Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This book offers a novel explanation for why peace processes around the world have increasingly stagnated, backslid, or collapsed. Drawing on a wide range of case studies—from Lebanon, Colombia, and Bosnia to Myanmar, Sudan, and Ukraine—it introduces the concept of counter-peace: a growing set of strategies, actors, and architectures that deliberately block or reverse peace processes. Moving beyond traditional explanations such as spoilers, stalemates, or incomplete reforms, the book maps how political elites, external actors, and structural inequalities become entangled in multilevel, trans-scalar networks that undermine emancipatory peace. The study argues that peace has been co-opted into reproducing elite power, the neoliberal order, and geopolitical interests, while rights-based and justice-centred approaches have been sidelined. Through a critical, interdisciplinary analysis of both domestic and international dynamics, it shows how peacebuilding has been captured, hollowed out, and in many cases weaponised. Ultimately, the book challenges both scholarly orthodoxy and policy complacency, warning that unless these blockages are understood as part of an emerging counter-peace architecture, the international peace architecture itself may continue to lose relevance and legitimacy. This study is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the deepening global crisis of peace.</jats:p>