Peacebuilding is an interactive process that involves collaboration between peacebuilders and the victorious elites of a postwar society. While one of the most prominent assumptions of the peacebuilding literature asserts that the interests of domestic elites and peacebuilders coincide, Costly Democracy contends that they rarely align. It reveals that, while domestic elites in postwar societies may desire the resources that peacebuilders can bring, they are often less eager to adopt democracy, believing that democratic reforms may endanger their substantive interests. The book offers comparative analyses of recent cases of peacebuilding to deepen understanding of postwar democratization and better explain why peacebuilding missions often bring peace—but seldom democracy—to war-torn countries.

This book investigates efforts of the international community to keep peace and rebuild states after these have overcome internal war. Over the past 20+ years, UN peace missions have gradually become more ambitious, with an increasing number of military and civilian peacebuilders on the ground who take on a wide range of responsibilities. Contradicting calls for ever more international commitment to post-war countries, the author argues that more of everything is not in all cases the appropriate approach and does not necessarily produce better outcomes in terms of security and statehood in war-torn countries. The uniqueness of this study is that it puts mission intrusiveness into perspective. It finds that what matters is the context in which UN peace missions are deployed, specifically the intensity of the previous war, the local demand for peacebuilding, and level of socio-economic development. Deployed in unfavorable contexts, highly intrusive peace missions can actually do more harm than good, while 'light footprint' missions can be very successful in favorable contexts. The study provides empirical evidence for these findings by conducting a thorough statistical analysis of 22 UN peacebuilding missions. To validate the results of the statistical analysis, case studies of Kosovo and Liberia look at the interaction processes between international and domestic actors to explain peacebuilding success or failure. This piece of work makes an indispensable theoretical and empirical contribution to the current debate on the effectiveness of external interventions after civil war and on appropriate peacebuilding strategies.

Peacebuilding is an interactive process that involves collaboration between peacebuilders and the victorious elites of a postwar society. While one of the most prominent assumptions of the peacebuilding literature asserts that the interests of domestic elites and peacebuilders coincide, "Costly Democracy" contends that they rarely align.
It reveals that, while domestic elites in postwar societies may desire the resources that peacebuilders can bring, they are often less eager to adopt democracy, believing that democratic reforms may endanger their substantive interests. The book offers comparative analyses of recent cases of peacebuilding to deepen understanding of postwar democratization and better explain why peacebuilding missions often bring peace--but seldom democracy--to war-torn countries.