Abstract
Conflict has led to destruction, but it is also a strong motivating force for peacebuilding. In the first half of the twentieth century, Europe was one of the most violent places in the world; in the Guinness book of violence, it scored all the records. It caused two world wars, set up totalitarian regimes, built concentration camps, and had civil wars. In the second half of the twentieth century, a European community was created. It became one of the most free, secure, and well-off places on the globe.
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This text was first published as: Reychler, L. (2001). Peace building: conceptual framework. In L. Reychler, & T. Paffenholz (Eds.), Peace Building: A Field Guide (pp. 3–15). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Permission to republish this text was granted by Rienner.
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This phenomenon could be called conflict inertia. Without external intervention some conflicts seem to stay on the same track.
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To analyse and transform conflicts, more attention needs to be paid to political-psychological variables. More efforts in particular should be undertaken to identify and dismantle sentimental walls. The term sentimental wall refers to concepts, theories, dogmas, attitudes, habits, emotions, and inclinations that inhibit democratic transition and constructive transformation of conflicts. The existence of sentimental walls increases the chances of misperceiving the situation, misevaluating the interests at stake, lowering the motivation to act on the opportunity to do something about it, and developing the necessary skills and know-how. From the words sentiment and mental, ‘sentimental’ makes people aware of the emotional roots of many cognitions and attitudes. Making people aware of the existence of sentimental walls and efforts to dismantle them can provoke lots of resistance. Anyway, conflict prevention requires not only learning but also a lot of unlearning.
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The term conflict management refers to efforts to limit, mitigate, and contain a particular conflict. Conflict resolution goes further and implies that the root causes of a conflict are addressed and resolved.
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This could also be positively defined as a situation characterized by objective and subjective security (people are and feel secure).
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Although external support may be necessary in a particular phase of the peacebuilding process, in the end people should be able to support it themselves.
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For a more elaborate description of the peace-enhancing structures, including a series of checklists, see Reychler (1999).
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Reychler, L., Langer, A. (2020). Peacebuilding: Conceptual Framework. In: Reychler, L., Langer, A. (eds) Luc Reychler: A Pioneer in Sustainable Peacebuilding Architecture. Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice, vol 24. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40208-2_9
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