SIWPS Member Séverine Autesserre talks about the politics and culture of international intervention in a post today for the Washington Post.  Read the post here.

Professor Autesserre’s book Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention suggests a new explanation for why international peace interventions often fail to reach their full potential.

Based on several years of ethnographic research in conflict zones around the world, Peaceland demonstrates that everyday elements – such as the expatriates’ social habits and usual approaches to understanding their areas of operation – strongly influence peacebuilding effectiveness.  These common attitudes and actions enable foreign peacebuilders to function in the field, but they also result in unintended consequences that thwart international peacebuilding efforts.

Peaceland is published by Cambridge University Press.  More information about the book can be found here.  Peaceland can be purchased here.