General

The state is the organising principle of national and international politics and states are the subject of abundant historical research, academic theory and contemporary analysis.  That perhaps makes it a little strange to say that both the state as a category and states in general tend to be taken for granted. But that’s how it is – and it’s a problem.

I recently read volume one of Francis Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order (Profile Books, 2011) in which he explores how different models of governance have emerged and decayed “from prehuman history to the French Revolution”. Volume two is forthcoming, and will bring the story up to the present day. As someone who works in peacebuilding, which is largely about fostering good governance today, I have a keen interest in how different governance regimes have emerged and decayed in history, if they provide us with clues for the present.

The International Development Select Committee, which scrutinises the Department for International Development (DFID), has issued a long awaited report on the post-2015 agenda.

In the first ten years after the EU decided at its 2001 Gothenburg summit to have a policy on conflict prevention, the European Commission spent €7.7 billion on what we would now call peacebuilding, about 10 per cent of its total spending on external aid. That made it the world’s biggest peacebuilding spender.

Our Programming Framework provides International Alert peace practitioners with some guidance in the complex and difficult task of building peace. It also offers those we work with and are accountable to greater clarity about what we do and why we do it. Most importantly, it is designed to enable peacebuilders to be better able to identify and measure the impact of their actions, so that they can be more effective in what they do.

Programming framework

On 11th October, International Alert released a new report – Ending the deadlock: Towards a new vision of peace in eastern DRC – which proposes a comprehensive approach to building lasting peace and stability in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

On 1st October 2012, Georgians went to the polls to elect a new parliament, the results of which surprised even the most experienced of commentators on Georgian issues.

Ce rapport démontre la manière dont les conflits qui déchirent l’est de la République Démocratique du Congo sont enracinés dans l’histoire congolaise, et concernent principalement la répartition du pouvoir et des ressources économiques sous forte influence de l’identité ethnique des protagonistes. Les conflits mélangent des aspects locaux avec des dynamiques de guerre régionales, d’où un paysage conflictuel particulièrement complexe.

Report