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This article discusses what an IR and peacebuilding praxis derived from the ‘everyday’ might entail. It examines the insights of a number of literatures which contribute to a discussion of the dynamics of the everyday. The enervation of agency and the repoliticisation of peacebuilding is its objective. It charts how local agency has led to resistance and hybrid forms of peace despite the overwhelming weight of the liberal peace project. In some aspects this may be complementary to the latter and commensurate with the liberal state, but in other aspects the everyday points beyond the liberal peace.

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The ‘liberal peace’ is undergoing a crisis of legitimacy at the level of the everyday in post-conflict environments. In many such environments; different groups often locally constituted perceive it to be ethically bankrupt, subject to double standards, coercive and conditional, acultural, unconcerned with social welfare, and unfeeling and insensitive towards its subjects. It is tied to Western and liberal conceptions of the state, to institutions, and not to the local. Its post-Cold War moral capital, based upon its more emancipatory rather than conservative claims, has been squandered as a result, and its basic goal of a liberal social contract undermined. Certainly, since 9/11, attention has been diverted into other areas and many, perhaps promising peace processes have regressed. This has diverted attention away from a search for refinements, alternatives, for hybrid forms of peace, or for empathetic strategies through which the liberal blueprint for peace might coexist with alternatives. Yet from these strategies a post-liberal peace might emerge via critical research agendas for peacebuilding and for policymaking, termed here, eirenist. This opens up a discussion of an everyday ‘post-liberal peace’ and critical policies for peacebuilding.

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This article examines the process of international mediation from the perspective of the disputants. It posits that contrary to standard analyses, which tend to examine mediation from the perspective of the conflict or the third party, an examination from the point of view of the disputants provides significant insights into mediation as a form of conflict management. From an inside-out perspective, it becomes apparent that the underlying assumption that a compromise solution is the objective of the disputants involved in the mediation process is suspect. Thus, disputants may become involved in a mediation process in order to improve upon their prospects, but not necessarily in terms of a compromise with their adversary. This article argues that a mediation process carries with it a series of assets that the disputants may value in terms of their pre-negotiation objectives, rather than in terms of the compromise that the previous debates about international mediation have indicated. The disputants may therefore harbour `devious objectives', unrelated to the attainment of a compromise solution, which might include time to regroup and reorganize; internationalization; the search for an ally; empowerment; legitimization of their negotiation positions and current status; face saving; and avoiding costly concessions by prolonging the process itself.