatives to build peace in war-torn societies. In the debate, however, the agency of the locals is largely overlooked. Recent studies have begun to focus on locals' everyday adaptation to, or resistance to, the top-down international peacebuilding initiatives. This class reviews the studies and discusses how we can assess the local agency in peacebuilding.

【Reading】
Mac Ginny, Roger and Oliver Richmond. 2013. "The Local Turn in Peace Building: A Critical Agenda for Peace," Third World Quarterly, 34(5): 763-783.

Review Session

This class reviews the debates throughout the course. How can international peacebuilding be justified? What kind of peacebuilding approaches are effective in building sustainable peace in war-torn societies? What assumptions underlie peacebuilding studies and how can they be questioned? Reviewing the debate, the class discusses the future directions of peacebuilding studies.

【Reading】
 No reading assignment

Class participation: 20%
Weekly comment on Manaba+R: 30% (2%×15 times)
Term paper (2000 words): 50%