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Title [sv]
Motståndskraftig fred: en system-ansats i studiet av fredsbyggande
Title [en]
Resilient peace: a systems approach to peacebuilding
Abstract [sv]
There are two important conceptual gaps in current research on post-war peacebuilding: between negative and positive peace, and between failed and successful peacebuilding. The project Resilient Peace brings the concept of resilience to the field of peace and conflict research in an attempt to bridge these gaps. The concept of resilience is borrowed from social-ecological systems theory where it refers to the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic function and structure. Both the concept of resilience and the systems approach are new to the field of peace and conflict research, making the project innovative. In order both to refine the concept of resilient peace and to identify its causes, ten case studies of high-profile post-war peacebuilding processes will be conducted, using structured focused comparison. The analytical framework for the case studies combines insights from previous research regarding different forms of post-settlement peace with a typology of challenges to peace developed within the present project. In addition to addressing an issue at the heart of current research on post-war peacebuilding, the project will inform peacebuilding policy and practice by presenting a conceptualization of peace, which is more demanding than the mere absence of violence, but more attainable, in the mid term, than positive peace, and which can therefore be an important standard for the evaluation of peacebuilding operations.
Publications (1 of 1) Show all publications
Johansson, P. (2018). Resilience Thinking for Peacebuilders. International Journal of Peace Studies, 23(2), 1-14
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Resilience Thinking for Peacebuilders
2018 (English)In: International Journal of Peace Studies, ISSN 1085-7494, Vol. 23, no 2, p. 1-14Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The concept of resilience is currently making its way into the field of peace and conflict studies, but it is a concept with different meanings and implications. The argument advanced in this paper is that in order to make the most of resilience thinking, the field should not conceive of resilience merely as the ability to bounce back to an original state after a disturbance, a conceptualization usually referred to as “engineering resilience.” Instead, it should engage with “ecological resilience,” which refers to the amount of disturbance that a system can absorb before being pushed across a threshold from one stable state to another. I also relate these different types of resilience to another distinction between specified resilience to anticipated disturbances and general resilience to unknown ones. Finally, I consider a few other implications of resilience thinking for research on peace and conflict.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
IPRA - Global Network of Peace Researchers, 2018
Keywords
resilience, peacebuilding, stability, adaptability
National Category
Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified
Research subject
Peace and Conflict Research
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-159829 (URN)
Available from: 2019-06-10 Created: 2019-06-10 Last updated: 2019-10-08Bibliographically approved
Principal InvestigatorJohansson, Patrik
Coordinating organisation
Umeå University
Funder
Period
2013-01-01 - 2015-12-31
National Category
Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalization Studies)Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
Identifiers
DiVA, id: project:1195Project, id: 2012-06578_VR