The Cat in the Hat: Can technocratic peacebuilding lead to transformative peace?

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Cat in the Hat: Can technocratic peacebuilding lead to transformative peace?

AU - Podder, Sukanya

PY - 2020/6/7

Y1 - 2020/6/7

N2 - In this review, I urge peacebuilding scholars and practitioners to think about three pertinent questions. First, how can we mitigate dispersed peacebuilding activities that often lack focus and privilege donor agendas with limited local normative resonance? Second, how do we work with policy time? (Christie and Algar-Faria, 2020). Scholars and practitioners in the field are well aware that short-termism and the urgency to produce results can and does undermine strategic thinking: it encourages an ‘impatient’ peace (Hom, 2018). Short-termism and time-bound projects cannot account for or cater to the longer-term needs of communities. Given this tryst between policy time and effective peacebuilding, how can peacebuilding organisations think strategically, in ways that allow them to learn from and continue to monitor the results of their actions beyond bureaucratic clock time? (Christie and Algar-Faria, 2020: 156). And, finally, how can peacebuilders use valuable institutional knowledge from project implementation to encourage not only organisational learning and reflection but also stronger legacies? (Podder, 2020).

AB - In this review, I urge peacebuilding scholars and practitioners to think about three pertinent questions. First, how can we mitigate dispersed peacebuilding activities that often lack focus and privilege donor agendas with limited local normative resonance? Second, how do we work with policy time? (Christie and Algar-Faria, 2020). Scholars and practitioners in the field are well aware that short-termism and the urgency to produce results can and does undermine strategic thinking: it encourages an ‘impatient’ peace (Hom, 2018). Short-termism and time-bound projects cannot account for or cater to the longer-term needs of communities. Given this tryst between policy time and effective peacebuilding, how can peacebuilding organisations think strategically, in ways that allow them to learn from and continue to monitor the results of their actions beyond bureaucratic clock time? (Christie and Algar-Faria, 2020: 156). And, finally, how can peacebuilders use valuable institutional knowledge from project implementation to encourage not only organisational learning and reflection but also stronger legacies? (Podder, 2020).

M3 - Review article

SN - 1353-3312

JO - International Peacekeeping

JF - International Peacekeeping

ER -