Relational perspectives on peace formation Symbiosis and the provision of security and justice

In reflecting on the preceding contributions, this chapter returns to questions of peace formation and the state. If the state is the best guarantor of peace, justice and security, how can it be strengthened? What is the significance of communities seeking security and justice from sources other than statutory institutions? The overarching answer to these questions lies in deeper processes of state formation, in which heterogeneous sources of social order are more fully recognised and more accountably engaged with each other. This requires approaches to ‘state strengthening’ that emphasise the quality of the interaction between statutory and societal institutions and networks, and richer, more flexible, dialogic notions of the state and state-making practices. While heterogeneity or hybridity has been recognised to some extent, it continues to be seen largely as a problem and treated accordingly. This volume argues that heterogeneity instead provides the resources and the ground from which post-colonial states are crafted