The field of peacemaking is in turbulent change. There are more peacemaking actors than before but fewer success stories, and an increasing number of violent conflicts tend to resist negotiated agreements. Tools and practices created for traditional inter- and intra-state conflicts have become ineffective and revision of old mediation practices is called for. This book examines how the private peacemaking organisations have faced this challenge. In the 21st century, private peacemakers have become a central part of peace diplomacy and have appeared as flexible actors whose innovative thinking paves the way for reconsidering and reinventing old practices of mediation. Instead of emphasizing the act of resolution, a new emphasis is given to the transformation of violence into a peace system, the complexity of conflict and the inadequateness of rational management. Furthermore, this shift has brought civic society actors from the field of reconciliation to the field of peace mediation. This new pragmatic approach under development can be called dialogic mediation.

In the conflict resolution realm, track II peacemaking or diplomacy has become increasingly common, complementing the more formal track I peacemaking efforts in myriad ways and at various points throughout a peace process. "Conducting Track II Peacemaking" presents the process of track II intervention as a series of steps that guide peacemakers in coordinating various track II efforts to maximize their positive impacts.Written for both track I and track II actors, this handbook: * illuminates the role and importance of track II activities; * charts a wide range of track II activities, from assessment, conception, and planning through to implementation and evaluation; and, * discusses the need to ensure that different peacemaking efforts support and reinforce one another.This volume is the seventh in the Peacemaker s Toolkit series. Each handbook addresses a facet of the work of mediating violent conflicts, including such topics as negotiations with terrorists, constitution making, assessing and enhancing ripeness, and debriefing mediators."

Illustrates the kinds of grants the U.S. Institute of Peace has made for peacemaking &, more importantly, extracts from them more widely applicable insights and lessons. Private peacemaking has assumed much greater importance in the post-Cold War era. The peacemaking activities described have been targeted on conflicts in East Timor, the Middle East, Georgia and South Ossetia, Sri Lanka, the Transcaucasus, Northern Ireland, Algeria, Kosovo, and Bosnia. Includes: Track II diplomacy, training as peacemaking, use of the media for peacemaking, economic development for peacemaking, and interactive programs for young people in conflict situations.

This book explores the role of nongovernmental mediators in promoting “inclusive peace” to negotiating parties in Myanmar’s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) negotiations from 2011-2015. The influx of NGO mediators directly engaging with the negotiating parties and promoting the inclusivity norm coupled with the salience of discourse around “all-inclusiveness” at the end of the NCA process forms a puzzle around the agency that NGO mediators wield in influencing political outcomes, despite their lack of political and material leverage.The author argues that NGO mediators can effectively promote norms, using mediation processes as a site of norm diffusion. Bespoke international conflict resolution NGOs have become key mediation actors, within the last three decades through creating the niche world of “private diplomacy” and acting as "norm entrepreneurs" at the same time. As informal third parties, these NGO mediators directly engage with politically sensitive actors or convene unofficial peace talks. As NGOs, they are part of an epistemic community of mediation practice, professionalizing the field and producing knowledge on what peace mediation is and what it ought to be. This dual identity as both NGOs and mediators nicely sets them up with a unique agency to promote and diffuse norms. These norms often reflect the liberal peacebuilding paradigm promoted from the Global North, such as inclusion, gender equality and transitional justice, with the view that these norms are not ends in themselves but as necessary ingredients for effective mediation.The book further questions whether NGOs should promote norms in the first place. The outcome of the NCA process presents a critical and cautionary tale of promoting a presumed universal norm into a given locale and expecting a certain outcome without understanding how an external norm interacts with existing normative frameworks. The book illustrates that while NGO mediators do possess the “normative agency” to effectively promote norms to negotiating parties, my empirical research analyses how their promotion of the “inclusivity” norm to the negotiating parties in Myanmar’s NCA paradoxically resulted in exclusionary outcomes: only half of the armed groups in the ethnic armed groups’ negotiating bloc signed, and civil society was effectively crowded out from meaningful participation despite lofty rhetoric. This is an open access book.

For a long time, the Nordic countries have been a region of peace, with the ability to resolve conflicts peacefully among themselves, and a region for peace, actively promoting peace globally. Although efforts to actively brand the Nordic region are ongoing, the Nordic Peace brand is an area with untapped potential. The Nordics have rich traditions for working together on peace and conflict resolution. These joint efforts have grown organically and informally from like-mindedness, letting the common Nordic culture and ways of working foster integration among them where relevant. The people working in the Nordic countries on Nordic cooperation and peace recognize the potential of strengthening the Nordic Peace brand. One area of special potential is increasing focus on the shared Nordic priorities of prevention and the women, peace and security agenda as part of the Nordic Peace brand.

Across the globe, there are more than 50 armed conflicts, many of which are being perpetrated in the name of religion. In these zones of violence, there are brave men and women who, motivated by their religious beliefs, are working to create and sustain peace and reconciliation. Yet their stories are unknown. This book explores the conflicts and the stories of 15 remarkable individuals identified and studied by the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding from regions as far-flung as West Papua, Indonesia, the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Nigeria, El Salvador and South Africa. The book also captures important lessons learned when these peacemakers convened in Amman, Jordan for the 2004 Peacemakers in Action Retreat and discussed their best techniques and greatest obstacles in creating peace on the ground. Peacemakers in Action provides guidance to students of religion and future peacemakers.

This encyclopaedia provides a comprehensive overview of major theories and approaches to the study of peace and conflict across different humanities and social sciences disciplines. Peace and conflict studies (PCS) is one of the major sub-disciplines of international studies (including political science and international relations), and has emerged from a need to understand war, related systems and concepts and how to respond to it afterward. As a living reference work, easily discoverable and searchable, the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies offers solid material for understanding the foundational, historical, and contemporary themes, concepts, theories, events, organisations, and frameworks concerning peace, conflict, security, rights, institutions and development. The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Peace and Conflict Studies brings together leading and emerging scholars from different disciplines to provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date resource on peace and conflict studies ever produced.