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At War's End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict [Kindle Edition]

Roland Paris

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Review

'At War's End is the state of the art treatment of the dilemmas of reconstruction and peacebuilding after war, intervention and civil conflict.' Michael Ignatieff, Director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University

'At a moment when politicians and pundits are debating the wisdom of nation-building, Roland Paris brings us an important and groundbreaking book. Theoretically rich, historically informed, and analytically innovative, this authoritative volume will be invaluable to scholars and practitioners alike who are interested in understanding what it takes to build peace after civil wars' Thomas G. Weiss, Presidential Professor and Director, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, CUNY Graduate Center

'This is the best book yet written on peacebuilding operations, a must for both academics and practitioners.' Peter Viggo Jakobsen, Associate Professor in International Relations, University of Copenhagen

'It is hard to imagine a more timely study than Roland Paris's superb analysis of the peacebuilding experience of the last decade. As the United States gropes its way through the morass of Iraq, its leaders need to read At War's End and concentrate on developing timetables and building institutions.' Robert A. Pastor, Vice President of International Affairs, American University

'This book will surely stand as the definitive treatment of the intellectual and ideological origins of international peacekeeping and peacebuilding in the post-Cold War era. The breadth of cases, the rigorous assessment of outcomes, and depth of policy insight are most impressive.' Fen Osler Hampson, Professor of International Affairs and Director, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University

'Few studies of peacekeeping and peacebuilding merit the description 'breakthrough.'…This is one of them.' Michael Pugh, Director, University of Plymouth International Studies Centre and Editor, International Peacekeeping Journal

'At War's End is a major contribution to an understanding of the theory, practice, and consequences of peacekeeping that should be read by scholars and practitioners alike. Roland Paris expertly demonstrates how peacekeeping has evolved from the modest attempt to keep the peace into the much more ambitious agenda of engineering the socio-political conditions for a stable peace. But, as Paris documents, the road to hell can be paved with good intentions; the attempt by the international community to promote democracy and markets has created, in various places, not a liberal peace but instead renewed competition and violence. His recommendations should be debated seriously by all those who are concerned about the future of peacekeeping.' Michael Barnett, Professor of Political Science and Director, International Relations Program, University of Wisconsin

'… At war's end deserves to become the essential text on peacebuilding operations for practitioners and analysts alike.' International Affairs

'At War's End is a timely and very good addition to the growing literature in post-conflict studies. … Paris's book is appropriate for any liberalization or conflict studies, as both are covered aptly. It is a strong addition to the literature on peacebuilding methods and strategies.' Journal of Peace Research

'Roland Paris does us a great service in At War's End by stripping peacebuilding back to its ideological origins and providing the reader with a useful assessment of the theoretical assumptions which underlie it.' Democratiya

Product Description

Exploring the challenge of rehabilitating countries after civil wars, this study finds that attempting to transform war-shattered states into liberal democracies with market economies can backfire badly. Roland Paris contends that the rapid introduction of democracy and capitalism in the absence of effective institutions can increase rather than decrease the danger of renewed fighting. A more effective approach to post-conflict peacebuilding would be to introduce political and economic reform in a gradual and controlled manner.

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 3376 KB
  • Print Length: 302 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0521834120
  • Publisher: Cambridge University Press (24 May 2004)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B001FSKDVM
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #192,356 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Roland Paris
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Amazon.com:  2 reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
This Book Deserves More Attention 20 July 2006
By Steven A. Peterson - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
It is stunning that so little attention has been given to reviewing this book yet. This volume is one that advances preconditions for successful democratic nation building, based upon a series of recent case studies (such as Angola, Rwanda, Cambodia, Liberia, Bosnia, Croatia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Namibia, and Mozambique). This is one of a series of works (such as The RAND volume, America's Role in Nation-Building;Fukuyama's State-Building; etc.) that address what it takes to create new democratic states that will ensure.

Roland Paris addresses an issue that initially seems far afield--peacebuilding. However, his analysis ends up very much on the mark for better understanding democratic nation building. For Paris, peacebuilding represents ". . .postconflict missions". . .with ". . .the goal of preventing a recurrence of violence" (Paris, 2004: 2). What does this have to do with nation building? As he explains (2004: 5):

Peacebuilding missions in the 1990s were guided by a
generally unstated but widely accepted theory of conflict
management: the notion that promoting "liberalization" in
countries that had recently experienced civil war would
help to create the conditions for a stable and lasting
peace. In the political realm, liberalization means
democratization, or the promotion of periodic and genuine
elections, constitutional limitations on the exercise of
government power, and respect for basic civil
liberties. . . .

On the economic side, liberalization refers, according to Paris, to the movement toward a market economy model. His study of a series of postconflict situations finds this liberal economic democracy model a common end goal of peacebuilders. In effect, what he terms peacebuilding looks very much like what others call democratic nation building.

Paris argues that the most promising strategy is IBL---Institutionalization Before Liberalization, that is, that peacebuilders should not immediately move toward economic and political liberalization. Rather, they should first (re)build institutions so that there is a stable base. Among the steps in this process are:

1. Wait until conditions are conducive for elections to
take place.
2. Design electoral systems to reward moderate parties
and candidates.
3. Work to develop a stable civil society.
4. Head off the emergence of "hate" speech.
5. Develop conflict-reducing economic policies.
6. In short, rebuild effective state institutions.

For Paris, there needs to be a two-step process: first, build institutions as a foundation; second, construct liberal structures on that foundation.

This means time and hard work. For successful democratic nation-building, patience is needed--and understanding thast the process must be carefully managed with uncertain outcomes. In short, this is a must read on the subject of what it takes to produce successful nation-building.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Provocative but off the mark 21 Jun 2007
By Michael Foley - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This is a provocative and useful book. Besides making a case that the attempt to impose a liberal political and economic order on states recovering from civil war often fails and is sometimes a disaster, Paris provides a nice introduction to several of the most important recent attempts at international post-conflict reconstruction.

But Paris' argument is oversimplified, and sometimes just plain wrong. He paints the international effort as ideologically unified around a liberal order, when in fact those carrying out the economic program (neoliberalism) scarcely talk to those carrying out the political reforms and reconstruction. In fact, the complaint that the two work at cross purposes -- with World Bank and IMF reformers insisting on economic austerity ("fiscal stability"), liberalization, and privatization policies that undermine efforts to provide people with a "peace payoff" -- has become common among those who work and write in this area.

Paris also worries that, in failing to address the poverty and inequality that lay at the root of civil conflicts, the international community has laid the groundwork for future conflicts even in success cases like El Salvador. In fact, the evidence is that political reforms that incorporate dissident elites into the political system satisfied the central "root cause" of civil war. There is lots of inequality and poverty around the world, but it rarely leads to civil war without a political leadership determined to mobilize people against what they see as a repressive and exclusionary regime.

Finally, Paris proposes an alternative model that would have the international community playing a more directive role, taking over the civil administration of countries recovering from civil conflict until institutions are strong enough to manage democracy and economic liberalization. But he ignores the fact that most civil conflicts leave governments standing that are strong enough -- and determined enough -- to resist international meddling. Even in Cambodia, where the UN was given sweeping powers to oversee the civil administration, the Hun Sen government was determined to maintain control and there was not much UNTAC could do to stop it. The illusion that "we" can just step in and impose our agenda is widespread in this country and accounts for the notion that the United States could (and, for some, still can) bring peace and democracy to Iraq if we could just commit enough time and troops to the effort. Paris should ground his recommendations in the real world and not in American fantasies of omnipotence.

Popular Highlights

 (What's this?)
&quote;
Peacebuilding missions in the 199os were guided by a generally unstated but widely accepted theory of conflict management: &quote;
Highlighted by 4 Kindle users
&quote;
pathologies include: z) the problem of "bad" civil society; z) the behavior of opportunistic "ethnic entrepreneurs"; 3) the risk that elections can serve as focal points for destructive societal competition; 4) the danger posed by local "saboteurs" who cloak themselves in the mantle of democracy but seek to undermine democracy; and 5) the disruptive and conflict-inducing effects of economic liberalization &quote;
Highlighted by 3 Kindle users
&quote;
To this end, I shall propose a new peace-building strategy called "Institutionalization Before Liberalization," which begins from the premise that democratization and marketization are inherently tumultuous transformations that have the potential to undermine a fragile peace. The &quote;
Highlighted by 3 Kindle users

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