Draft:Peaceshaping

Peaceshaping describes work across the peace spectrum, integrating a variety of activites traditionally managed as discrete activities. Set in contrast to warshaping, peaceshaping seeks to create and maintain institutions that create amity, while disrupting, constraining or dismantling institutions that create enmity.

History

The term 'peaceshaping' has its roots in a dialogue between the Nordic states at the town of Skagen in 1991. The talks produced The Skagen Document, in which the parties called for greater cohesion and integration of UN peace activities such as peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding.

Despite attempts at subsequent development of the concept, it fell into disuse until 2024 when it became a central focus of the Cambridge Peaceshaping and Climate Lab (CPCL), a research unit embedded in the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation (CCSI) at the University of Cambridge's Judge Business School.

Contemporary peaceshaping

The early work of the CPCL focused on defining and developing peaceshaping, in the context of a UN accused of inaction and ineffectiveness, particularly following the crises in Ukraine and Gaza. In their foundational article 'Peaceshaping', Stott, Pendlebury and Tracey propose a framework for peaceshaping encompassing disruptive, creative and preservation peace work:

Disruptive peaceshaping

This work focuses on disrupting institutions that cause enmity, and consists of three elements:

1. Reframing work encompases efforts to influence and shape the fundamental shared understandings of an institution.
2. Contesting work challenges existing institutions and aims to replace them with those that are more effective.
3. Dismantling work explores ways to remove and replace institutions that create enmity and work against efforts for peace.

Creative peaceshaping

Creative peaceshaping works to understand how new institutions can be created to encourage amity, and support peace efforts:

1. Performative work uses 'the stylized repetition of acts' and speech to generate new social understandings
2. Consensus work involves working within the framework of existing institutions to create shared understandings in support of peace outcomes.
3. Prefigurative work is similar to performative peaceshaping, and describes group efforts to demonstrate, live and therefore replicate desirable institutions that create new avenues for peace.

Preservation peaceshaping

This describes situations where existing institutional and organizational frameworks are appropriate but work is required to reinforce and support peace efforts:

1. Maintenance work ensures the ongoing relevance of peace institutions to ensure they remain fit for purpose.
2. Socialization work helps to disseminate the values, concepts and ideals of a peace institution through training, education and strategic communications
3. Guard work focuses on protecting peace institutions from being undermined, either from within or by external actors.

Further Reading

• Bideke, M (2000). The Future for UN Peacekeeping, unpublished thesis.
• Bring, O (1992). FN-stadgans folkrätt [The International Law of the UN Charter] (in Swedish). Sweden: Allmänna förlaget. ISBN 9789138500750
• Stott, N; Pendlebury, J; Tracey, P (2024). "Peaceshaping". Critical Perspectives on Social Innovation (4): 1-11
• United Nations General Assembly (1991), Letter dated 23 October 1991 from the representatives of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, A/46/591, S23159, New York: United Nations General Assembly.