Bruno Charbonneau - Böcker

Africa lies at the centre of the international community’s peacebuilding interventions, and the continent’s rich multitude of actors, ideas, relationships, practices, experiences, locations, and contexts in turn shapes the possibilities and practices of contemporary peacebuilding. This timely new handbook surveys and analyses peacebuilding as it operates in this specifically African context.The book begins by outlining the evolution and the various ideologies, conceptualizations, institutions, and practices of African peacebuilding. It identifies critical differences in how African peacebuilders have conceptualized and operationalized peacebuilding. The book then considers how different actors sustain, construct, and use African infrastructure to identify and analyse converging, differing, or competing mandates, approaches, and interests. Finally, it analyses specific thematic issues such as gender, justice, development, democracy, and the politics of knowledge before ending with in-depth analyses of case studies drawn from across the continent.Bringing together an international line-up of expert contributors, this book will be an essential read for students and scholars of African politics, post-conflict reconstruction, security, and peace and conflict studies.

This book critically examines peacebuilding, humanitarian intervention and peace operation practices and experiences in francophone spaces.Francophone Africa as a specific space is relatively little studied in the peace and security literature, despite the fact that almost half of all peacekeepers are deployed or were deployed in this part of Africa during the last decade. It is an arena for intervention that deserves more serious attention, if only because it provides fertile ground for exploring the key questions raised in the peacekeeping and peacebuilding literature. For instance, in 2002 a French operation (Licorne) was launched and in 2003 a UN force was deployed in Côte d’Ivoire alongside the French force there.Filling a gap in the current literature, Peace Operations in the Francophone World critically examines peacekeeping and peacebuilding practices in the francophone world, including but not limited to conflict prevention and resolution, security sector reform (SSR), francophone politics, and North–South relations. The book explores whether peace and security operations in francophone spaces have exceptional characteristics when compared with those carried out in other parts of the world and assesses whether an analysis of these operations in the francophone world can make a specific and original contribution to wider international debates about peacekeeping and peacebuilding.This book will be of much interest to students of peacekeeping, peacebuilding, peace and conflict studies, African politics, security studies, and IR in general.

This book aims to bridge the gap between what are generally referred to as ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches to peacebuilding.After the experience of a physical and psychological trauma, the period of individual healing and recovery is intertwined with political and social reconciliation. The prospects for social and political reconciliation are undermined when a ‘top-down’ approach is favoured over the ‘bottom-up strategy’- the prioritization of structural stability over societal well-being.Peacebuilding, Memory and Reconciliation explores the inextricable link between psychological recovery and socio-political reconciliation, and the political issues that dominate this relationship. Through an examination of the construction of social narratives about or for peace, the text offers a new perspective on peacebuilding, which challenges and questions the very nature of the dichotomy between ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches.This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, peace and conflict studies, social psychology, political science and IR in general.

This book aims to bridge the gap between what are generally referred to as ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches to peacebuilding.After the experience of a physical and psychological trauma, the period of individual healing and recovery is intertwined with political and social reconciliation. The prospects for social and political reconciliation are undermined when a ‘top-down’ approach is favoured over the ‘bottom-up strategy’- the prioritization of structural stability over societal well-being.Peacebuilding, Memory and Reconciliation explores the inextricable link between psychological recovery and socio-political reconciliation, and the political issues that dominate this relationship. Through an examination of the construction of social narratives about or for peace, the text offers a new perspective on peacebuilding, which challenges and questions the very nature of the dichotomy between ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches.This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, peace and conflict studies, social psychology, political science and IR in general.

This book critically examines peacebuilding, humanitarian intervention and peace operation practices and experiences in francophone spaces.Francophone Africa as a specific space is relatively little studied in the peace and security literature, despite the fact that almost half of all peacekeepers are deployed or were deployed in this part of Africa during the last decade. It is an arena for intervention that deserves more serious attention, if only because it provides fertile ground for exploring the key questions raised in the peacekeeping and peacebuilding literature. For instance, in 2002 a French operation (Licorne) was launched and in 2003 a UN force was deployed in Côte d’Ivoire alongside the French force there.Filling a gap in the current literature, Peace Operations in the Francophone World critically examines peacekeeping and peacebuilding practices in the francophone world, including but not limited to conflict prevention and resolution, security sector reform (SSR), francophone politics, and North–South relations. The book explores whether peace and security operations in francophone spaces have exceptional characteristics when compared with those carried out in other parts of the world and assesses whether an analysis of these operations in the francophone world can make a specific and original contribution to wider international debates about peacekeeping and peacebuilding.This book will be of much interest to students of peacekeeping, peacebuilding, peace and conflict studies, African politics, security studies, and IR in general.

The role of French security policy and cooperation in Africa has long been recognized as a critically important factor in African politics and international relations. The newest form of security cooperation, a trend which merges security and development and which is actively promoted by other major Western powers, adds to our understanding of this broader trend in African relations with the industrialized North. This book investigates whether French involvement in Africa is really in the interest of Africans, or whether French intervention continues to deny African political freedom and to sustain their current social, economic and political conditions. It illustrates how policies portrayed as promoting stability and development can in fact be factors of instability and reproductive mechanisms of systems of dependency, domination and subordination. Providing complex ideas in a clear and pointed manner, France and the New Imperialism is a sophisticated understanding of critical security studies.

While the events of 9/11 provoked countless debates about international politics, security, and global order, one question dominates. Should America don the mantle of empire for the sake of world peace, or will peace come through world government? This volume questions the very assumptions of this debate – that the political order is hierarchical, with state and international institutions at the top and groups and individuals at the bottom. Case studies dealing with Canada's role in the construction and maintenance of global order, both domestically and internationally, reveal that the location of social and political practices creating global order is no longer certain. Rather than taking the state and international system for granted, this book demonstrates that global order post-9/11 is not exclusively American – allied powers are a key component of its hegemony.

While the events of 9/11 provoked countless debates about international politics, security, and global order, one question dominates. Should America don the mantle of empire for the sake of world peace, or will peace come through world government? This volume questions the very assumptions of this debate – that the political order is hierarchical, with state and international institutions at the top and groups and individuals at the bottom. Case studies dealing with Canada's role in the construction and maintenance of global order, both domestically and internationally, reveal that the location of social and political practices creating global order is no longer certain. Rather than taking the state and international system for granted, this book demonstrates that global order post-9/11 is not exclusively American – allied powers are a key component of its hegemony.

Comparing armed conflicts primes the production of categories that, when mobilized, can alter the trajectories of the conflicts. Considering the political dynamism of spaces of conflict and intervention, and that practitioners regularly seek out academic expertise, this book discusses the possibilities and limits of comparative approaches to understanding armed conflict and intervention.Capacity-building experts, development workers, international organizations, and diplomats use their previous experiences and bring them into new contexts to understand and respond to their environment. Conflict actors can also make comparisons to buttress their political position in negotiations, consolidate their control over fighters, and as calls for transnational rebel solidarity. The use of such comparisons is an inherently political move and it has an impact on the production of scientific knowledge, on conflict dynamics themselves, and on the formulation and implementation of conflict management policy: comparison is inherently a practice of order-making. While there are important epistemological and methodological stakes associated with researchers engaging in comparison, there are also important productive effects connected to the research avenues taken.The chapters in this book were originally published in the Civil Wars.

Comparing armed conflicts primes the production of categories that, when mobilized, can alter the trajectories of the conflicts. Considering the political dynamism of spaces of conflict and intervention, and that practitioners regularly seek out academic expertise, this book discusses the possibilities and limits of comparative approaches to understanding armed conflict and intervention.Capacity-building experts, development workers, international organizations, and diplomats use their previous experiences and bring them into new contexts to understand and respond to their environment. Conflict actors can also make comparisons to buttress their political position in negotiations, consolidate their control over fighters, and as calls for transnational rebel solidarity. The use of such comparisons is an inherently political move and it has an impact on the production of scientific knowledge, on conflict dynamics themselves, and on the formulation and implementation of conflict management policy: comparison is inherently a practice of order-making. While there are important epistemological and methodological stakes associated with researchers engaging in comparison, there are also important productive effects connected to the research avenues taken.The chapters in this book were originally published in the Civil Wars.