Peacebuilding - Components of Peacebuilding

Components of Peacebuilding

The tasks included in peacebuilding vary depending on the situation and the agent of peacebuilding. Successful peacebuilding activities create an environment supportive of self-sustaining, durable peace; reconcile opponents; prevent conflict from restarting; integrate civil society; create rule of law mechanisms; and address underlying structural and societal issues. To accomplish these goals, peacebuilding must address functional structures, emotional conditions and social psychology, social stability, rule of law and ethics and cultural sensitivities.

Preconflict peacebuilding interventions aim to prevent the start of violent conflict. These strategies involve a variety of actors and sectors in order to transform the conflict. Even though the definition of peacebuilding includes preconflict interventions, in practice most peacebuilding interventions are postconflict. However, many peacebuilding scholars advocate an increased focus on preconflict peacebuilding in the future.

Barnett et al. divides postconflict peacebuilding into three dimensions: stabilizing the post-conflict zone, restoring state institutions and dealing with social and economic issues. Activities within the first dimension reinforce state stability post-conflict and discourage former combatants from returning to war (disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, or DDR). Second dimension activities build state capacity to provide basic public goods and increase state legitimacy. Programs in the third dimension build a post-conflict society's ability to manage conflicts peacefully and promote socioeconomic development.

A mixture of locally and internationally-focused components is key to building a long-term sustainable peace. Mac Ginty says that while different "indigenous" communities utilize different conflict resolution techniques, most of them share the common characteristics described in the table. Since indigenous peacebuilding practices arise from local communities, they are tailored to local context and culture in a way that generalized international peacebuilding approaches are not.