| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Many societies emerging from civil war can be described as experiencing 'no war, no peace' situations. Despite a ceasefire or peace accord, these societies may continue to be mired in insecurity, chronic poverty and the persistence of the factors that sparked and sustained the civil war. Yet the post-Cold War period has also witnessed massive peace-support interventions aimed at shoring up peace accords and post-peace accord states. This article identifies and conceptualises the 'liberal peace' as the formulaic western peacebuilding vehicle wheeled out in response to civil war and peace processes. It argues that the liberal peace is often inflexible, ethnocentric, ministers to conflict manifestations rather than causes, and is unable to address the underlying factors contributing to armed conflict in deeply divided societies. It is the structural factors behind the liberal peace that explain why so many peace processes fail to deliver peace.
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