ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 engages with the debates surrounding liberal peacebuilding and the recommendations of the local turn. The holistic and comprehensive origins of the fundamental components of liberal peacebuilding—liberalism, peace, and peacebuilding—and what remains of them in the current understanding and practice of peacebuilding are discussed first. The discussion retraces the original conceptualization of liberal peacebuilding from the works of Locke and Kant to Galtung and Lederach. It is followed by a review of the conceptual and practical critiques of liberal peacebuilding and the alternative approaches to liberal peacebuilding the critics have put forward. The chapter shows how local involvement, understood as one of the practical applications of the local turn, is already at the core of liberal peacebuilding while the local turn points to the failure of peacebuilding missions to implement their liberal mandates. Within this discussion, the chapter locates a middle ground where liberal peacebuilding is originally grounded on the local dimension of peacebuilding, and the local turn is complementary to the values of liberal peace. These conceptualizations serve as an analytical framework in examining the case studies of Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste
