This year the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP) announced the first publication in its Studies in Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding series in collaboration with Routledge Publishers. The series is co-edited by CCDP Steering Committee members Thomas Biersteker, Riccardo Bocco and Keith Krause. The first volume in the series, The Political Economy of Peacemaking, was written by CCDP Researcher Achim Wennmann. It focuses on the economic dimensions of peace processes and examines the opportunities and constraints for assisting negotiated exits out of conflict. The book is the final outcome of a larger CCDP research project, entitled Economic Issues and Tools in Peace Processes, conducted for the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs as part of its mediation support activities.

While the economic characteristics and consequences of armed conflicts are usually understood as problems for peace, this book explores whether they can be transformed into opportunities by adopting a political economy perspective. The monograph looks, for example, at income-sharing from natural resources as an opportunity for forward-looking peacemaking strategies; and the implications of deal-making in situations in which war economies and insecurity provide strongmen with disproportionate political and economic power. It also examines the notion that peace processes are not necessarily about the rectification of a conflict’s “root causes”, but rather about what matters most to the main stakeholders at the moment when a peace process starts taking shape. Finally, it explores the idea that efforts to establish a lasting peace need to go beyond the traditional set of diplomatic actors associated with peace processes to include donor agencies, private enterprises, and diaspora communities in support of forward-looking peacemaking.

The book is thematically organised and discusses the various economic dimensions of peacemaking along with the engagement, negotiation, and transition phases of peacemaking. Drawing on the peace processes of Aceh, Nepal, Sudan (North-South), and a series of other cases, it is intended to help students and practitioners better understand peacemaking, optimise the planning and management of peace initiatives, and shape expectations in peace agreements. It is particularly relevant for students and researchers working in the fields of peacebuilding, development and conflict conflict, international political economy as well as international relations in general.

Achim Wennmann is Researcher at the Graduate Institute’s Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding and Executive Coordinator of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform. Recently, he also co-edited, with Mats Berdal, Ending Wars, Consolidating Peace: Economic Perspectives.

The Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP) is the Graduate Institute’s focal point for research in the areas of conflict analysis, humanitarianism, peacebuilding, and the complex relationships between security and development.

This article originally appeared in Globe No. 7, Spring 2011. Globe is published twice a year and is an insight into our professors’ and experts’ analyses of major world issues, our research projects, our events, our Alumni and more.

Photo home page: UN Photo/Isaac Billy. Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir, President of Sudan, and Salva Kiir Mayardit, President of the Republic of South Sudan, greet each other at the Independence Ceremony of South Sudan.