Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Criminalized Power Structures Cb: The Overlooked Enemies of Peace (Peace and Security in the 21st Century)

Product Description Criminalized power structures (CPS) are illicit networks that profit from transactions in black markets and from criminalized state institutions while perpetuating a culture of impunity. The book articulates a typology for assessing the threats of CPS and for implementing appropriate strategies to achieve sustainable peace effectively and efficiently. The international case studies address interventions undertaken either to support the implementation of a peace agreement (i.e., a peace operation) or to stabilize a country entangled in an internal conflict in the context of a power-sharing agreement among key protagonists (i.e., a stability operation). In each of these cases, at least one of the parties to the agreement was a criminalized power structure that was a leading spoiler. The final chapter identifies strategies that are most effective for each type of CPS, including the ways and means (or tools) required for effective conflict transformation. A companion volume, Combating Criminalized Power Structures: A Toolkit, provides practitioners with the means of coping with the challenges posed by CPS. Review Criminalized Power Structures: The Overlooked Enemies of Peace and Combating Criminalized Power Structures: A Toolkit provide remarkable insights into criminalized power structures in conflict and post-conflict environments. This often overlooked phenomenon can have immense effects on peacekeeping and stabilization efforts. The volumes provide an important framework and practical insights that may help policymakers to better address these issues.--Enrique Desmond Arias, Director, Peace Operations Policy Program, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University Criminalized Power Structures, edited by Michael Dziedzic, is one such important contribution to a conversation about peace. . . . Each case study is a detailed explanation of a geopolitical conflict, its origins, continuation, and conclusion. . . . this philosopher of pacifism and nonviolence was glad he had the opportunity to think deeply with Michael Dziedzic and his military and political science contributors about strategies for lasting peace.--Journal for Peace & Justice Studies At last, the subject of illicit power structures given the prominence it deserves! Here it is how to understand and implement better conflict prevention, effectively manage post-conflict situations, save millions of dollars in the process and in broader form push back against the rottenness of political corruption and criminal exploitation that permanently ruin the lives of populations in failing or failed states. Arrestingly and plainly revealed, the shameful motives that from the beginning of each international peace mission confound capacity- and institution-building are described by Mike Dzeidzic and seasoned practitioners in such compelling detail that tackling them should become the sine qua non of all future mission-planning. This is a piece of revelatory work and we deserve to hear the sound of brisk footsteps along government corridors as senior officials, grasping copies of this book, seek immediate entree to policy makers offices demanding major doctrinal changes.--Richard Monk, Former UN Police Commissioner Bosnia and Kosovo, Member of the Brahimi Panel I learned a good deal reading these timely volumes, even on the operations in which I was intimately involved. The findings are persuasive and the recommendations are all well considered and compelling.--James Dobbins, Former Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia About the Author Vice President, Pax Advisory