Peacebuilding, which peace? Discussion on narrowing the concept of peace in UN peacebuilding operations

Abstract

On the international stage, the concept of peace was often conditioned on how international actors were dealing with conflicts. During world wars the goal was to maintain peace between the powers. In this context, peace was synonymous with security. During the Cold War, in a context of diminishing conflicts between states and increasing conflicts within states, the prevailing concept of peace was liberal peace. Liberal peace focuses on structural reform of states whose failures have created the conditions for conflict to arise. For critical literature, liberal peace is a narrow concept of peace, as it imposes peace from "top to bottom" and ignores important elements such as relationships. In view of these discussions, this article aims to discuss the problem of narrowing the concept of peace within the liberal peace-building approach. Firstly, what is "peace" will be debated. Secondly, the emergence and defence of the concept of liberal peace on the international stage will be examined. And finally, the critical perspective that brings the discussion about the essence of building peace based on relationships will be addressed.