Peace and the Formation of Political Order

Abstract

Contrary to most debates about state formation, this article outlines an alternative perspective on the shaping of political community – and the international peace architecture – based on the agency of actors engaged in peaceful forms of politics after war. Drawing on long-standing critical debates, it investigates the positive potential of ‘peace formation’, outlining the theoretical development of this new concept as a parallel process and often in opposition to modern state formation with which it is often bound up. It also examines the limits of peace formation and its engagement with old and new types of power and conflict. This perspective on the formation of political order has implications for the international peace architecture and its evolution, including in terms of a shift from analogue to digital form of peace.