Introduction - Bridging the Conceptual and Theoretical Divides on Peace and Peacebuilding

Summary

The debate internationally on the conditions for peace and for sustaining peacebuilding has been characterized by a considerable degree of conceptual confusion and theoretical disagreements. There is a great need for clarification – or even a need to find common ground to avoid gratuitous or rhetorical differences and to search for more broadly perceived practical recommendations. Although policy makers and practitioners may not ordinarily benefit from theoretical debates among academics, especially if conceptualization is quite abstract, the assumptions and conclusions of these debates can and often do affect public discourses. The current volumeattempts to bridge what appear to be six or seven paradigmatic differences founded on different assumptions, questions, and conclusions about what is significant about the peacebuilding efforts that developed since then UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s Agenda for Peace in 1992