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In contrast to international peacebuilding interventions, global environmental governance is characterized by the inclusiveness of international and domestic non-state actors. Consequently, it may be expected that the UNEP policy framework on environmental peacebuilding would promote a strong for of non-state actors. This article examines the roles of various actors in this policy framework. It analyzes policy frames pertinent to questions of ownership that are embedded in key UNEP reports on environmental peacebuilding. I consider ownership here as an indicator of which actors design, manage and implement environmental peacebuilding policies. The findings suggest that UNEP, which I consider an international state actor, prefers international ownership (as opposed to domestic state or domestic non-state ownership) in their strategy for the sustainable management of natural resources in post-war settings. However, contrary to expectations, the reports showed a notable absence of international non-state actors. This is surprising in light of the global environmental governance discourse, which stresses the importance of involving international non-state in environmental governance. This article discusses characteristics of the reports that may explain the absence in this framework of international non-state actors, as well as domestic state and domestic non-state actors. 

By studying the negotiation of the Bonn Agreement for Afghanistan and its implementation, this paper argues that adding a reconciliation or transitional justice agenda to external statebuilding efforts does not resolve the problem of top-down imposition and regulation. Examination of the pre-negotiation phase showed that the Afghan parties were controlled and regulated from the outset by the external actors, led by US diplomats. The external agenda was heavily driven by Western security and statebuilding concerns, but in order to uphold an image of an intervention as normatively liberal, the concepts of national reconciliation and human rights were included in the Agreement. As shown in the study of the implementation phase, these concepts became a source of tension between Western statebuilders and the Western transitional justice community. The investigation reveals that each is seeking to impose their own agenda on the elected Afghan government, and are neglecting locally driven solutions.

Water resource management (WRM) has increasingly come to be considered within the realm of peacebuilding. Through investigating the case of water resource management in Kosovo after 1999, this study argues that the international community has treated post-conflict water resource management as a primarily technical issue, to the neglect of its complex political nature. This has impeded the peacebuilding process in three ways. First, it consolidated the physical separation of actors through allowing separate water governance structures. Second, it avoided conflictive issues instead of actively engaging in conflict resolution. Third, it incapacitated locals by placing ownership in the hands of external actors. To redress this tripartite dilemma, this study stresses the need for research that provides deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of the political mechanisms that connect WRM to post-conflict reconstruction efforts. 

There is growing demand for an understanding of peace beyond the absence of violence. As such research focuses increasingly on the issue of state legitimacy as a tool to assess and understand peace processes. In this paper the relationship between service provision and state legitimacy is studied to assess whether the provision of services like electricity to rural communities of war-torn countries through state actors contributes to the consolidation of the post-war political system. The qualitative analysis of two localities in post-war Nepal highlights that service provision in the form of electricity through micro-hydropower yields tremendously positive socio-economic effects for rural communities. However, socio-economic development in combination with interactions among villagers has strengthened local autonomy through emphasising alternative local governance structures. This highlights that the relationship between service provision and state legitimacy is more complex than previous research anticipates. The absence of a positive effect on state legitimacy raises the question of whether in its current case-specific form service provision is conducive to the broader peace-building efforts in post-war Nepal, because it stresses the divide between state and society.