Revisiting the Local Turn in Peacebuilding
Ejdus, Filip. 2020. In A Requiem For Peacebuilding, edited by Jorg Kustermans, Tom Sauer, and Barbara Segaert, 41-58. Berlin: Springer Link.
This article offers an insight into one of the main doctrinal shifts adopted by international organizations and states in light of the continued failures of externally-imposed peacebuilding efforts – the “local turn”. As opposed to operating unilaterally with citizens remaining passive recipients of peace, the local turn emphasizes the importance of promoting participation, leadership, and ownership of peacebuilding efforts at the community level. Despite this change in discourse, however, evidence of the local turn’s effectiveness remains elusive with international peacebuilding organizations facing consistent criticism regarding their failure to ensure true local involvement in all facets of post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction efforts.
Link: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-56477-3_3