ABSTRACT
Over the course of researching and writing this book there have been dramatic changes in the patterns of international relations, largely brought about through the Global War on Terror. The war in Afghanistan has now lasted longer than the Second World War, with no evident end in sight. The military components of peace operations have been roundly attacked in scholarly and policy circles, as well as in the North’s media. Despite the criticisms of these missions, the idea of peacebuilding has not received the same critical attention, and continues to enjoy considerable popular support, which can be seen by continued calls for peace operations in the Sudan. The manner in which peacebuilding is treated separately from military campaigns is starkly demonstrated by the media responses in the North to the killings of Canadian and British NGO workers in Afghanistan. Their deaths were not portrayed in the same way as those of soldiers from the same countries, and their work did not come under significant scrutiny; their ‘humanitarian’ missions were lauded within the press. This reflects how the roles of NGOs in these ‘ungoverned’ spaces are presumed to be a positive force for democratic development, and to represent the potential for the end of conflicts within these states, so while the wars themselves are criticized, the logic of peacebuilding is not. The North’s ongoing presence in these states, however, is based on the presumption that a particular form of liberal peacebuilding is both possible and, indeed, necessary. This book has turned a critical lens on the theories and practices of peacebuilding, opting to focus on the policies and practices of civil society re/construction precisely because its goals and means are treated as givens within the policy and academic literatures.
