Building Peace: Practical Reflections from the Field

This volume from the Alliance for Peacebuilding provides a set of case studies of courage in peacebuilding endeavours in local, national, and international settings. According to the Alliance, even though international peacebuilding has rapidly expanded in the last two decades to respond to more multifaceted and complex conflicts, the field has lagged behind in documenting the impact and success of these projects. The 13 stories of peacebuilding practices from around the world included in this volume are meant to address that gap.

These diverse accounts and assessments were written by persons directly engaged in each undertaking, and highlight multiple approaches and processes from widely divergent cultural and geopolitical settings. The authors provide a variety of blueprints for communities, nations, and multi-cultural groups dealing with the aftermath or reduction of ongoing and often violent conflicts. Contributors created new institutions to prevent and manage conflicts at the local or national levels, helped restore relationships in conflict-affected communities, and empowered citizens to work for positive change in their societies across ethnic, religious, and political divides.

The volume may be of interest to practitioners, students, and teachers of peace. It may find a place in courses on conflict resolution and prevention, and on post-conflict peacebuilding analysis and practice.

Contents:

1. Introduction: Peacebuilding: Creating Structure and Capacity for Peace - Craig Zelizer and Robert A. Rubinstein
2. Taming the Beast: Interethnic Conflict and Accord in Post-Communist Europe - Allen H. Kassof
3. The Institution as Innovator: Laying the Foundation for Peaceful Change - Beth Glick and Laina Reynolds Levy
4. An 85 Percent Settlement Rate and a 91 Percent Compliance Rate: But what Happened to the Rest and Why? - William F. Lincoln, Alexander Karpenko, Lena Ivanova, Olga Allahverdova, Polly Davis, and Dawn Hooper with Seth Kane and Terra D. M. Evans
5. Designing Dispute Resolution Systems for Settling Land and Property Disputes in Post-Conflict and Post-Crisis Societies - Christopher Moore and Gary Brown
6. Recasting Reconciliation through Culture and the Arts: Strengthening Peace-building Capacity through The Brandeis International Fellowship Program - Cynthia Cohen
7. Partners in Peacebuilding in Lesotho - John Davies, Wubalem Fekade, 'Mamphekeleli Hoohlo, Edy Kaufman, and Mamochaki Shale
8. Combining Empathy with Problem Solving: The Tamra Model of Facilitation in Israel - Eileen F. Babbitt and Pamela Pomerance Steiner, with Jabir Asaqla, Chassia Chomsky-Porat, and Shirli Kirschner
9. Health Bridges for Peace: The Medical Network for Social Reconstruction in the Former Yugoslavia - Paula Gutlove
10. Gender Mainstreaming in Peacebuilding: A Case Study of Grupo EKOLELO in Angola - Heather Kulp
11. Management of Multi-cultural Communities in Crimea - Karina Korostelina
12. Building Peace in Thin Air: The Case of Search for Common Ground's Talking Drum Studio in Sierra Leone - Marco Konings and Ambrose James
13. The Dynamism of Shared Success in Abkhaz: Georgian Peacebuilding - Paula Garb and Susan Allen Nan
14. Promoting Ethnic Tolerance and Cultural Inclusion in Macedonia: The Tetovo Educators Project - Paula Green and Olivia Stokes Dreier