How do we know whether or not research contributes to peacebuilding? And, what kind of positive or negative impacts may research have? These two questions are conspicuous by their absence despite the large number of peacebuilding-specific research institutes, academic programmes, publishers and funders. Some of the reasons for the current state of affairs are examined: the ambiguous, elastic and politicised nature of ‘peacebuilding’ as a concept and as a practice; the inappropriateness of current approaches to the evaluation of research impact; and the disconnection between the world of evaluators and the world of peace researchers. The current article addresses these questions through an exploration of the intersection of research, evaluation methodology and politics. The article concludes with preliminary framework for teasing out the specific kinds of peacebuilding impacts catalysed through research.

Peacebuilding is rarely delivering to expectations. Instead, high-strung ambitions tend to mix with local dynamics triggering complex processes. In particular, the liberal peace approach has been criticised for operating with simplified world-views, mismatching with realities. In this article, we take a long-term perspective and assess the outcome of peacebuilding efforts in Cambodia two decades after the massive UN-operation was concluded. We apply the notion of ‘friction’ between interveners and intervened in order to illuminate the ‘hybridity’ that has, we claim, been the key outcome of both peace and democratisation attempts. We trace several key development processes in some detail in order to illuminate how the particular kind of ‘friction’ that came with this particular kind of peacebuilding. We conclude that although progressive development and deepened peace have emerged, inevitably a hybrid society has been created with remaining deep-seated tensions and severe questions on progressive long-term development.

With specific reference to Bosnia-Herzegovina and South Africa, this article looks at how peacebuilding actors constantly recreate public space and the discourses within it. The formation of imagined political communities reflects the extent to which peacebuilding interactions can be rather horizontal or vertical in nature, producing different types of friction in the encounter between peacebuilding actors. In Bosnia, the predominantly horizontal nature of international peacebuilding processes has resulted in the emergence of fragmented local sub-spaces. Those are often in conflict with international and national political communities, with frictions emerging between local, national and international actor networks. The article will contrast those processes with the mosaic developing in South Africa, where boundaries between actors are more blurred. Due to strong vertical cooperation, sporadic frictions tend to emerge within those spaces rather than exclusively at their boundaries. The article will analyse the extent to which different patterns of peacebuilding interaction impact upon the constructive and destructive frictions that those produce.

Conflict research as an academic field is now half a century old. This essay contains some personal reflections and an analysis of the early years and particularly the role of John Burton. It ends with comments and contrasts between what seemed important then and the contemporary agenda.

This article analyses the relationship between Guatemala's protracted internationally sponsored peace process (1987–96) and the country's indigenous movement. The impact of the peace process and its emancipatory potential was ultimately limited by the intransigence of triumphalist national military, economic and political elites and the acute limitations imposed by the liberal peace framework in the aftermath of the United Nations' Agenda for Peace. Negotiations did not respond adequately to the underlying structural causes of armed conflict, nor did they represent or incorporate sufficiently the historical demands and cultural focus of Guatemala's majority indigenous population, undergirded as they were by a restricted rights framework that coincided with the liberal peace parameters. Indigenous actors nevertheless took advantage of the embedded liberal peace and the political space it afforded, developing hybrid political forms to make visible their historical demands and establish an incipient peace infrastructure.

This article analyses the enabling and restraining conditions of local peace organisations in Israel and Palestine. It utilises the analytical notion of peace gaps to accentuate the interplay between local and elite levels. It also highlights the discrepancies when it comes to expectations of peace, the ability to communicate peace discourses and the power to influence and build wider domestic peace constituencies. The empirical findings reveal how current vertical and horizontal peace gaps result in the disempowerment and marginalisation of local peace NGOs on both sides. Such a precarious situation hinders broader peace mobilisation and is further exacerbated by widespread political apathy and peace fatigue among Israeli and Palestinian publics. By way of conclusion, the article argues for the need to re-politicise and re-negotiate space for a more agonistic peacebuilding, which allows for differences to co-exist.

Roger D. Petersen, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012, 350 pp., £60.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780521281263, /£21.99 (US$32.99) (pbk) Petersen's well-researched, ambitious book aims at explaining two...