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This book investigates why peace and reform processes across the world have recently been stagnating or have become blocked. They have failed to maintain security, rights, development, and justice in the liberal international order. The book identifies the related rise of counter-peace processes at the heart of failed peacemaking efforts, and explores the implications for an emerging multi-polar order where local and international tools for peace and reform appear to be ineffective. Across a range of recent cases, from Cambodia, the Balkans, the Sahel region, DRC, Colombia, Afghanistan, and many others, such dynamics are becoming clearer. In particular, small-scale blocking tactics across different peace processes have been evolving into larger political strategies which are then disseminated within revisionist and revanchist international networks. Ultimately, this phenomenon has undermined liberal international order. Spoilers and tactical blockages to peace have connected across local, national, regional and international scales, highlighting ideological divisions. Drawing on counter-revolutionary theory, the concept of counter-peace is used as a tool to critically interrogate a systemic array of blockages to peace. Distinct counter-peace patterns are now entangled in peace and reform processes, including the stalemate pattern, the limited counter-peace, and the unmitigated counter-peace patterns. Across cases, once tactical blockages begin to form these patterns, they become systemic and ultimately enable conflict escalation. Consequently, the intimate entanglement of the existing international peace architecture with counter-peace processes points to ideological divisions in international order, as well as the growing gulf between diminished practices of peace and reform with critical scholarship on peace, justice, and sustainability. Sandra Pogodda is Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at the Department of Politics, University of Manchester, UK. Oliver P. Richmond is Research Professor at the Department of Politics, University of Manchester, UK. He is also International Professor at Dublin City University, Ireland, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at EWHA University, Seoul, Korea. Gëzim Visoka is Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland.

Religion is traditionally portrayed as nothing but trouble in Ireland, but the churches played a key role in Northern Ireland's peace process. This study challenges many existing assumptions about the peace process, drawing on four years of interviewing with those involved, including church leaders, politicians, and paramilitary members.

Philanthropic support of the peace movement is discussed, focusing on the ways in which it reflects divergent corporate interests & shapes activism, using medical peace groups as examples. Corporate interests in the prevention of nuclear war derive from a concern for market expansion, which necessitates global stability, & involves stating the peace movement's issues in a way that will not undermine the foundations of power & finance. Peace groups considered "respectable" by philanthropy are ones which: do not call attention to corporate participation in the arms race; emphasize bilateral US-Soviet blame for conflict, ignoring asymmetric weapons development by the US & the lack of US response to Soviet peace initiatives; & focus on the single issue of nuclear war, downplaying related issues of environment, imperialism, & discrimination. Physicians for Social Responsibility & International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War are two medical groups that fit the corporate criteria of respectable peace groups; they consistently avoid the issue of corporate responsibility in the arms race, for fear of losing funding. Educational & research organizations, rather than activist groups, are the targets of philanthropy. Such alliances of peace groups & the capitalist sector negate the possibility of changing the corporate system that propagates the arms race. Without such a change, the struggle for peace cannot succeed. D. Graves.

The significance of the Oslo agreement, regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, is: (1) as a statement of mutual recognition from the Palestinian Liberation Organization & Israel; & (2) that it raises issues surrounding the 1948 war, even though it was structured to avoid these issues. The agreement may result in a worsened situation, due to its thorough lack of representation of Palestinian goals. This is evidenced as Israel maintains disproportionate power during the current interim period. Oslo's failure proves that a peace accord must be comprehensive & that it is now necessary to move to discussions of final status issues. S. Jameson

The author gives a detailed account of the intifada and its history. He discusses its internal political structure, and the split in leadership: The PLO and Hamas differ most significantly in their long-term strategy and objectives. He also talks about the intifada's impact on Israel. While the impact on everyday Israeli life is comparatively small, the intifada has caused deepened divisions between the political parties (Likud and Labour). Another section is dedicated to the influence of the US and other countries in the region which the author sees as declining. He predicts continued cycles of violence rather than peace. (DÜI-Kwe)

The principal occupation of the Nixon Administration was an attempt to build what it called a "structure of peace." President Ford has made it perfectly clear that he agrees with the basic thrust of his predecessor's foreign policy. Public opinion polls show that a majority of the American ipeople share Ford's assessment of the Nixon Administration's alleged achievements in world affairs. I propose to challenge the basis on which they intend to build that structure and to pose an alternative basis. Before positing that alternative I will compare the Nixon-Kissinger grand design with other policies that compete for our allegiance today.

"Muslim thinkers on the nature of peace have contributed to many modern movements, including Sufism in West Africa, the Gandhist coalition in colonial India, anti-Apartheid activism in South Africa, and the 2011 youth revolts of the Arab Spring. Yet the dramatic events of September 11, the attacks on Paris in 2015, the ISIS mini-state in Mesopotamia, and movements such as the Taliban and Boko Haram have led to an imbalance in the field, wherein scholars and journalists have focused relentlessly on the intersection of Islam and violence. Some observers, moreover, have attributed small violent movements to some sort of Islamic essence, painting the whole religion with the brush of extremism. The chapters in this book counter this narrative by exploring the rich discursive tradition in Islam, the religion of a fifth of mankind, including peace-building in the Qur'an and Islamic scripture, the theological and juridical traditions, Muslim ethics and mysticism (Sufism), political thought, and fundamentalism. Focussing first on the pacific implications of the concept of jihad (struggle), and the importance of ?abr (forebearence) in Islamic thought, the book tracks the global prevalence of peace movements in Islam by examining the West African Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba, founder of the Sufi order the Muridiyya which advocated peaceful opposition in the face of European colonialism. It also examines the surprising importance of peace in the thought of the Islamic fundamentalist Rashid Rida, as well as contemporary Islamist movements in Egypt. Together, these case studies provide an introduction to Islamic Peace Studies, with appeal to students, scholars and policymakers."