Strategies of Peace ─ Transforming Conflict in a Violent World

How can a just peace be built in sites of genocide, massive civil war, dictatorship, terrorism, and poverty? In Strategies of Peace, the first volume in the Studies in Strategic Peacebuilding series, fifteen leading scholars propose an imaginative and provocative approach to peacebuilding. Today the dominant thinking is the "liberal peace," which stresses cease fires, elections, and short run peace operations carried out by international institutions, western states, and local political elites. But the liberal peace is not enough, the authors argue. A just and sustainable peace requires a far more holistic vision that links together activities, actors, and institutions at all levels. By exploring innovative models for building lasting peace-a United Nations counter-terrorism policy that also promotes good governance; coordination of the international prosecution of war criminals with local efforts to settle civil wars; increasing the involvement of religious leaders, who have a unique ability to elicit peace settlements; and many others--the authors advance a bold new vision for peacebuilding.

Daniel Philpott is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations.

Gerard F. Powers is Director of Catholic Peacebuilding Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is the co-editor of Peacemaking: Moral and Policy Challenges for a New World.