Introduction: The contradictions of peace, international architecture, the state, and local agency

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the four cornerstones in the relationship between different forms of conflict and peace. State formation describes the formation of the state through indigenous or internal violence between competing groups and their agendas which often turn the state into a criminal and predatory elite racket. Statebuilding is the resultant externalised process aimed at rectifying this situation. Peacebuilding focuses on external support for liberally oriented, rights-based institutions with a special and legitimating focus on norms and human rights, civil society, and a social contract via representative institutions embedded in a rule of law. Lastly, peace formation processes can be defined as the mobilisation — formal or informal, public or hidden, indigenous — of local agents of peacebuilding, conflict resolution, development, or peace actors in customary, religious, cultural, social, or local governance settings. The chapter then outlines the theoretical debates about state formation and statebuilding as well as the critique of liberal statebuilding/peacebuilding that has emerged.