Research Project (Ongoing)

The Afterlives of Peacebuilding: Local Continuities, Reorganization and Fragmentation

Since the end of the Cold War, international peacebuilding has played a central role in responding to conflict, shaping political transitions, governance reforms, and socio-economic recovery, and supporting prevention of the recurrence of violence in societies emerging from war. However, the global political and security landscape is changing rapidly. The involvement of the United Nations, its partners, and international donors has declined significantly, alongside reductions in mandate scope, financial support, and available resources. As a result, these international actors no longer occupy the central role they once had in shaping peacebuilding processes.

Existing policy and research have generated valuable insights into how peacebuilding interventions are designed, sequenced, and implemented. Yet much of this work has concentrated on periods of active international engagement, paying limited attention to what continues beyond these periods. In particular, it rarely examines how peace is sustained, erodes, is reconfigured, or fragmented once peacebuilding missions withdraw or international involvement declines.

This research addresses this gap by examining the institutions, practices, and relationships that persist, reorganize, or fragment once international peacebuilding loses its centrality — understood here as the “afterlives of peacebuilding.” Guided by three analytical lenses — persistence, reorganization, and fragmentation — and drawing on a qualitative, case-based approach across multiple post-conflict contexts, the study adopts a multi-layered perspective that captures interactions among local, national, and international actors over time. In doing so, it understands peacebuilding not as a fixed institutional outcome, but as an evolving social process shaped by the interplay between pre-existing systems, mechanisms that emerged through peacebuilding interventions, and hybrid arrangements that combine elements of both.

Building on frameworks such as the United Nations’ Sustaining Peace agenda and related approaches including adaptive peacebuilding, this study contributes to practical insights for international cooperation by highlighting how policies and engagement strategies can better support locally grounded and sustainable peacebuilding processes beyond periods of active international engagement.