This open access book responds to the urgent need to improve how we prevent and resolve conflict. It introduces Adaptive Peacebuilding through evidence-based research from eight case studies across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. It also considers how China and Japan view and practice peacebuilding. The book focuses on how peacebuilders design, implement and evaluate programs to sustain peace, how interactions between external and local actors have facilitated or hindered peacemaking, and how adaptation to complexity and uncertainty occurred in each case study.

Global governance is no longer a matter of state cooperation or bureaucratic politics. Since the end of the cold war, advocacy groups have proliferated and enjoyed increasing access to global governance institutions such as the European Union, World Trade Organization, and the United Nations climate conferences. This book seeks to push theories of interest groups and international non-governmental organizations forward. It argues that the advocacy group effects on global governance institutions are best understood by examining how groups use and shape domestic and global political opportunity structures. Chapters examine how, when, and why domestic and global political opportunity structures shape advocacy group effects in global governance, across global institutions, levels of government, advocacy organizations, issue areas, and over time. .

Avec la guerre en Ukraine et les déclarations menaçantes de Vladimir Poutine, la menace nucléaire se retrouve au coeur des enjeux internationaux. France, États-Unis, Russie, Chine... Les grandes puissances redéfinissent sans cesse leurs stratégies pour défendre leurs intérêts. Comment organisent-elles leurs forces ? Que dire de l'état des relations militaires et diplomatiques mondiales ? Cet atlas présente les théories militaires mais s'appuie aussi sur de nombreux exemples régionaux.

This edited volume reflects on some of the important discussions on the trends of governance, conflict and security in Africa. It explores some of the emerging concerns and offers a holistic understanding of the remote and immediate causes of the conflict and how the neo-colonial African states have been structured in a manner that makes violent conflict inevitable. The book thereby provides an overview of Africa's security challenges and proffers some sustainable policy options for curtailing lawlessness and armed conflict on the continent. Literature is exhaustive about the nexus between governance, peace, and security; however, discourse on the impact of 'new' conflict on governance has been scant. Understanding these new trends has become a necessity and precondition for sustainable development, as reflected in both the African Union (AU) Agenda 2063 and the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This book explores the challenges that multilateralism faces today and questions the idea of a 'crisis' of multilateral cooperation and international organizations. It accounts for the pressures on and power shifts in multilateralism in recent years - such as the war in Syria, the Covid-19 pandemic, challenges for NATO, the erosion of multilateral norms, the transition from Trump to Biden, the rise of China, the post-Brexit European Union, and the mobilization of countries from the South. The authors illustrate the resilience of multilateralism and lessons learned from the WTO, UN Women, International Organizations' Secretariats and global environmental governance. Written in part by members of the Research Group on Multilateral Action (GRAM), this volume argues that 'crisis' should not be considered a pathology but the 'matrix' of multilateralism, which is more resilient than commonly thought.

The internet has become a battleground for global power struggles, with nations and even terrorist organizations wielding cyber-attacks to exert control. As the absence of binding international laws and norms leaves cyberspace largely unchecked, countries are seeking to establish their Sovereign Cyber Domains (SCD) - tightly controlled cyberspaces. In this illuminating monograph, the author explores how Russia, China, Iran, and others perceive the internet as a means for the United States and its allies to maintain global dominance and influence foreign audiences, driving their pursuit of strict regulations over domestic cyber affairs and mass communication. Yet, even the United States is now susceptible to foreign cyber operations, mainly foreign influence that undermines its domestic affairs. Even International Blocs like the European Union had expressed concerns about foreign influence and privacy rights abuses, leading to regulatory initiatives like the General Data Protection Regulation, Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. As nations prioritize cybersecurity and sovereignty over free speech and convenience, the book predicts a future of increased regulation across all layers of the cyber domain, mirroring the historical emergence of the concept of sovereignty.

This open access book provides a comprehensive analysis of the EU's crucial support for the implementation of the Havana Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP. It explores the use of new approaches and instruments that, despite some limitations and criticisms, could go beyond conventional liberal peace and provide useful lessons. Particular attention is paid to three axes: strengthening civil society, protection of human rights and a territorial peace perspective, as a contribution to the "local turn" in peace policies. The book first outlines the background of the conflict, the EU's two-decade defense of a negotiated peace, and the complexities of the peace process. Then, it analyses the development cooperation and political support provided in different areas: the collective reinsertion of ex-guerrillas, women and gender initiatives, the rights of ethnic communities, the sophisticated transitional justice system, as well as activities on reconciliation,victims and protection of human rights defenders.

Die mit 1990 gehegten Hoffnungen auf einen liberalen Frieden haben sich nicht erfüllt. Nicht nur, dass Krieg in Europa wieder zu einem Mittel der Außenpolitik geworden ist, scheint auch die Geopolitik wieder zurückgekehrt. Zudem sind die Konflikte im Nahen und Mittleren Osten nach wie vor ungelöst. Es fehlen Erfolg versprechende Strategien, dem Islamischen Staat zu begegnen oder den Krieg in Syrien zu befrieden. Auch stehen der bewaffnete Konflikt in der Ukraine, die eskalierenden militärischen Spannungen zwischen Russland und dem Westen sowie die Entfremdung zur Türkei für das Scheitern einer Strategie, Frieden in Europa durch Transformation nach westlichem Vorbild zu schaffen. Welche Sicherheitssysteme können angesichts dieser Situation greifen und sich als friedensfähig erweisen? Die Autorinnen und Autoren dieses Bandes widmen sich dieser Aufgabe; sie stellen verschiedene Konzepte vor und diskutieren ihre Stärken und Schwächen.

The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation and the subsequent military campaigns entail several classical aspects of armed conflict. First, it is a type of international armed conflict between two sovereign states that had been prevalent until the middle of the twentieth century but not in the last several decades. It is also a direct intervention by a superpower into a neighboring state with the former's aspiration of territorial expansion. This action evokes a scheme of war reminiscent of the nineteenth or early twentieth century. At the same time, however, the invasion is generating in the international community a sense of new phenomena, leading to a new era that may be different from the past three decades following the end of the Cold War. In fact, the hostilities between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, as well as reactions by other states and international organizations, have raised legal and political issues that require scholars to reexamine existing frameworks of the international community and individual rules of international law.

This edited volume harnesses African expertise to examine the local and global dimensions of peace. It is an outcome of a workshop in Nairobi, Kenya that convened African academics and practitioners with diverse specialisations. The authors' contributions foreground local voices across a broad scope of inquiry, including rural community structures, health, trauma, sexual violence, peacekeeping and cybersecurity. African knowledge is essential to understanding peace on the continent - the complexities of conflict and insecurity, the lived experiences of individuals and communities, and their responses to such phenomena. This analytical approach underpins the book, creating fertile ground to identify and develop innovations that hold the promise for sustainable African solutions.

Le Manuel de Leuven offre un aperçu complet des règles qui font autorité et qui doivent être respectées lors d’opérations de paix menées sous l’égide des Nations unies, de l’Union européenne, de l’OTAN, de l’Union africaine et d’autres organisations. Le Manuel contient également des commentaires détaillés sur les bonnes pratiques liées aux règles qu’il contient. Le Manuel aborde de nombreux sujets parmi lesquels les droits de l’homme, le droit international humanitaire, les aspects de genre, l’emploi de la force et la détention par les casques bleus, la protection des civils et la pertinence du droit de l’État hôte. Des universitaires de renom, des officiers militaires et des fonctionnaires, ayant une expérience pratique des opérations de paix contemporaines, figurent parmi le groupe international d’experts ayant contribué à l’ouvrage. Ce groupe a également pu compter sur les contributions d’experts des Nations unies, de l’Union africaine, de l’OTAN et du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, fournies à titre individuel.

Bringing together multidisciplinary perspectives on the future of UN peace operations, this book explores the interrelated dynamics of UN peace operations and peacebuilding practices through the lenses of conflict resolution, protection and accountability. The collection includes coverage of issues ranging from strengthening partnerships between regional institutions and the UN; improving UN policing and stabilisation mechanisms; the application of new technologies in peace operations and implementing security sector reform; to ending sexual exploitation and abuse and enhancing the protection of children. Authors place people at the centre of peacekeeping by interrogating current and past UN initiatives, chart how peacekeeping is evolving in response to changes in global security, assess reform and norm change within missions themselves, and offer original perspectives on the future of UN peace operations. Contributions also include new and innovative theoretical and empirical researchlocated across multiple disciplines, including political science, history, law, gender studies, and criminology.

This collaborative work brings together international lawyers and political scientists to explore whether and how the retreat of the US, and the simultaneous rise of China, affect the dynamics of multilateralism to which the EU claims to adhere. It focuses on the trilateral interaction between these three actors and the policy impact their interactions have in specific multilateral settings and examines cooperation, competition and confrontation of these three actors in key international organizations such as the WTO, UNESCO, Human Rights Council and UNCLOS, NATO, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the World Health Organization in times of Covid-19. It also addresses their approaches and attitudes toward international humanitarian norms and the peace process in the Middle-East.

This open access book examines security and protection within Israel and Palestine, analyzing national and international security strategies that apply to the protection of civilians. The author examines the principles, practices and the perception of protection.  Focusing on protection strategies and practices in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this book reveals some of the myths and enigmas of national and international protection of civilians. The book moves beyond the current lack of protection strategies to discuss more effective human security focused on prioritizing protection of civilians, use of alternative tools such as community policing and inclusive protection.

In addition to being a major area of research within International Relations, peacebuilding and statebuilding is a major policy area within the UN and other international and regional organizations. It is also a concern of international financial institutions, including the World Bank, and a significant factor in the foreign and security policies of many established and emerging democracies. Peacebuilding and statebuilding are among the main approaches for preventing, managing, and mitigating global insecurities; dealing with the humanitarian consequences of civil wars; and expanding democracy and neoliberal economic regimes. Peace formation is a relatively new concept, addressing how local actors work in parallel to international and national projects, and helps shape the legitimacy of peace processes and state reform. The Oxford Handbook of Peacebuilding, Statebuilding, and Peace Formation serves as an essential guide to this vast intellectual and policy landscape. It offers a systematic overview of conceptual foundations, political implications, and tensions at the global, regional, and local levels, as well as key policies, practices, examples, and discourses underlining all segments of peacebuilding and statebuilding praxis.

This handbook brings together global research on violence in Africa from academics, practitioners and activists across a multitude of subjects. It seeks to create the widest possible space for debate, discussion, and analysis of the broad range of issues and problems of violence. It transcends disciplinary and geographic borders in order to create new ground in this space. The chapters in this handbook cover diverse themes such as: the topography of violence, technologies of violence, terrorism, civil war and insurgent violence, child soldiers and violence, epistemic violence, structural violence, violence and memory, violence and the law, cultural mechanisms for creating, sustaining, resisting, and mitigating violence, political violence, violence in moments of religious, social and geo-political transformation, gender and violence, violence against nature, and violence and social media. It centralises new meanings, understandings and fresh ideas to the concept ofviolence, broadening its scope, and contributing to the debates that will shape Africa's common future. It shines a light on key elements of African culture and the cultural mechanisms for creating, sustaining, resisting, and mitigating violence in Africa. It strives to be relevant to the needs and concerns of African societies by suggesting practical solutions for overcoming violence. This book ties in with development initiatives in Africa, such as Agenda 2063, for the Africa We Want, and the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Contrary to the common belief that peace and democracy go hand in hand after a civil war, Pereira Watts argues they are in fact at a crossroads. Offering an innovative framework, based on Philosophical, Actors and Tactical considerations, Pereira Watts identifies 14 dynamic dilemmas in democratic peacebuilding, with respective trade-offs. She focuses on explaining the contradictions in modern post-conflict recovery, the challenges facing interim governments, and the role of the international community. Based on an analysis of more than 40 countries between 1989 and 2022 and more than 60 UN Peace Operations, she presents key issues that commonly need to be addressed in such scenarios: Elections and Political Parties; The Constitution; Checks, Balances and Power-sharing; Transitional Justice; Human Rights, Amnesty, Truth Commissions and War Crimes Tribunals; Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration; and Media Reform and Civil Society.

Police Peacekeeping proposes a new way of studying peace operations that focuses not on their success or failure, but on how they allow people and ideas to circulate transnationally. It shows that peace operations act as a point of cross-fertilization for the creation and transmission of policing discourses and practices globally. In so doing, these missions contribute to (re)producing social orders that are based on the exclusion of often racialized, socio-economically marginalized populations, both 'domestically' (in countries of intervention) and 'internationally' (in troop contributing countries). The book draws on and contributes to critical understandings of police power that show that police forces were never meant to protect all equally. It also furthers our understanding of policing at a global level. Drawing on interpretive, feminist, and postcolonial methodologies that emphasize relations, processes, and situatedness, Lou Pingeot's in-depth study of UN intervention in Haiti shows how a single site can help illuminate global processes. Rather than starting from Haiti's supposed deviance from international expectations and norms, she posits that Haiti can reveal a great deal about how policing functions globally.

This book examines the operational and political challenges facing UN peace operations deployed in countries where civil war and protracted violence have given rise to the complex and distinctive political economies of conflict. The volume explores the nature and impact of such political economies - informal systems of power and influence formed by the interaction of local, national, and region-wide war economies with the political agendas of conflict actors - on the course of UN peace operations. It focuses in detail on the UN's long-running peace operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Mali, and Somalia. The book is centrally concerned with the interaction of UN missions with the power structures and local conflict dynamics that shape individual mission settings, and the challenges these pose for mediation, protection of civilians, and other tasks. It also offers a critical assessment of the various ways in which the UN 'system', from its headquarters in New York to the field, has confronted the policy challenges posed by political economies of conflict-affected states, societies, and regions. It advances a pragmatic set of policy recommendations aimed at improving the UN's ability to confront predatory and exploitative war economies.

This multidisciplinary volume examines the meaning of global conflict and cooperation by international actors that can be caused by dis- or misinformation to people and discusses how to build diplomacy for peace and regional cooperation. The book further identifies boundaries of the relationships among the various governments of the world, transatlantic alliances, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, transnational corporations, and the overall interdependence of nations in the making of the modern world.  Topics discussed in this volume include diplomacy, international relations theory, Eurasia politics, European Union, Brexit, Taliban taking over of Kabul government, and the ongoing Afghanistan conflict, terrorism, ISIS and Al Qaeda, international law, international organizations, interstate and intrastate war, threats and challenges, global civil society, religion, and culture. The volume advances contemporary theories and concepts to explain these issues concerning peoples and cultures in the complex world we live in.

This book explores the global phenomenon of populism in relation to states' foreign policy, addressing two key questions: How do populists mold their foreign policies? What are the domestic and external factors that enable and constrain it? To this end, the book brings together a diverse group of scholars who have already researched on populist foreign policies (PFP) in specific countries to contribute shared chapters that examine their drivers, patterns, and effects according to distinctive regions: North America, Western Europe, Southern Europe, Central-Eastern Europe, Latin America, South-East Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, and Africa.     The empirical analysis sheds new light on how populists' distinctive conception of a world divided antagonistically between "the people" and "the elites" influences behaviour towards multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union, and regional or global hegemonic powers like the United States, Germany, Russia, and China. The book also shows how ideas related to identity, ideology, status and emotions, impinge on populists' conduct vis-à-vis other international actors, and how national and international structures affect the implementation of populist foreign policies in the regional, interregional, and global arenas.

The book provides an up to date and authoritative account of how the UN is rethinking its obligations to protect civilians during conflicts. Based on hundreds of interviews with senior UN officials and humanitarian protection staff in headquarters and in the field and a review of the UN´s ´grey literature´. It also draws on the author´s own experience of working on human rights and protection in some of the world´s most violent conflicts. It is written not about what the UN ought to do - or how it could have behaved differently in an abstract or theoretically ideal world - but what the UN is actually doing to fulfil the fundamental purposes set forth in its Charter. 

This book examines the geopolitical shifts triggered by Russia's military aggression against Ukraine from February 2022 onwards. This conflict has catalyzed unprecedented transformations in the Black Sea region's security landscape, reshaping the foundations of international relations. Presenting various case studies on key players such Russia, Ukraine, the USA, Turkey, the European Union, and NATO, the book presents a comprehensive analysis of the multifaceted impacts stemming from the conflict, focusing on three critical dimensions: military, economic, and human security. The contributions examine whether and how the conflict has not only magnified security challenges but also spurred resistance by Ukrainian forces and society. It also examines the impact of comprehensive economic sanctions and Western military and financial assistance to Ukraine on Russia's military capabilities and regional balance of power. The book sheds new light on the intricate interplay between state actors, multilateral institutions, and emerging regional orders. By dissecting the impact on governance models, rule of law, and human security, the book illuminates the far-reaching consequences of the conflict beyond military dynamics. With a keen focus on the emergent European security order, the book underscores the need for novel strategies to address the evolving security complexities in the Black Sea region.

This book aims to analyze from a multidisciplinary perspective the current geopolitical conflict between East and West, between two differentiated and apparently conflicting cosmogonic visions. The geopolitical evolution of the current panorama seems to lead to a new world in the field of international relations, a new board played on a planetary level. Once again, bloc geopolitics can be glimpsed in the immediate future, in which the most important actors such as Russia, China, the United States of America, and the European Union are called to position themselves with respect to the territorial and strategic ambitions of the opponent. International law seems to be overwhelmed by military actions and factual pressure on the ground, while the battle of ideas extends to the technological field and cyberspace.

En cette période post-Brexit et où l’Union européenne est traversée par des crises qui en interpellent les fondements et l’avenir, à l’heure où la guerre s’installe dans son plus proche voisinage et face aux tensions et impacts multiples du conflit armé russe en Ukraine, cet ouvrage dresse un état critique, prospectif et rétrospectif, de la liaison dialectique entre l’Union et la paix. Il offre une approche juridique transversale ouverte aux sciences politiques et économiques ainsi que des regards comparés de droit international et européen permettant de cerner la paix comme concept, valeur et objectif affirmés au plan supranational. Les réflexions sont nourries d’éclairages croisés, intérieurs et extérieurs à l’Union, et d’analyses fouillées sur les réalités et enjeux internes et externes pour l’Union de son rapport à la paix.

This book explores how the United Nations (UN) attempts to stabilise and justify an ambivalent meaning of protection and its socio-political roles in the Protection of Civilians agenda. Negotiating between different notions of translation, the research takes the Community Liaison Assistants (CLAs) as an analytical prism to complexify the efforts to construct representations of protection. Created alongside the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), the CLAs are local staff tasked with improving the mission's engagement with the local population, given their supposed linguistic-cultural skills. The CLAs are also part of the stabilisation turn in UN doctrine, adhering to counterinsurgency tactics and instrumentalising language and culture to obtain intelligence and support of the local population. Following a poststructuralist and postcolonial approach inspired mainly by the works of Jacques Derrida and Homi Bhabha, this book proposes deconstructing the representations applied to the CLAs by analysing the discourses presented in the UN reports and doctrinal documents.

This open access book aims at discussing the manifold consequences that the War against Ukraine bears for the European Union and EU Studies. It takes stock of the fact that the Russian Attack on Ukraine and the ensuing War not only affects the Global Order, but also has challenged a number of established narratives and convictions for the European Union and its member states. The EU now needs to position itself in the changing world order. Concretely it needs to deal with a number of membership applications, internal and external challenges to liberal democracy, and the development of its strategic autonomy in a number of decisive policy fields. The book convenes experienced scholars, with chapters covering the following themes and fields: Theories, approaches and concepts in EU studies and IR; the EU and the changing European and Global Order; the War and defence of liberal democracy; Membership Politics; Energy Policy.