Failed Peacemaking / Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies (PDF)

Spoilers and tactical blockages to peace have connected across local, national, regional and international scales, highlighting ideological divisions. Drawing on counter-revolutionary theory, the concept of counter-peace is used as a tool to critically interrogate a systemic array of blockages to peace. Distinct counter-peace patterns are now entangled in peace and reform processes, including the stalemate pattern, the limited counter-peace, and the unmitigated counter-peace patterns. Across cases, once tactical blockages begin to form these patterns, they become systemic and ultimately enable conflict escalation. Consequently, the intimate entanglement of the existing international peace architecture with counter-peace processes points to ideological divisions in international order, as well as the growing gulf between diminished practices of peace and reform with critical scholarship on peace, justice, and sustainability.

Sandra Pogodda is Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at the Department of Politics, University ofManchester, UK.

Oliver P. Richmond is Research Professor at the Department of Politics, University of Manchester, UK. He is also International Professor at Dublin City University, Ireland, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at EWHA University, Seoul, Korea.

Gëzim Visoka is Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland.