Doing Good Better: Expanding the Ethics of Peacebuilding

Impact and Outcomes: The Ethical Perils of Distancing in Peacebuilding Grant Solicitations

“…There is also a hint of virtue ethics in the past performance section, in that past performance is taken as an indicator of excellence of key individuals in the application, as well as their institutions. These emphases on moral commitments resonate with commitments and trends that we see broadly in peacebuilding literature (Neufeldt 2014).…”

“…Consequentialism emphasises the moral value of ends, and weighs the costs and benefits of various lines of action in order to achieve the best ends for the greatest number of people. Consequentialism tends to dominate the current landscape of moral values in peacebuilding literature -peacebuilding is good if it achieves particular ends (narrow or broad) (Neufeldt 2014). Duty-based perspectives, which draw on Immanuel Kant's thinking, foreground the duties of peacebuilders to follow international conventions and human rights law in order to protect the integrity of the person; here the focus is on the moral value of the individual or person.…”

Deploying Youth: Colombian Peacebuilding in Performance

“…Youth participation in Colombia involves engagement in dialogues about peace and postconflict life following a decades‐long civil war. In addition to liberal peace initiatives directed by the state and free market (Neufeldt ), which focus on governance, international law, and security (Richmond ), peacebuilding involves a constellation of activities that aim to repair devastated communities while interrogating the roots and impacts of violence (Neufeldt ) . Although the place of youth in peacebuilding has long been overlooked in academic literature, there has been a growing body of work in recent years that examines the roles young people play in constructing sustainable peace (Berents ; Borer, Darby, and McEvoy‐Levy ; Hayes‐Conroy and Montoya ; McEvoy‐Levy ; Pruitt ; Riaño‐Alcalá ).…”