Peacebuilding in Practice: Local Experience in Two Bosnian Towns - Hardcover

Moore, Adam D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080145199X ISBN 13: 9780801451997

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2013

Synopsis

In November 2007 Adam Moore was conducting fieldwork in Mostar when the southern Bosnian city was rocked by two days of violent clashes between Croat and Bosniak youth. It was not the city's only experience of ethnic conflict in recent years. Indeed, Mostar's problems are often cited as emblematic of the failure of international efforts to overcome deep divisions that continue to stymie the postwar peace process in Bosnia. Yet not all of Bosnia has been plagued by such troubles. While Mostar remains mired in distrust and division, the Brcko District in the northeast corner of the country has become a model of what Bosnia could be. Its multiethnic institutions operate well compared to other municipalities, and are broadly supported by those who live there; it also boasts the only fully integrated school system in the country. What accounts for the striking divergence in postwar peacebuilding in these two towns?
Moore argues that a conjunction of four factors explains the contrast in outcomes in Mostar and Brcko: The design of political institutions, the sequencing of political and economic reforms, local and regional legacies from the war, and the practice and organization of international peacebuilding efforts in the two towns. Differences in the latter, in particular, have profoundly shaped relations between local political elites and international officials. Through a grounded analysis of localized peacebuilding dynamics in these two cities Moore generates a powerful argument concerning the need to rethink how peacebuilding is done--that is, a shift in the habitus or culture that governs international peacebuilding activities and priorities today.

About this title

About the Author

Adam Moore is an Assistant Professor of Geography at UCLA.

Review

"Peacebuilding in Practice is an original contribution to understanding the complexity of ethnic conflict in the Western Balkans. It reveals the local mechanisms of ethnopolitical spacing and territorial appropriation as a substantial part of ethnonationalist projects in postwar Bosnia."

(Asim Mujkic, University of Sarajevo)

"In Peacebuilding in Practice, Adam Moore provides a powerful narrative of the complex interactions between outsiders and insiders as countries emerge from the violence and separation of ethnic civil war. The comparison of Mostar and Brcko is engaging, and the story of international missteps in one circumstance while other outsiders made progress in another, comparable, setting yields deep insights into the goals and means of peacebuilding in the wake of civil war."

(Timothy D. Sisk, University of Denver, author of International Mediation in Civil War: Bargaining with Bullets and editor of Global Governance)

"Adam Moore argues that the outcome of any given international peacebuilding effort is affected not only by its own organization and implementation but also by the design of local political institutions, sequencing of political and economic reforms, and the local and regional legacies of the war in question. Peacebuilding in Practice is a valuable contribution to our understanding of how peacebuilding is done and why it is often done poorly and only sometimes done well."

(Paula Pickering, College of William and Mary, author of Peacebuilding in the Balkans: The View from the Ground Floor)

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 080145199X
• ISBN 13: 9780801451997
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240