Why do international peacebuilding organizations sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, even within the same country? Bridging the gaps between the peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and global governance scholarship, this book argues that international peacebuilding organizations repeatedly fail because they are accountable to global actors, not to local institutions or people. International peacebuilding organizations can succeed only when country-based staff bypass existing accountability structures and empower local stakeholders to hold their global organizations accountable for achieving local-level peacebuilding outcomes. In other words, the innovative, if seemingly wayward, actions of individual country-office staff are necessary to improve peacebuilding performance. Using in-depth studies of organizations operating in Burundi over a fifteen-year period, combined with fieldwork in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nepal, South Sudan, and Sudan, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of international relations, African studies, and peace and conflict studies, as well as policymakers.

Susanna Campbell’s research and teaching address war-to-peace transitions, peacebuilding, peacekeeping, international development and humanitarian aid, global governance, IO and INGO behavior, and the micro-dynamics of civil war and peace. She uses mixed-method research designs and has conducted extensive fieldwork in conflict-affected countries, including Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Sudan, South Sudan, and East Timor. She has received several large grants for her research, including from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss Network for International Studies, as well as a United States Institute of Peace Dissertation Fellowship. She is currently writing a second book, Aiding Peace? Donor Behavior in Conflict-Affected Countries, based on a three-year research project that she ran. Campbell’s peer-reviewed publications appear or are forthcoming with Cambridge University Press, Columbia University Press, International Studies Review, Journal of Global Security Studies, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, International Peacekeeping, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, and Zed Books. Campbell received her Ph.D. in 2012 from Tufts University, and was a Post-Doctoral Researcher at both The Graduate Institute in Geneva and Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

5:10pm-7:00pm

707 International Affairs

Advance Registration required through Columbia/SIPA calendars