John Paul Lederach, "Building Peace"

"Whether motivated by our courage or our compassion, by our love for our children or of this planet, we all believe that war is not the answer and that we can, and must, do what we are able to create peace in this world."


"Building Peace" constructs a framework for sustained peace efforts in societies divided by various forms of conflict and offers tangible ways of functioning through it, which have been mostly underutilized in mainstream peace processes to this point. In order to do this, Lederach, a peace scholar and practitioner to multiple conflicts throughout the world, proposes a holistic and integrative approach to peacebuilding. Structurally, there should be involvement at the grassroots leadership level of the conflict, such as local leaders and community developers, middle-range leadership including scholars and humanitarian leaders of nongovernmental organization, and top level leadership in politics, religious institutions, and the military. Lederach proposes that the middle range leadership in this model is optimally positioned to work for long term sustained peacebuilding efforts. Also, the conflict should be viewed on multiple levels including the specific conflict, the relationships between conflicting parties, and the larger systems at play which are responsible for fostering the specific conflict. It is proposed that subsystems, or microcosms of the system at large, provide an excellent middle way for peacebuilding that lies between the smaller conflict and the larger system. Another important component of the peacebuilding framework is approaching the conflict as a process that is dynamic and progressive over a period of time which needs to be conceptualized so that various strategies and actions are deployed from facilitators filling diverse roles. Of extreme importance is the need for reconciliation, where opposing parties are allowed to have the appropriate time and space required to address and heal historical grievances that may run extremely deep into the structure of the divided societies. Innovation and creativity are needed for relationship building between the parties, as often times this component is not treated with the import needed for long term sustained peace. Of course resources are also required, but perhaps more importantly, there is a need for the infrastructure to utilize the resources optimally. Finally, coordination across the framework is necessary if peacebuliding is to be sustained. Overall, Lederach proposes a comprehensive approach for peacemakers for them to constantly take into account the broader picture of peacebuilding, but is also coordinate and focus efforts toward specific conflicts. In the final chapter of the book, John Pendergast provides cases in Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Somalia for the application of Lederach's framework.

See Also:
Lederach, J. P. (2005). The moral imagination: The art and soul of building peace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.




Citation Information:
Lederach, J. P. (1997). Building peace: Sustainable reconciliation in divided societies. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press.