This book underscores the imperative of engaging civil society as part of peacebuilding and conflict-transformation strategies, given the important role civil society plays in conflict-ridden contexts.

It highlights how civil society is an integral element of conflict, which can act within the conflict dynamic, fuelling discord or entrenching the status quo. Alternatively, civil society can help achieve peaceful resolution and reconciliation. In either case, civil society is a force to be acknowledged within both peace and conflict studies as well as the practice on the ground.

This volume contributes to the ongoing debates regarding the role of civil society in conflict and peacebuilding, especially with regard to its collaboration with governmental actors, third-party states and international organizations. Different parts of the book deal with the theoretical terms of the debate: the role of international civil society in conflict, particularly that of partnering with international governmental actors on policy formulation and implementation; and the difference between the approaches of international and local civil society groups, exploring a number of micro practices initiated by the latter within specific case-studies of conflict.