Speakers: Professor Mats Berdal, Dr Oisín Tansey, Dr Christine Cheng (War Studies) and Dr Dominik Zaum, Reader in International Relations at the University of Reading, and a Senior Research Fellow at DFID.
This volume examines and evaluates the impact of international statebuilding interventions on the political economy of conflict-affected countries over the past 20 years. It focuses on countries that are emerging, or have recently emerged, from periods of war and protracted conflict. The interventions covered fall into three broad categories: international administrations and transformative occupations (East Timor, Iraq, and Kosovo); complex peace operations (Afghanistan, Burundi, Haiti, and Sudan); governance and statebuilding programmes conducted in the context of economic assistance (Georgia and Macedonia).
This book, which contains a magisterial introduction by Mats Berdal and Dominik Zaum, brings together some of the top thinkers in the world of peacebuilding. It takes the commonly expressed idea that “development” is a necessary route to peacebuilding, and shows how neo-liberal interpretations of “development” have often promoted instability, not least by promoting large-scale unemployment.’ David Keen, LSE, UK