Rethinking Peacebuilding: The Quest for Just Peace in the Middle East and the Western Balkans

This book presents new theoretical and conceptual perspectives on the problematique of building just and durable peace. Research on peace and justice is widespread in most disciplines ranging from philosophy, politics, and ethics, to religion and economics. Furthermore, linking peace to justice has sparked a lively debate about the dilemmas and trade-offs between justice and peace in many contemporary peace processes. This book presents the state-of-the-art of this debate and contributes to innovative onceptualisations of just peace as well as advancement of the research agenda on justice and peacebuilding. The book provides in-depth and up-to-date analyses based on extensive fieldwork of various peacebuilding efforts in the Middle East and the western Balkans, and the EU's peacebuilding activities in particular are analysed. These empirical insights are used to enhance policy-relevant knowledge regarding the effectiveness of peacebuilding strategies and to evaluate to what extent they may enhance self-sustainable peace. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, which draws on research from such disciplines as political science, international relations, international law, peace and conflict research, the book presents a number of original theoretical and methodological perspectives to the study of just and durable peace. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, peace and conflict studies, Middle Eastern Politics, European Politics and IR/Security Studies.