Crafting Peace: Strategies to Deal with Warlords in Collapsing States

(Paperback)

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Crafting Peace analyzes warlords in depth, including their organizational structure and the context in which they operate, ultimately exploring the effectiveness of various short and long-term strategies to deal with warlords. Instead of focusing strictly on economic causes, the focus here is on the extremely frail politial/security environment that allows warlords to rise up, seize power, and profit in the midst of chaos. This deeper political context, under-analyzed in other texts in terms of its effect on warlordism, is crucial to understanding both why warlords arise and how they should be dealt with. This book suggests a two-pronged strategic approach to help craft peace: unseating certain intransigent warlords through immediate, coercive measures; and taking away the anarchic environment in which these actors thrive by implementing several policies aimed at rebuilding law and order over the long-term. Sasha Lezhnev discusses this approach by looking at real-world cases in Sierra Leone and Tajikistan. Crafting Peace presents a new way of looking at eliminating warlords and restoring peace in war-torn states that will prove essential to both scholars and practitioners in international relations and political science.

Reviews

The book is addressed primarily to practitioners and policymakers; its target audience will be rewarded for picking it up. -- Iavor Rangelov * H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online *
In today's globalized society, one often sees the most destitute countries suffer through the most violent collapses of government. In his study, Sasha Lezhnev utilizes his deep academic knowledge of the underlying causes of warlord politics to institute practical guidelines for creating peace in affected societies. Through wide ranging interviews and careful analysis, Lezhnev shows what went wrong and why, offering alternatives for future endeavors at negotiation. It is a disquieting analysis that provides important lessons for future policies. This book is a 'must-read' for anyone puzzling over the issues of state collapse, warlord-politics, and their remedies. -- William Reno, Northwestern University

Author Bio

Sasha Lezhnev is program officer at Northern Uganda Peace Initiative.