Local vs international agency in conflict prevention

Failures in international peace agreements prompted peacemakers to turn to local peacebuilding initiatives, either as a mechanism to implement international peace, or as a way to find alternative, local logics of peace. The authors argue, however, that peacemaking at all levels - whether international or local - can be violent and exclusionary, and that the 'local' and 'international' are almost always entangled and not discrete. Therefore, debates that focus on the 'local' and 'international' are preoccupied by the wrong questions. Instead, we should focus on how peacemakers at any level claim power and authority by making peace, and how this impacts communities' actual experiences of violence and exclusion. They suggest that a public authority approach to peacemaking would help move us beyond this distraction by the 'local' and 'international' and help us see the real power in peace. They illustrate their argument with an example of peacemaking in Jonglei State (South Sudan).