The United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture: A Tool or an Obstacle to Greater Coordination?
I. Introduction
Peacebuilding is the phenomenon in which an array of international and national actors collaborate within various support structures in order to address the fundamental/root causes of violence, solidify peace, and avoid a relapse into conflict in fragile states. With the rise of globalization and increased interdependence among states has brought about economic growth and development; however, greater interconnectivity has also created a volatile environment for renewed violence and conflict to occur, particularly in fragile and post-war states. External stresses, such as transnational terrorism, international crime, and global economic crises, enhance the likelihood of violence in fragile states as well as hinder the development efforts needed to strengthen weak domestic institutions.
The development of the state, and state institutions, has become increasingly intertwined/interlinked with security. The investment of sounds development is a crucial component needed to effectively secure the volatile environment of a globally interconnected system; however, the lack of development can also create detrimental security risks of vulnerability and renewed violence. With the changing nature of conflicts and collective security in a postmodern era, peace operations began to shift from a minimalist approach of maintaining the status quo, to a complex and multi-faceted approach, or peacebuilding. Peacebuilding attempts to incorporate development and security efforts in order to effectively deal with the fragility of states as well as bring about sustainable peace.
Since the end of the Cold War, international efforts ...
... middle of paper ...
...dition, Strong Future?” Canadian Foreign Policy. 12(2). pp.10
Bellamy, A. & Williams, P. (2010). Understanding Peacekeeping: 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Polity Press. pp.173
McAskie 8
Paris 4 (WRONG)
Bellamy & Williams 104
McAskie 10
Paris 5 (WRONG)
Bellamy & Williams 126
Bellamy & Williams 129
de Coning, C. (2008). “The Coherence Dilemma in Peacebuilding and Post-Conflict Reconstruction Systems” African Journal on Conflict Resolution. 8(3). 85-110. pp. 91
Paris, R. & Sisk, T. (November 2007). “Managing Contradictions: The Inherent Dilemmas of Postwar Statebuilding” Research Partnership on Postwar Statebuilding, The International Peace Academy. pp. 6
Knack, S. & Rahman, A. (2008). “Donor Fragmentation” in Reinventing Foreign Aid. 333-348. Ed. Easterley, W. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. pp. 335.
de Coning 91
"Peacekeeping and Peacemaking." Reading and Remembrance . N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2014. . (tags: none | edit tags)
The theory of democratic peace is a classical idea that has been cited repeatedly by scholars. While Kant was not a darling of democracy, he wrote about perpetual peace, which he describes would only happen if states achieve a form of civil constitution. To him, perpetual peace exists when a regime honors property owned by citizens and when citizens live equally being the subjects based on a representative government that is built on the premise of separation of powers. The theory of democratic peace is therefore built on the proposition that some negative elements of government can be disabled to make a nation thrive in an international arena. This majorly entails elements of war. This idea is strengthened by the fact that relations between states in an international setting are not provoked by benefits of one nation being a burden to another. Instead, these relations are based on a mutual benefit and togetherness. If that proposition is anything to go by, it loses it meaning when states behave contrary to what they suggest on an international platform. The internal structures of a state are paramount to such an atmosphere and when they lead a different style of relationship with other states, the theory of perpetual peace fails to hold any water. The behavior of states can only be explained...
The United States is one of the leading suppliers of Foreign Aid in the world, and even though the US gives billions, European countries give aid money to the same countries, this causes many areas of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia to be almost fully dependent on foreign aid. This means that without aid from other countries, they would not be able to support themselves at all. Foreign aid is meant to help countries that are struggling with civil unrest, disease, or natural disasters, it is not meant to help keep the country out of debt, but that is where more and more of the US and The EU’s foreign aid budget is going. The question is, does all this money actually go where it is intended? It should be going towards the government and to help the people, but in many cases, the countries government does not have the resources to properly track the flow of money. The countries in most cases have poor infrastructure and corrupt or oppressive leaders, not always at a national level, but in the towns and cities. So this means there is almost no way to oversee the flow of foreign aid through the country, all we can see is that their situations aren't getting any better and the countries are still impoverished. If this is the case, where are the millions of dollars going? Countries like Afghanistan and Iraq receive the most money from American foreign aid and European aid, yet they are still under oppressive governmental rule and there is still an extreme difference between the rich and poor. Garrett Harding’s theory of “Lifeboat Ethics” exemplifies how not giving aid to others will allow the strongest of society to thrive, while teaching the impoverished to help themselves. He believes that giving aid to poor countries will only make ...
Rethinking Violence: States and Non-state Actors in Conflict. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2014).
Kent, J. and Young, J.W. (2013), International Relations Since 1945: A global History. 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The purpose of this essay is to inform on the similarities and differences between systemic and domestic causes of war. According to World Politics by Jeffry Frieden, David Lake, and Kenneth Schultz, systemic causes deal with states that are unitary actors and their interactions with one another. It can deal with a state’s position within international organizations and also their relationships with other states. In contract, domestic causes of war pertain specifically to what goes on internally and factors within a state that may lead to war. Wars that occur between two or more states due to systemic and domestic causes are referred to as interstate wars.
We are now a decade on from the August 2003 Accra Peace agreement which drew a line under 14 years of civil war and the oppressive dictatorship of Charles Taylor. The peace agreement bought a renewed chance of peace and stability after the atrocities that had been committed across the country. A post-war transitional government was established consisting of 76 members: 12 each from the three warring parties; Government of the Republic of Liberia, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL). Other members from the remaining 18 political parties; seven from civil society and s...
...ve experienced the sometimes-difficult transition to a democracy; others are currently in that transition. For some countries this transition will take a matter of months, for others is can take years. Sustainable peace requires a reform of all agencies in any way connected to the government. One of the major areas is the Security Sector. The best way to affect sustainable peace through security sector reform is to allow the people to reform their own security sector. The key elements necessary for a successful reform of the security sector are a centralized democratic government willing to reform, the people’s support for a reform, strong leaders to push this reform through, the willingness to compromise, a striving for peaceful resolutions, and above all a strong want of Democracy. These elements result in the bringing the joys of freedom to the people. (1,500)
Wendt, A. (1992). “Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics,” International Organization, 46(2), pp. 391-425.
Africa has long been a nation of conflict and strife. Certain countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have a prolonged history of corrupt leaders, violence and lack of resources. These conflicts often can lead to spill over and create wars in their neighboring countries. When a weak state has internal conflict it often spreads to surrounding weak states as it did with many of the countries in central Africa. This type of crisis will often involve the entire world in a variety of capacities such as militaries, foreign aid and the global economy. Congo especially has proved to create problems that continue to persist in the modern world and much of that is due to leadership of Motubu Sese Seko. “The conflict [in Congo] produced tremendous carnage: as many as 3.8 million dead and many more injured or displaced. Both phrases of the war (1996-97 and 1998-2002) involved domestic militias, a massive foreign invasion, and shifting alliances – with Angola, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe playing major roles. Even though the was has officially ended, peace remains elusive”(Atzili 2007 pg 141). One player’s internal conflicts spread through an entire continent and affected the whole world and caused enormous damage. All countries need to strive to maintain strong institutions to be a good global citizen and one of the keys to this is leadership.
Ripeness and readiness are good theory’s to explain why conflicts ends. They both show how multiple factors come into play to end a conflict. “Ripeness is not sudden, but rather a complex process of transformations in the situation, shifts in public attitudes and new perceptions and visions among decision-makers” (Rambotham, 2011: 180). The Oslo negotiations and the peace process are good examples of the readiness theory and its ease explaining the resolution of these conflicts. The Cambodian conflict poses more difficulty being explained through ripeness. When conflicts are multilateral poses a challenge to readiness theory. Adapting readiness theory
People’s ideas and assumptions about world politics shape and construct the theories that help explain world conflicts and events. These assumptions can be classified into various known theoretical perspectives; the most dominant is political realism. Political realism is the most common theoretical approach when it is in means of foreign policy and international issues. It is known as “realpolitik” and emphasis that the most important actor in global politics is the state, which pursues self-interests, security, and growing power (Ray and Kaarbo 3). Realists generally suggest that interstate cooperation is severely limited by each state’s need to guarantee its own security in a global condition of anarchy. Political realist view international politics as a struggle for power dominated by organized violence, “All history shows that nations active in international politics are continuously preparing for, actively involved in, or recovering from organized violence in the form of war” (Kegley 94). The downside of the political realist perspective is that their emphasis on power and self-interest is their skepticism regarding the relevance of ethical norms to relations among states.
Anderson, M. B. (1999). Do no harm: How aid can support peace—or war. London, England: Lynne Rienner Publishers
Schirch, L., Rafiee, A., & Sakhi, N. (2013). Designing a comprehensive peace process for afghanistan. United States Institute for Peace, 5-30.
IOs and states play a critical role in maintaining world peace and security. The United Nations (UN), in particular, is the centerpiece of global governance with respect to the maintenance of world peace. The UN provides general guidelines for all the states on how to solve potential conflicts and maintain international o...