Professor Oliver Richmond of the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute at the University of Manchester delivered a public lecture entitled “After Liberal Peace”. The public lecture was moderated by Dr. Alistair D. B. Cook, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme Co-ordinator, and Research Fellow, NTS Centre.
The lecture was held at the RSIS Lecture Theatre, Student Wing. In his presentation, Dr. Richmond spoke about the different types of peace achieved by post 1945 states, such as but not limited to: victorious, constitutional, institutional, civil-society, and liberal peace. That being said, he posited that the world is at its most fair and stable state today, with liberal peace being the most widely accepted type of peace in international relations theory. However, he asserted that perhaps the liberal peace framework is not enough to encapsulate the on goings of today’s modern would with new technologies and mobilities. In turn, he asserted that perhaps international relations theory needs to go beyond liberal peace to a more contextualized approach to understanding how peace comes about. Sensitive to local power structures, and by rejecting Eurocentric forms peace, Dr. Richmond put forward that hybrid peace is what seen today in the realm of international relations.
Related Content
Lecture Abstract:
Work on peace and its development during the 2000s, drawing on peace and state building examples from around the world, now looks rather dated. Such work concluded with some thoughts on the potential of hybrid peace. It mainly worked within the liberal church, in effect, querying the fit of liberalism contra different conflict-affected contexts. It was nevertheless trying to push beyond the disciplinary borders of political liberalism and neoliberalism. Influenced by readings of critical and Marxist influenced debates in IR, it looked at issues of resistance, legitimacy, agency, against a putative ideal state that peacebuilding appeared to propose. It is now necessary to consider the implications of such work in the context of new conditions in the 21st Century, which affect the liberal-democratic, capitalist, and rights model of peacebuilding and state-building, in the light of new mobilities, new technologies, and new actors.
About the Speaker:
Oliver Richmond is Visiting Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. He is also Professor of International Relations, Peace & Conflict Studies at the University of Manchester, a fellow of the Royal Society, International Professor at the School of Global Studies, Kyung Hee University, Korea, and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Peace Studies, University of Tromso, Norway. Professor Richmond has long been interested in how critical approaches to international theory impact upon debates about conflict and peace, as well as in concepts of peace and their implicit usages in IR theory and the practices of the international system. Professor Richmond also edits a Palgrave Book Series called Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies, is the co-editor of the journal ‘Peacebuilding’ and is a member of the editorial board of the Review of International Studies and International Peacekeeping, among others. His well-known book, ‘The Transformation of Peace’ which was published in 2005/7, critically examined the conceptualisation of peace, and in particular the construction of the ‘liberal peace’, in post-conflict zones. Professor Richmond has received several major grants, including from the Leverhulme Trust, EU, British Academy, UNU, and the Carnegie and Nuffield Trusts. He has also been involved in fieldwork in a number of countries around the world (including several parts of Asia, the South Pacific, Africa, the Balkans, and Central America, as well as within key institutions involved in post-conflict peacebuilding and development (such as the UN, World Bank, EU, major donors, etc). He has been a visiting professor at universities around the world and has advised or been consulted by a number of international donors and NGOs.
Add to Google calendar
Add to Outlook calendar
