Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies

by John Paul Lederach

Building Peace is John Paul Lederach's definitive statement on peacebuilding. Lederach explains why we need to move beyond "traditional" diplomacy, which often emphasizes top-level leaders and short-term objectives, toward a holistic approach that stresses the multiplicity of peacemakers, long-term perspectives, and the need to create an infrastructure that empowers resources within a society and maximizes contributions from outside.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics

197 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1997

About the author

Dr. John Paul Lederach is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in the fields of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He is widely known for the development of culturally based approaches to conflict transformation; the design and implementation of integrative, strategic approaches to peacebuilding; and for carving a robust integration of the arts and social change. Over the course of his career, Lederach has garnered extensive experience working with non-governmental organizations, community-based initiatives impacted by cycles of violence, and national peace process design. He has worked extensively as a practitioner in conciliation processes in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast and Central Asia.

Lederach is the author or editor of 30 books and manuals (translated into a dozen languages), and numerous academic articles and monographs on peace education, conflict transformation, international peacebuilding, and conciliation training. He has developed training materials and manuals available in Spanish on peace education, conflict transformation, and mediation, now used widely throughout Latin America.

Lederach received his bachelor’s degree in history and peace studies from Bethel College and his doctorate of philosophy degree in sociology, with a concentration on social conflict, from the University of Colorado. He currently serves as Senior Fellow for Humanity United and Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Reviews

[Darryl Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am very glad that I read Lederach's book. I hope that everyone in the US State Department, the United Nations, and every NGO involved in facilitating peace throughout the world reads this book. What I came away with from this book is that we spend much more effort, time, and money on war than we do on peace building. Building peace is a very complicated process that must be tailored to each conflict, needs to be addressed at multiple levels, and must be assembled over a long time frame. These last two aspects are probably why we have seen peace efforts fail over and over again. So often, high-level peace negotiations are overseen by a powerful external entity (such as the United States) only to have the conflict re-ignite as soon as attention is turned away. Our modern attention spans are way too short. Peace building requires long, sustained effort and deep engagement with those in conflict. Until we, as a country and an interconnected world, really embrace these ideas and become more committed to peace than we are to making war, we will always fail to resolve these conflicts.

[Margarita Villota Benítez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es un libro muy interesante, recoge algunos de los planteamientos centrales sobre la reconciliación y paz desde uno de los mayores representantes de los Estudios de paz.

[ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of Lederach's most useful revelations in assessing the work of third-party nonviolent interventionists -- from humanitarian workers to nonviolent direct-action trainers -- is the idea of an integrated framework for peacebuilding. Instead of always focusing on either crisis intervention or a future-to-come; instead of focusing on either a local issue or only visioning about addressing root causes, Lederach explores the role of transformation -- how to get from crises to radical change.

"We must ... think about the design of social change in time-units of decades, in order to link crisis management and long-term, future-oriented time frames," he writes. "We must understand crisis issues as connected to systemic roots ... [and] recognize the integrative potential of middle-range leaders, who by their locus within the affected population may be able to cultivate relationships and pursue the design of social change at a subsystem level."

This is a vital book for anyone exploring the theory and practice of nonviolent social change, as well as practitioners searching for a framework for their direct action praxis.

[Glory T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall this is a very insightful book, though it is a bit repetitious. Dr. Lederach discusses the importance of long term planning in peacebuilding as opposed to short term peacekeeping that does not involve getting to the root of the conflict. I gave it 4 stars (not 5) because twenty years later, there is a realization that middle level actors are not always the best actors to rely on (see Thania Paffenholz's article “International Peacebuilding Goes Local: Analyzing Lederach’s Conflict Transformation Theory and Its Ambivalent Encounter with 20 Years of Practice.”) However, on the whole Dr. Ledereach is a very wise man when it comes to peacebuilding and has decades of experience in helping peacebuilding processes in many countries such as Colombia, the Philippines, Nepal, East and West Africa, and Ireland. He deserves our utmost respect.

[Kenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this for one of my classes.

[Malaka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Must read for anyone in the peacebuilding field.