Pragmatic Peacebuilding: Making Peace between Problem Solvers and Critical Thinkers

To dichotomise the study of peace into two fundamental paradigms, ‘problem-solvers’ and ‘critical approaches’, draws battle lines between opposing camps, which talk past each other and obscure more constructive possibilities. Similarly, to speak of three ‘generations’ of peacebuilding, leading to a progressive ‘fourth generation’ that takes account of local perceptions, assumes coherent progress that has discarded so-called ‘second generation’ conflict resolution research and practice. In order to improve the effectiveness of long-term peacebuilding (including conflict prevention and resolution as well as post-conflict activity), it is more important to seek cooperative ways of working towards peace and stability, ways that recognise criticism of prescriptive neocolonial state-building and seek to divert some of its substantial resources into coherent approaches to reducing the risk and impact of armed conflict. Long-established peacebuilding research suggests that parallel, sustained and interconnected activity at all ‘levels’ of society is essential to conflict transformation. Paradoxically because of their power and despite their substantial resources, states and IGOs may not be the most effective intervening actors; rather, a range of cooperating official and non-official external actors is needed to support such activity. Whilst consultancy expertise is often bought in, official cooperation with and resourcing of non-official peacebuilding activity is rarer. Barriers to such cooperation are rooted primarily in ideational differences, official commitment to liberal peace values and to some extent the glamorisation of the local. Under-resourced forms of intervention include support of genuine local peacebuilding actors and non-partisan facilitation of inclusive policy dialogue. The paper suggests a number of mutually supporting high-level principles for pragmatic, context-sensitive intervention, which may encourage constructive engagement between practitioners and their critics. These include: recognising complexity in conflict systems; realism that avoids ‘liberal utopianism’; commitment to a holistic concept of peace; ensuring societal ownership of peace processes; long-term engagement; and humility.