Peacebuilding does not build peace

Abstract

The concept of peacebuilding is a buzzword of the development policy and practice mainstream. The recent introduction of managerial tools and the focus on measuring the ‘effectiveness’ of peacebuilding have marginalised and depoliticised critical questions about the causes of violent conflict, and have replaced them with comforting notions for donors that peace can be built and measured without challenging Western understanding of economy, governance, and social aspirations of people.

Keywords:

• Conflict and Reconstruction
• Aid
• Social Sector

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Andrea Cornwall and Deborah Eade for their helpful comments and editorial support.

Notes

I have to thank Gael Robertson for sharing this reference with me.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tobias Denskus

After a critical learning experience at the Peace Studies Department at the University of Bradford, Tobias Denskus says he became a citizen of ‘Aidland’, ‘working, living, listening to people and often shaking my head in disbelief at UNDP in Nepal, in a humanitarian NGO in Kabul Afghanistan, and through research into German peacebuilding projects in Macedonia’. He now has dual citizenship, as PhD student at the Institute of Development Studies (which sometimes appears to be ‘Reflectionland’) and in Aidland from time to time.