Failed Peacemaking

Peace and reform efforts in many parts of the world have lost momentum or stalled entirely, and this book asks why. These processes have struggled to secure safety, protect rights, promote development and deliver justice within the existing liberal international order. The author argues that small obstructions, which begin as local manoeuvres, grow into deliberate political strategies that spread through revisionist and revanchist networks, and that these networks have weakened the order itself. Spoilers and tactical roadblocks now connect community, national, regional and global levels, and the divisions they expose are ideological at root.

To examine these obstructions, the book draws on counter-revolutionary theory and introduces counter-peace as a critical lens for analysing a wide range of systemic blockages. It identifies three recurring configurations: the stalemate pattern, the limited counter-peace and the unmitigated counter-peace. Once small obstructions settle into one of these configurations, the author shows, they become entrenched within the system and can push conflicts toward escalation.

The analysis rests on recent cases from Cambodia, the Balkans, the Sahel, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, Afghanistan and several other settings. Its wider argument concerns the international peace architecture, which has become entangled with counter-peace processes, revealing ideological fault lines within international order. As a multipolar order takes shape, local and international tools for peace and reform appear increasingly ineffective. The book also highlights a widening gap between the shrinking practice of peace and reform and critical scholarship on peace, justice and sustainability.