The Dynamism of Shared Success in Abkhaz: Georgian Peacebuilding

Even though international peacebuilding has rapidly expanded in the last two decades to respond to more multi-faceted and complex conflicts, the field has lagged behind in documenting the impact and success of projects. To help address this gap, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, one of the leading networks in the field, has brought together 13 stories of innovative peacebuilding practices from around the world in Building Peace.

While the projects covered are diverse in nature, together they demonstrate the significant impact of peacebuilding work. Contributors created new institutions to prevent and manage conflicts at the local or national levels, helped restore relationships in conflict-affected communities, and empowered citizens to work for positive change in their societies across ethnic, religious, and political divides.

It’s clear that there is no quick fix for violence but this volume will go a long way in providing inspiration and practical tools for policymakers, academics and practitioners who seek to make significant and valuable contributions towards achieving peace.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction: Peacebuilding: Creating Structure and Capacity for Peace—Craig Zelizer and Robert A. Rubinstein
2. Taming the Beast: Interethnic Conflict and Accord in Postcommunist Europe—Allen H. Kassof
3. The Institution as Innovator: Laying the Foundation for Peaceful Change—Beth Glick and Laina Reynolds Levy
4. An 85 Percent Settlement Rate and a 91 Percent Compliance Rate: But What Happened to the Rest and Why?—William F. Lincoln, Alexander Karpenko, Lena Ivanova, Olga Allakhverdova, Polly Davis, Dawn Hooper with Seth Kane and Terra D. M. Evans
5. Designing Dispute Resolution Systems for Settling Land and Property Disputes in Postconflict and Postcrisis Societies—Christopher Moore and Gary Brown
6. Recasting Reconciliation through Culture and the Arts: Strengthening Peacebuilding Capacity Through the Brandeis International Fellowship Program—Cynthia Cohen
7. Partners in Peacebuilding in Lesotho—John Davies, Wubalem Fekade, Mamphekeleli Hoohlo, Edy Kaufman and Mamochaki Shale
8. Combining Empathy with Problem Solving: The Tamra Model of Facilitation in Israel—Eileen F. Babbitt and Pamela Pomerance Steiner with Jabir Asaqla, Chassia Chomsky-Porat and Shirli Kirschner
9. Health Bridges for Peace: The Medical Network for Social Reconstruction in the Former Yugoslavia—Paula Gutlove
10. Gender Mainstreaming in Peacebuilding: A Case Study of Grupo EKOLELO in Angola—Heather Kulp
11. Management of Multicultural Communities in Crimea—Karina Korostelina
12. Building Peace in Thin Air: The Case of Search for Common Ground’s Talking Drum Studio in Sierra Leone—Marco Konings and Ambrose James
13. The Dynamism of Shared Success in Abkhaz: Georgian Peacebuilding—Paula Garb and Susan Allen Nan
14. Promoting Ethnic Tolerance and Cultural Inclusion in Macedonia: The Tetovo Educators Project—Paula Green and Olivia Stokes Dreier 

Reviews

"This volume provides an enlightening, encouraging, and fascinating set of reports about effective peacebuilding endeavors. These accounts and assessments were written by persons directly engaged in each undertaking and yield valuable lessons. Certainly, these highly diverse actions deserve widespread attention and frequent emulation."
- Louis Kriesberg, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Maxwell Professor Emeritus of Social Conflict Studies, Syracuse University

"Building Peace presents a rich set of case studies of courage in peacebuilding that should inspire another generation of peacemakers. The authors provide a great variety of blueprints for communities, nations and multi-cultural groups dealing with the aftermath or reduction of ongoing and often violent conflicts. That the case studies come from such diverse areas demonstrates that having multiple approaches and processes in our peacemaking toolkit makes peacebuilding possible in widely divergent cultural and geopolitical settings. There is much to be learned here for practitioners, students and teachers of peace. It will make a great contribution to courses on conflict resolution, prevention and handling and on post-conflict peacebuilding analysis and practice."
- Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Professor of Law, Dispute Resolution and Civil Procedure, Georgetown University Law Center and author of Dispute Resolution: Beyond the Adversarial Model

"This book neatly brings together various methodologies, an impressive range of local and international settings and a number of time frames to give a powerful response to a real “demand” on peacebuilding today: How do we assess the successes (and failures) of what we do? Bravo to Drs. Craig Zelizer, Robert Rubinstein, their colleagues -- and to the Alliance for Peacebuilding in supporting this initiative."
- William R. Headley, Dean, Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego

"A must-read for all who care about a brighter future for our world. This book demonstrates the significant impact of peacebuilding across conflicts and communities -- and it showcases examples from an impressive range of contexts, from political diplomacy to healthcare, the arts to land disputes. The book is both rigorous and readable and, as such, is an important resource for the classroom instructor and student, the peacebuilding researcher, and all others who aspire toward a more secure and thriving world."
- Daniel L. Shapiro, Director, Harvard International Negotiation Program