Engineering peace?

Do roads literally lead to peace? While seemingly a strange question to ask, today's peacebuilders certainly seem to think so. After decades of focus on questions of governance, today, instead, infrastructure primes in state- and peacebuilding missions in many fragile and conflict-affected societies.

Based on a collaboration with UNOPS, DIIS researcher Peer Schouten and Jan Bachmann from the University of Gothenburg have explored the politics of this hitherto understudied phenomenon. In a new article, they argue that while infrastructure has always been around in post-conflict reconstruction, today, infrastructure is mobilized during ongoing conflict, invested with aspirations of improving security and stability.

'Of course infrastructure played a big role in the formation of strong western states. But', asks Schouten, 'can we take this experience to try and fix conflict-affected states through concrete and steel?'

At a first glance, a focus on infrastructure seems compelling, and measurable and concrete infrastructure outputs, additionally, fit perfectly within today's more modest approaches to peacebuilding. However, based on examples from across the contemporary global peacebuilding landscape, the article shows that the picture is more muddled. What is certain is that infrastructure is profoundly entwined with contemporary peacebuilding, and that we therefore need to develop novel theoretical angles to come to terms with the ubiquitous politics of infrastructure.

The article is part of a forthcoming special issue, edited by DIIS's Finn Stepputat and Louise Wiuff Moe of the Helmut Schmidt University.