Preventing violent conflicts and establishing comprehensive lastingpeace in some of the world's most turbulent regions hasbecome the new global imperative. But to be effective,peacebuilding must be a multilateral, not a unilateral process.Even for the world's sole surviving superpower, promoting andsustaining durable peace requires communication, co-ordination,co-operation, and collaboration between local, national andinternational actors, nongovernmental as well as governmental.
In this book, Dennis Sandole explores the theory and practice ofpeacebuilding, discussing the differences and similarities betweencore aspects of peace processes, namely violent conflictprevention; conflict management; conflict settlement; conflictresolution and conflict transformation. Assuming no prior knowledgeon the part of the student reader, the volume distinguishes betweenproactive and reactive peacebuilding as strategies to pre-empt orotherwise respond to global problems, such as identity conflicts,failing/failed states, terrorism, pandemics, poverty, forcedmigrations, climate change, ecological degradation, and theircombined effects. Drawing on a wide range of conflicts such asBosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, East Timor, Haiti, South Africa andMacedonia, the book debates the 'lessons learned' from pastexperiences of reactive as well as proactive peacebuilding, plusthe challenges which lie ahead for those striving to bring aboutsustainable peace, security and stability to war-torn or otherwisefragile regions of the globe.