2010a) Hybrid peace: The interaction between top-down and bottom-up peace. Security Dialogue 41(4): 391–412

This article is interested in the interface between internationally sup-ported peace operations and local approaches to peace that may draw on traditional, indigenous and customary practice. It argues that peace (and security, development and reconstruction) in societies emerging from violent conflict tends to be a hybrid between the external and the local. The article conceptualizes how this hybrid or composite peace is constructed and maintained. It proposes a four-part conceptual model to help visualize the interplay that leads to hybridized forms of peace. Hybrid peace is the result of the interplay of the following: the com-pliance powers of liberal peace agents, networks and structures; the incentivizing powers of liberal peace agents, networks and structures; the ability of local actors to resist, ignore or adapt liberal peace inter-ventions; and the ability of local actors, networks and structures to present and maintain alternative forms of peacemaking. Keywords liberal peace • liberal interventionism • hybridity • traditional peacemaking • conflict THIS ARTICLE IS AN EXERCISE IN CONCEPTUAL SCOPING. It seeks to outline a conceptual language and landscape that can describe the processes whereby peace is constructed in societies emerging from civil war. In particular, the article is interested in contexts that have expe-rienced ‘liberal peace ’ interventions. The liberal peace is defined as the dominant form of peacemaking and peacebuilding favoured by leading states, international organizations and international financial institutions. This is responsible for the kinds of internationally sponsored ‘peace ’ see